Country Strategy Planning and Support Advisor

USAID's development partnership with Liberia dates back to the very founding of the Agency in 1961. As the largest bilateral donor in Liberia, the United States plays an influential and vital role in many aspects of Liberia's development. USAID/Liberia strives to ensure that the Agency's development strategy for Liberia complements and supports the Government of Liberia's own development vision as articulated in its Agenda for Transformation and other national development strategy documents. In particular, USAID partners with the Government and people of Liberia to address the underlying structural and institutional problems that gave rise to fourteen years of civil strife and war, while at the same time tackling the country's more immediate development needs and challenges. USAID's current development strategy (2019-2025) in Liberia seeks to attain four objectives: 1) More effective, accountable, and inclusive governance 2) Sustained market-driven economic growth to reduce poverty 3) Better educated Liberians, and 4) Improved health status of Liberians. USAID's current strategy ends in June 2025. In order to prepare adequately for the new strategy, USAID/Liberia will begin designing its new CDCS mid-to-late 2024 in earnest. USAID/Liberia's Program and Project Development Office is responsible for strategy formulation, project and activity design, program budget management, environmental compliance/climate integration, and monitoring, evaluation, and learning activities for USAID/Liberia. PPD was responsible for the completion and approval of the 2019-2025 Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS), the monitoring of project and activity alignment with the CDCS, and the coordination of the mid-course CDCS stock taking exercise. PPD will be responsible for coordinating the development of the new CDCS. Externally, PPD represents USAID to the Government of Liberia's Ministry of Finance and Development Planning/Aid Management and Coordination Unit (MFDP/ACMU). PPD leads the required reporting of and updates to the Development Objective Agreement 2019-2024 (DOAG) between the Government of Liberia (GoL) and USAID/Liberia, the quarterly activity expenditure reporting to the MFDP, and the regular reporting/data transfer to the GoL in compliance with the GoL NGO Policy and Dashboard. Internally, PPD leads the preparation, submission, and approval processes of the Mission's annual program budget request, notification, and reporting processes, including the Mission Resource Request (MRR), the Congressional Budget Justification (CBJ), the Operational Plan (OP), the Congressional Budget Notification (CBN), and the Performance Plan Report (PPR). PPD coordinates biannual mission portfolio reviews, as well as annual bilateral/joint USAID-GoL portfolio reviews. PPD also co-coordinates the Quarterly Financial Review with USAID/Liberia's Office of Financial Management. PPD manages the Mission's flagship Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) institutional services contract. In addition, the MEL team coordinates the mission-wide MEL working group, coordinates evaluations and assessments, tracks the findings through to completion, and liaises with Technical Teams on MEL planning, execution, and utilization. PPD ensures that cross-cutting issues, such as gender, inclusive development, aid transparency, and accountability are addressed appropriately throughout the portfolio. PPD also coordinates quarterly Implementing Partner (IP) meetings, sends out the PPD bi-weekly newsletter with Mission updates and information, and manages the participant training process (and the TEAMS system). PPD regularly engages with a broad cross-section of stakeholders including the U.S. Embassy Political and Economic teams, U.S. Government (USG) agencies represented at Post (i.e., Peace Corps, Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, etc.), local NGOs, international development partners, the UN family of organizations, the private sector, and representatives of the international community. PPD also provides overall guidance and support to technical teams in project design efforts. This includes reviewing and providing guidance on project and activity design procedures, pre-obligation requirements, and clearance processes; managing the budget project to ensure planning of the activity has available funding; facilitating synergies between teams and between projects/activities in support of the Mission's CDCS; and assists in project/activity design as needed. USAID/Liberia has a robust development portfolio and is actively designing new projects and activities in multiple sectors that will contribute to the achievement of the current and future CDCS and GoL development goals. USAID/Liberia will begin designing its new CDCS mid-to-late 2024 in earnest.