Program Management and Delivery Consultant

The Consultant may be asked to do any or all of the following tasks:

Due Diligence:

1. Identify Opportunities: The Consultant shall identify major opportunities to enhance MCC's project planning and execution processes, specifically for its Compact and Threshold Agreement projects. These opportunities will focus on developing a project methodology that can be used repeatedly and adapted as needed.
2. Propose Improvements: They will suggest ways to make the management of investment development tasks more efficient and thorough. This includes looking at how projects are planned, executed, and monitored to find areas for improvement.
3. Implement Solutions: If MCC agrees with the Consultant's suggestions, the Consultant might be asked to put these measures into action themselves or oversee their implementation.
4. Conduct Site Visits and Reviews: The Consultant may need to visit locations where projects are planned to get a better understanding of the situation on the ground. They will also review existing documents to assess the management capabilities present and identify any potential risks and issues.
5. Advise on Further Actions: After assessing the project(s), the Consultant will advise MCC on any additional research or studies needed as part of MCC's oversight process. This includes understanding the costs and impacts of implementing their suggestions, especially how these changes might affect the ability of the organizations responsible for carrying out the projects to deliver the expected results and benefits.

Program Oversight:

The Consultant will help the MCC oversee and manage the implementation and performance of program and project management services. They will offer advice to MCC by regularly reviewing and providing feedback on the delivery methods used by MCC and its Accountable Entities (AEs), ensuring that projects align with predefined specifications, timelines, milestones, and budgets. Furthermore, the Consultant will help identify any unexpected issues arising during the implementation process and suggest solutions to address these challenges.

General Technical Advisory Support:

In addition to above, the Consultant may be asked to provide general technical advisory support, including:

• Assist in defining what's needed for Integrated Project Management (IPM) strategies, tools, and methods to ensure successful and sustainable delivery of projects funded by MCC.

• Evaluate technical documents related to project design and planning (like preliminary designs, studies, and health and safety plans) to help select the best methodologies for MCC-funded programs and projects.

• Promote awareness and learning about the social and working cultures in MCC's partner countries through guidance, tools, and support.

• Examine local laws and regulations to identify their impact on project management and execution strategies.

• Guide MCC's partner countries in managing and overseeing projects effectively, covering areas such as quality assurance, project review cycles, decision strategy, FIDIC, contract management, and solutions with management and legal components.

• Guide MCC and their partners in methodologies to assess issues and risks to project outputs and outcomes to include impacts associated with program and project identification, design, construction, climate change, policy reform and institutional strengthening.

• Strengthen institutional project management capacity by providing guidance and support to integrate international and local best practices in project delivery into MCC-funded projects.

• Draft terms of reference for hiring project management services to oversee projects.

• Advise on implementation and work plans developed by country teams, assessing their technical suitability and providing feedback for decision-making.

• Ensure consistency with best practices by reviewing draft tender documents and contracts.

• Assess proposal evaluations from technical and procurement perspectives to ensure the best selections are made.

• Review partnership arrangements to ensure effective collaboration between different teams and entities involved in project delivery.

• Verify the qualifications of key project staff before they are hired, ensuring they meet the necessary technical standards.

• Provide general technical advice on proposed programs, helping MCC make informed decisions.

• Evaluate the capacity of project teams and partners, offering recommendations for capacity building and improvements to ensure successful project implementation.

• Facilitate the development and implementation of IPM programs for MCC and its partners, ensuring effective project management.

• Address other specific needs for the successful and sustainable delivery of MCC-funded projects as required.

• Minimum of fifteen (15) years of experience managing large complex development projects. Complexity can be characterized as having one or more of the following factors: multiple significant stakeholders, senior government engagement, community acceptance issues, multiple working languages, ex-patriot design and construction modalities, FIDIC contracts, changes in national policy and, environments with low rule of law, poor market availability of services and/or short implementation seasons.
• Familiar with  MCC’s Compact and Threshold development and implementation cycles.
• Previous experience working with MCC during project development and implementation.
• Demonstrated expertise applying project methodologies in MCC partner or similar LMIC countries.
• Proven experience identifying major risks, and opportunities associated with large infrastructure projects during project development/design and proposing mitigation measures as necessary.
• Proven experience carrying out visits to project areas to provide oversight to projects under implementation, ensuring that investments are being owner managed to achieve agreed-upon specifications, schedules, milestones, and budgets.
• Proven experience developing approaches/options to enhance sustainability and resiliency of project designs within an integrated project management framework, and translating those into scopes of work.
• Experience providing training and developing guidance on project management systems in organizations that have yet to develop such resources.
• Strong diplomatic and interpersonal skills required.
• Minimum qualifications: Bachelor’s Degree.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English.

Preferred:

• Experience and/or certification in project methodologies (e.g. Prince2, PMI, PM4R).
• Experience with Project Assessment Tools (e.g. Project Definition Rating Index).
• Experience with digital project management platforms.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in other languages relevant to MCC’s portfolio such as Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
• Demonstrated experience in developing and delivering educational resources to professionals in a global environment.
• Demonstrated experience in the civil infrastructure delivery field.
• Demonstrated experience collaborating among multi-disciplinary teams including engineers, environmental specialists, resettlement specialists, legal specialists, policy specialists, evaluation specialists.
• Minimum five (5) years working on multiple MCC funded programs across sectors and regions.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): XLA is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, XLA will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations in the hiring process. We encourage qualified individuals with disabilities to apply. If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process or to perform essential job functions, please contact our HR team by phone at 703-584-8317 or via email at humanresources@xla.com.  For persons who are deaf, hard of hearing, deafblind, or deaf-disabled, XLA will provide an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter where needed as a reasonable accommodation for the hiring processes.