Description of Position: The Trade Specialist will serve as part of IPI/EMD’s Economic Resilience (ER) implementation team. Core responsibilities will be the day-to-day oversight, coordination, management, tracking, and reporting on ER activities and processes, and will carry out the following duties:

• Advise USAID/Washington, country teams, and Missions in the application of ER and trade priorities and strategies, and the most effective approaches to promote supply chain efficiencies to determine whether goods and services can flow across borders in a cost effective manner.
• Mobilize targeted investment in job-creating and wage-boosting growth.
• Strengthen productive capacity around and expand development benefits from investment in critical supply chains.
• Serve as liaison with interagency and private sector partners on issues related to: the capacity of developing countries to successfully implement commitments and compliance on customs processing; and legal and regulatory reforms to encourage private investment and trade and the overall business enabling environment.
• Serve as a Contracting/Agreement Officer’s Representative (COR/AOR) to manage funds and quickly provide high-quality expertise on trade and trade capacity-building, and business enabling environment issues, to Missions and Regional Bureaus. Regularly track the impact of Mission and Regional Bureau activities supporting trade. Reports on the utilization and impact of these funds in strategic planning and budget reports.
• Serve as a technical expert, exercising independence and judgment to develop and maintain relations with various stakeholders in government, private industry, and the international community to further USAID’s programs and broader development efforts.
• Design, develop, and implement long term strategies and activities that enhance supply chain resilience and promote local manufacturing, particularly in developing countries.
• Support and manage centrally administered programs/projects that affect broad Mission areas, applied research, and dissemination of findings or methodologies to USAID-assisted countries and the development community. Prepare briefing papers as needed.
• Advance Agency and Mission priorities through strategic planning, design, analysis and evaluation of country, regional, and worldwide trade facilitation, government procurement, critical supply chains, and market access and diversification programs. Visit Missions to provide program development, evaluation, monitoring, and direct technical assistance. Review project proposals, requests for funding, interim and final project reports, annual assessments of program impacts, and other documents for trade-related programs and Mission activities.
• Understand and implement technology-enabled business processes and use digital and other tools to facilitate the movement of goods across borders.
• May undertake time bound rotations or short-term assignments in countries with active trade and economic growth portfolios.