Role profiles: what each division owns and delivers
Units 1 and 2 gave you the framework: outputs and chains. This unit gives you the detail. Each MCA division has a clear delivery mandate — specific things it receives, specific things it produces, and a defined set of responsibilities that sit with it and nobody else.
These are not job descriptions. They are delivery profiles — focused on what each function produces and how it connects to the rest of the MCA.
Read your own division first. Then select a division you frequently hand off to or receive from. Understanding what your colleagues are accountable for is as important as understanding your own role.
The profiles: find yours, then explore others
Use the tabs to navigate between divisions. Each profile shows what the division is responsible for, what it depends on upstream, and what it delivers downstream.
- Overall accountability for compact delivery against the MCC agreement
- Strategic decisions on program direction, scope changes, and escalated issues
- Representing the MCA to MCC, government, and implementing entities
- Approving Annual Work Plans, major disbursements, and significant variations
- Ensuring all divisions operate within mandate, budget, and fiduciary standards
- Timely escalation from division heads when issues arise
- Accurate finance and M&E data for informed decisions
- Legal advice on obligations and risks
- Procurement and project status reporting
Approved work plans and disbursement authorities · Signed MCC submissions · Strategic decisions that keep the program on track
- Technical oversight of all works and service delivery contracts
- Verifying contractor progress and quality against contract specifications
- Reviewing and endorsing payment claims before passing to Finance
- Managing the project schedule and flagging delay risks early
- Advising on contractor variation proposals
- Coordinating with ESP on ESMP compliance and site issues
- Confirming completion and supporting handover documentation
- Signed contracts from Procurement
- Approved designs, drawings, and specifications
- ESMP clearance from ESP before works mobilize
- Baseline data from M&E to measure outputs against
Endorsed payment claims to Finance on schedule · Verified works completion records · Completed and handed-over outputs, to specification
The Project Management Team handles contract management: technical oversight, supervision, and payment certification. Contract administration — formal management of contract instruments and variation orders — sits with Procurement. Both are essential; neither replaces the other.
- Overseeing all procurement in accordance with MCC guidelines
- Managing the Procurement Agent (PA) — who carries out operational procurement work
- Reviewing and approving procurement plans, evaluation reports, and contract awards
- Formal contract administration: processing variation orders, managing contract correspondence
- Maintaining consolidated procurement records for audit and MCC oversight
- Flagging procurement risks before they become compliance issues
- Approved scopes and technical specifications from the Project Management Team
- Legal clearance on contract terms
- Budget confirmation from Finance before contract awards
- ESP screening results to set ESMP requirements in contracts
Signed, MCC-compliant contracts passed to the Project Management Team · Approved variation orders · Complete procurement records
The PA is an independent third party that carries out the operational work of procurement — drafting bid documents, managing tenders, evaluating proposals. The MCA’s Procurement Director oversees and approves this work but does not perform it directly. This separation is a compliance requirement.
- Processing and submitting disbursement requests to the Fiscal Agent
- Verifying that payment claims are compliant before submission
- Budget management: tracking expenditure against the compact budget
- Quarterly and annual financial reporting to MCC
- Financial controls: ensuring expenditures are authorized, documented, and within scope
- Coordinating with the Fiscal Agent on cash flow, audit, and reporting
- Verified and endorsed payment claims from the Project Management Team, complete and on time
- Signed contracts from Procurement to confirm budget commitments
- Approved work plans from the Executive Office to authorize expenditure
Compliant disbursement requests to the Fiscal Agent, on time · Accurate financial reports to MCC · Budget forecasts that flag risk before it becomes a problem
- Managing environmental and social impact assessments (ESIAs)
- Developing and overseeing Environmental and Social Management Plans (ESMPs)
- Leading Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) development and execution — not just monitoring
- Supervising contractor ESP compliance on-site
- Ensuring MCC Environmental Guidelines and IFC Performance Standards are met
- Social assessment: understanding how projects affect different population groups
- Managing the Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM)
- Project scope and design from the Project Management Team to assess impacts
- Site locations and affected population data
- MCC approval of ESMPs and RAPs before works commence
Approved ESMPs and RAPs, implemented and verified · Site compliance records · GRM records demonstrating issues raised and resolved
ESP actively develops and executes resettlement action plans — including negotiating compensation, managing relocation, and verifying that affected households are restored to at least pre-project standards. This is substantive program delivery.
- Maintaining the MCA’s Performance Management Plan (PMP) per MCC’s M&E Policy
- Collecting, verifying, and reporting on all compact indicators
- Commissioning and managing baseline, mid-term, and endline data collection
- Coordinating evaluations with independent evaluators
- Flagging when indicators are off track — before milestones are missed
- Feeding evaluation findings back to the Project Management Team to inform adjustments
- Confirmed project logic from the Project Management Team
- Output data from implementing teams and contractors
- Finance disbursement data for efficiency analysis
- ESP data on affected populations and grievances
Verified indicator datasets submitted on MCC’s schedule · Quarterly and annual performance reports · Early warning flags when the program is at risk of missing targets
- Advising on MCA obligations under the compact and program implementation agreement
- Reviewing all contracts for legal compliance before signature
- Advising on tax exemption procedures and implementation
- Advising on contractor claims and disputes before escalation
- Liaising with MCC’s Office of the General Counsel
- Reviewing board resolutions, employment agreements, and governance documents
- Contract drafts from Procurement, with sufficient lead time for review
- Timely escalation of disputes from the Project Management Team
- Compliance concerns from Finance and Procurement flagged early
Legally sound contracts cleared for signature · Written legal opinions on key decisions · Dispute advice before issues become formal claims
Your role in the chain: three questions to answer
Now that you’ve read through the profiles, take a moment to answer these three questions honestly. You don’t need to write anything down — but thinking through them now will sharpen how you approach Unit 4.
- 1What are the two or three outputs your role is most directly responsible for? How would you know if you had produced them to the required standard?
- 2Which division do you depend on most for upstream inputs? Are those handoffs currently working well?
- 3Which division depends most on what you produce? Do they know your timeline — and do you know theirs?
If you found yourself saying “I’m not sure” to any of these — that’s worth noting. Unit 5 includes a short self-assessment that will help you work through them more concretely.
Contract management vs. contract administration
One of the most commonly blurred distinctions in compact delivery. It is worth being clear about, because confusing the two leads to duplicated effort, missed process steps, and — in some cases — compliance risk.
- PMContract management sits with the Project Management Team: technical oversight of works, supervision, payment certification, output verification. The Project Management Team ensures what is being built or delivered meets the specification.
- PContract administration sits with Procurement: formal management of the contract instrument itself — processing variation orders, managing official correspondence on contract terms, coordinating the Procurement Agent.
A Project Manager who starts processing variation orders directly — bypassing Procurement — breaks the contract administration trail. A Procurement Officer who starts advising on technical quality — bypassing the Project Management Team — steps outside their mandate. Both roles are necessary. Neither replaces the other.
The Procurement Agent: who does what
The Procurement Agent (PA) is an independent firm contracted to carry out the operational work of procurement. Understanding what the PA does — and what remains with the MCA — prevents confusion about accountability.
- PAThe PA drafts bid documents, manages the tender process, evaluates proposals, and prepares award recommendations. It does the operational heavy lifting.
- PThe MCA’s Procurement Director oversees and approves the PA’s work, reviews evaluation reports, approves awards, and serves as the formal interface with MCC. The PA does not replace Procurement — it works under Procurement’s direction.
This separation is a compliance requirement, not a delegation of accountability. The MCA remains accountable for all procurement outcomes, including the PA’s work.
ESP: delivery function, not just compliance monitoring
ESP is sometimes understood narrowly as a compliance function — checking that contractors are following the rules. That understanding misses the scope of what ESP actually owns.
- EResettlement Action Plans: ESP doesn’t just monitor RAP implementation — it leads the development and execution of RAPs, including negotiating compensation, managing relocation, and verifying restoration of living standards.
- EGrievance Redress Mechanism: ESP manages the GRM — the formal channel through which project-affected people can raise complaints and have them resolved. This is active program management, not passive monitoring.
- ESocial assessment: ESP analyzes how projects affect different groups and feeds those findings into project design — not just after the fact, but as a design input.
M&E: early warning, not just reporting
M&E is often understood primarily as a reporting function — producing the numbers that go into MCC submissions. That is part of the role. But its more important function is the one that is often underdeveloped: early warning.
- MM&E tracks whether indicators are on track to meet targets — not just at reporting time, but continuously. If a project is falling behind, M&E should be the first function to see it and flag it to the Project Management Team and leadership.
- MEvaluation findings feed back into project teams to inform adjustments. This makes M&E a learning loop, not just a documentation function.
- MThe quality of M&E data is a compliance obligation — MCC’s Data Quality Assurance requirements set specific standards, and the MCA is accountable for meeting them.
What you’ve covered in this unit
- ✓Every division has a clear delivery mandate — with defined outputs and specific dependencies upstream and downstream
- ✓Contract management (Project Management Team) and contract administration (Procurement) are distinct functions — confusing them creates compliance risk
- ✓The Procurement Agent carries out operational procurement under the Procurement Director — the separation is a compliance requirement, not a delegation of accountability
- ✓ESP leads RAP development and execution — it is a delivery function, not just a monitoring function
- ✓M&E’s most important function is early warning — flagging when indicators are at risk, not just reporting results after the fact
When roles blur — what happens when tasks fall between divisions, who owns the gap, and how to navigate ambiguity without stopping the delivery chain.