World Wildlife Fund (WWF), one of the world’s leading conservation organizations, seeks a Chief of Party, Western Indian Ocean Marine Biodiversity Conservation Project

The Chief of Party (COP) will provide overall vision and leadership for an anticipated five-year USAID Western Indian Ocean Marine Biodiversity Conservation Project, which aims to promote the recovery and resilience of marine biodiversity and coastal communities in the Western Indian Ocean. The COP directs the project’s core team, oversees planning, coordination and oversight of project activities, grants and consulting contracts, coordinates with project consortium members, consortium staff and their headquarters on a regular basis, and collaborates with government and other partners organizations across the region in accordance with USAID and WWF field operation regulations.

• Provides vision and leadership for the project throughout its duration.
• Represents the project to USAID, partners, and governments.
• Develops and implements holistic marine conservation plans, working across a range of stakeholders and issues including improving co-management of marine areas, capacity building, fisheries management and governance, livelihoods development, climate change adaptation, and sustainable financing, grounded in an efficient, effective monitoring and evaluation program.
• Undertakes coordination of the project across the region with WWF offices and partner organizations, and within and across technical and institutional sectors.
• In collaboration with partners, develops work plans and budgets, and ensures that the project is making progress towards its objectives.
• Ensures that the project is well coordinated with relevant governmental departments and other related USAID projects within the region.
• Manages the project and project team using a participatory, adaptive management approach. Ensures that management systems are established and administers the project.
• Supervises project activities and provides technical oversight. Responsible for managing contractual agreements, including subgrants, with project participants.
• With support of the Financial Manager, develops project field budgets for approval and monitors expenditures against budgets. Ensures establishment of financial management systems for the project to adequately meet financial management needs and donor regulations/ policies. Monitors financial management of projects and sub-grants. Submits quarterly financial reports to WWF.
• Determines the personnel requirements of the project and oversees the recruitment, selection and hiring of personnel on the core team. Supervises personnel and evaluates performance.
• Tracks progress of activities against work plan and spending against project budgets, including developing systems to track field-based contributions to the project.
• Works with Human Resources to identify training needs and development opportunities for supervised staff, and partner organizations; provide inputs to identify training needs.
• Provides technical assistance in areas of expertise. Identifies needs for short-term technical assistance. Develops terms of reference, prepares consulting agreements for consultants, facilitates work, and provides oversight of short-term consultancies.
• Supervises monitoring and evaluation (M&E) staff to develop a M&E system for the project and monitors project implementation and evaluation.
• Establishes and maintains good working relationships with project participants, project stakeholders, beneficiaries and other relevant organizations in the region including government partners and USAID personnel.
• Ensures the activity meets high standards for performance and integrity and is implemented in compliance with USAID and WWF policies and regulations, including those related to financial management, environmental and social safeguards, risk management, and subrecipient oversight, and reporting.

• Master’s degree in natural resources or marine resources management, environmental or conservation management, bioregional planning, development studies, social sciences, or other relevant field.
• At least 10 years of experience implementing and managing conservation, natural resource or other related programs relating to coastal and marine conservation.
• Demonstrated ability to implement complex, multi-million-dollar USAID, or other donor-funded natural resource management projects required. USAID project management experience strongly preferred.
• Thorough understanding of socioeconomic, conservation and development issues in the Western Indian Ocean.
• Knowledge of the policy/institutional context related to coastal and marine conservation and the government agencies, development partners, donor institutions, and the not-for-profit sector in the Western Indian Ocean region.
• Excellent understanding of development partnerships, fundraising, donor strategies, functions, governmental and international relations.
• Knowledge of M&E systems.
• Strong written and oral communications skills and fluency in English required; knowledge of Portuguese, French, and/or other relevant languages is a plus.
• Experience working in a multi-cultural environment and in international organizations.

Technical Skills

• Leadership and management; report writing.
• Problem solving and conflict management.
• Monitoring and evaluation experience is preferred.

General Skills

• People management, coaching, and capacity building/development.
• Strong interpersonal skills; networking and influencing.
• Financial management and budgeting.
• Presentation and communications (verbal and written).
• Working under pressure and with minimum supervision.
• Strong ability to prioritize and keep multiple activities on track.
• Prepared to travel extensively within the region (up to 25% or more)
• Identifies and aligns with the core values of the WWF organization: Courage, Integrity, Respect & Collaboration
  • Demonstrates courage by speaking up even when it is difficult, or unpopular.
  • Builds trust with colleagues by acting with integrity, owning mistakes, and holding oneself accountable.
  • Welcomes other points of view and ideas, recognizing and embracing different and contrary perspectives with kindness, curiosity, and encouragement.
  • Makes conscious efforts to promote cooperative practices, behaviors, and ways of working across many groups and individuals.

All applications must be submitted by October 1. Please submit your CV in English.

WWF is committed to maintaining a safe and healthy workplace and requires all US-based staff to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19. WWF will consider requests for accommodation from the vaccine requirement based on disability, medical contraindication, sincerely held religious belief, or any other category protected by federal, state, or local law.

To Apply:

• Submit cover letter and resume through our Careers Page
• Due to the high volume of applications we are not able to respond to inquiries via phone

As an EOE/AA employer, WWF will not discriminate in its employment practices due to an applicant’s race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, disability, or protected Veteran status. WWF values diversity and inclusion and welcomes diverse candidates to apply.