Afghanaid is a British humanitarian and development NGO established in 1983. It is headquartered in Kabul and is currently working in four provinces: Badakhshan, Samangan, Ghor, and Daykundi. We also work through partners in nine others: Herat, Faryab, Jawzjan, Sar-i-Pul, Balkh, Bamyan, Takhar, Khost and Paktya for nearly 4 decades, Afghanaid has developed its thematic expertise and the capacity of its staff in correspondence with the evolving needs of the country, international best practice, and opportunities for innovation. Our work supports four pillars of sustainable development: providing basic services; strengthening sustainable livelihoods and food security; climate change and disaster risk reduction, and emergency humanitarian assistance. Three guiding principles are mainstreamed in all our work to ensure its contribution to sustainable development: gender and inclusion, good governance and community development, and conflict mitigation and peacebuilding.

Afghanistan Resilience Consortium (ARC) comprised of 5 Implementing partners and 4 Technical partners led by Afghanaid is preparing to implement a project covering 1000 communities in 10 provinces of Afghanistan. The project intends to achieve (impact) Vulnerable Afghan individuals, households and communities are better able to meet their food needs and are more climate resilient, through 4 inter-related outputs – [1] Communities are more resilient to climate change and natural disasters (as a result of Community led planning, Watershed management, Flood mitigation and Disaster preparedness), [2] Increased productivity, efficiency and diversification of agricultural livelihoods (as a result of Local input production, Food and nutritional security, On-farm resource efficiency and Crop storage infrastructures), [3] Improved performance of critical agricultural value chains (as a result of Youth entrepreneurship, scale-up of selected crops, Small and medium scale processing and Farmer & producer groups) and [4] Key stakeholders gain knowledge and skills in climate adaptation (as a result of Radio based programming, Multi-stakeholder engagement, Building evidence base and Community of practice), with an inclusion strategy to maximise impact for vulnerable groups including women, people with disabilities, smallholders and youth.

Job Purpose and Role:

Afghanaid is looking for an experienced professional possessing conceptual understanding, adequate technical knowledge, managerial expertise and leadership quality to guide implementation of the project. Reporting to and supporting the Afghanaid Deputy Director Climate Action, the incumbent will manage a small team with overall responsibility for leading and supporting the activities of the consortium, including Afghanaid and other Implementing and Technical Partners.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Collaborate with Consortium partners to ensure they are fully informed and project partnership agreements (PPAs) are signed with them.
2. Establish and manage close working relationships and effective communications with the Consortium partner, Project Managers and Country Directors, as well as key government and donor personnel.
3. Serve as Secretary to the Consortium Steering Committee, ensuring strong support to members, providing timely information, project and financial reports, coordinating meetings, developing agendas and minuting the meetings.
4. Recruit, train, motivate and manage a strong consortium team and provide support to Project Managers in recruitment and performance management of all other project staff.
5. Lead collaboration of Consortium partners to set project standards and prepare/maintain operational manuals. Ensure staff members are adequately trained to apply updated standards and operations manuals.
6. In consultation with the Project Managers, coordinate, align, and monitor annual, quarterly and monthly work plans and budgets.
7. Coordinate effective utilisation of technical expertise within the Consortium, to implement and maximize quality and impact of project activities. Engage consultant/s for technical input, drafting terms of reference as needed.
8. Coordinate the timely and quality implementation of activities, according to standards and norms, agreements with the donor(s) and partners, Afghanaid’s policies, the local context and Afghan law.
9. Regularly visit field activities and meet with stakeholders to monitor, guide and support Consortium partners in attaining the outcomes/results of the project.
10. In coordination with the Head of Communications and Giving, develop brochures, fact sheets, manuals, videos, web and social media content and all other broadcast and published materials, ensuring brand standards are maintained.
11. Oversee and control all project procurement, expenditure and accounting and work with Consortium partners to adopt financial and accounting standards in line with Afghanaid’s and the donor’s policies so as to ensure coherence in project reporting.
12. Follow-up with partners to ensure corrective actions of the due-diligence audits are implemented on time and submitted to Afghanaid for further submission to the donor if needed.
13. Monitor the timeliness, accuracy, completeness and quality of all project financial transactions and reports, ensuring complete transparency in the utilization of financial resources.
14. Work with respective M&E teams and the Consortium M&E Manager to create and apply tools and processes for timely measuring and documenting project and Consortium partners’ performance. Ensure timely and accurate collation of evidence; analysis; documentation, sharing and integration of learning.
15. Coordinate with Consortium partners to ensure baselines, midterm reviews, studies and project evaluations are undertaken, documented and appropriately shared in a timely manner.
16. Organise workshops and conferences, presenting and sharing best practices and lessons learned
17. Validate, edit and consolidate narrative and financial reports from consortium partners and prepare timely, high-quality consolidated narrative and financial project reports for Afghanaid, the Steering Committee and the donor in fluent, native level, English.
18. Pro-actively work to grow and extend Afghanaid’s and the Consortium’s resources and relationships.
19. Represent Afghanaid, the Consortium and the project in relevant external meetings with donors, partners and other stakeholder. And at all times, represent the best interests of Afghanaid.
20. Identify potential successors and mentor and coach team members to succeed.
21. Perform other duties as assigned.

Undertake any other duties as and when required by the line manager and/or overview manager.

Education/ Training

Graduate or Master’s degree from a well-recognized University in project management, international development, management science, social science or another relevant area or equivalent professional experience.

Work Experience

At least 15 years’ demonstrable experience in managing large development project(s) and consortium project(s), of which at least two years should be in managerial position with national or international organisations, living overseas in cross-cultural environments with a minimum of 2-years recent experience in a conflict-affected country. And working experience in Watershed management, Agriculture/ Horticulture development, Value chain, Market access and Market development.

Professional Skills, Competencies, Values and Attitudes

A responsible and dependable Consortium team leader with strong initiative, judgment and adaptability as well as excellent skills in communication, organisational, interpersonal relations, decision-making, financial management and reporting.

Specifically, the holder of this position should also demonstrate the following:

1. Resilience to live, travel and work under confining security protocols as well as in isolated and possibly insecure locations. A clear understanding of the challenges in leading consortia and partnerships and proven ability to build collaboration and trust with partners.
2. Broad experience and understanding of international humanitarian and development work, including community infrastructure, livelihoods, agriculture, community development and governance, gender mainstreaming, disaster risk reduction and emergency responses
3. Proven and substantive expertise in policy analysis, development and advocacy, especially around leading edge DRR, resilience and/or climate change adaptation principles and practices
4. Displayed ability in preparing well-organised, coherent reports, templates and other documents
5. Consistent and proven track record as an exceptional team player and leader.

Key Skills and Competencies

Essential

1. Native fluency in written and spoken English and demonstrated ability to write, lay out and present high quality documents and reports for diverse audiences.
2. Personal integrity, initiative and drive to get the things done and achieve results
3. Demonstrated ability to think strategically, plan effectively, set priorities and meet project deadlines in an emergency relief/ development context.
4. Proven ability to effectively designs and implements logical frameworks, Detailed Implementation Plans and work plans.
5. Excellent financial management, able to plan, control and manage budgets and cash flow.
6. Excellent conceptual and analytical skills able to distil key ideas with clarity and precision.
7. Strong organisational and coordination skills, able to work with significant levels of autonomy, manage personal priorities and meet tight deadlines.
8. An outgoing and engaging personality with a strong sense of humour and a natural inclination to engage others, able to build trust, work collaboratively in teams and manage relationships with a variety of stakeholders.
9. Ability to clearly and confidently articulate ideas in a persuasive manner at a senior level, able to lead and influence others with diplomacy and tact.
10. Strong facilitation, training design and presentation skills, able to organise and lead meetings, workshops, trainings, and conferences.
11. Flexible and dynamic with the ability to deal with difficult, often ambiguous, and challenging situations and creatively solve problems.
12. Proficiency in common office software of spread sheets, word processing, PowerPoint and Outlook
13. Demonstrated commitment to continuous learning and professional development.

Desirable

Conversant in Dari (Farsi) or Pashto.

Other Information

Afghanaid’s core values are creativity, fairness and honesty. Our staff are passionate about and proud to work at Afghanaid. Teamwork is fundamental to our standards and demonstrated by taking initiative, assisting others and taking on additional responsibilities and tasks if necessary. We are results driven, committed and motivated to achieve targets and take accountability for our own actions.

Our remuneration and benefits package is competitive with other similar organisations.

This position presents an excellent opportunity for someone who has the ambition and determination to move up in their career.

Please submit your covering letter and your CV, by no later than 15 January 2025 to jobs@afghanaid.org.uk  ; including your name, vacancy number and the job title in the subject line. Your covering letter should be no more than 1 standard A4 page in length and should explain how you meet the essential and desirable position requirements and why you feel you would be a suitable candidate for this role. Your CV should be no more than 4 pages and include 3 professional references including your current employer. The precision and style with which you present yourself in your covering letter and CV will be given significant weight in short listing candidates. Applications without the above requested subject line, without the application form or submitted after the deadline will not be considered. Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we are unable to respond to every application. If you have not heard from us within 2 weeks of the deadline, unfortunately you have not been successful for shortlisting