Senior Operations Associate, FEWS NET 8 Knowledge Base, East and Southern Africa (ESAF)

Chemonics’ East and Southern Africa Regional Business Unit is seeking a Senior Operations Associate, FEWS NET 8 Knowledge Base. 

Since its establishment in 1985, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) project aims to sustainably prevent food insecurity and famine across the globe by delivering to the U.S. Government and partners early warning on the location, causes, and magnitude of current and future food insecurity; improving the quality and timeliness of information and analysis useful for achieving sustainable food security; and strengthening innovative local, national, regional, and international capabilities to understand and appropriately address current, recurrent, and likely future food insecurity. Chemonics has been implementing FEWS NET since 2000, beginning its eights phase (FEWS NET 8) in 2024.  

 

FEWS NET 8 Knowledge Base (FEWS NET 8 KB) is a $65 million project which will create and update FEWS NET’s knowledge base about livelihood zones and market systems on which FEWS NET’s acute food insecurity early warning analyses are predicated, thereby ensuring that USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) is able to allocate emergency food assistance effectively and in accordance with humanitarian principles.   

 

The full-time DC-based (remote eligible) Senior Operations Associate for FEWS NET 8 KB will provide administrative, operational, human resources, finance, and logistical support to the FEWS NET 8 KB Team in the United States and country teams. The Senior Operations Associate is expected to work in collaboration with the FEWS NET 8 KB Technical Team, the project management unit (PMU), and other FEWS NET teams to carry out his/her responsibilities, ensure that the US-based project office and country teams are well-managed, and contribute to the timely completion of project deliverables

Responsibilities: 

• Assist with FEWS NET 8 KB procurement, staff travel, recruitment and personnel management, logistical, and other operational and administrative actions tasks; 
• Support the management of local logistics and operations in each targeted country; 
• Assist the Operations Manager and Operations Director in identifying, recruiting, and onboarding project staff and short-term experts; 
• Provide travel support for project-related travel (i.e., reserving tickets and drafting travel approval requests); 
• Schedule and facilitate meetings, prepare agendas, update task trackers, and capture notes as appropriate; 
• Support the Operations Manager with procurement and relationship management with vendors, subcontractors, and service providers; 
• Support in finalizing project and financial deliverables and reports for completeness and readiness for submission; provide copy-editing support as needed; 
• Prepare/file personnel forms, purchase orders, travel authorizations, and other standard forms; 
• Save relevant files to project SharePoint files; 
• Coordinate with Facilities, A/V, and IT support department on facility, equipment, and supply needs for the US-based project team. 
• Assist in establishing and managing project procedures for start-up, activity implementation, management, and closeout of each target country; 
• Support the KB Operations team in ensuring that program implementation is in accordance with regulations and procedures and the specifications determined in the FEWS NET 8 KB Task Order; 
• Undertake other duties as necessary. 

 

Requirements:

• • Bachelor’s degree; 
  • Minimum 2 years of relevant administrative or professional work experience; 
  • Detail-oriented and well-organized to meet multiple, sometimes overlapping, deadlines; 
  • Excellent communication skills with demonstrated ability to work with dive