PURPOSE OF THE POSITION:

Chief of Party (CoP) will have overall responsibility for coordination of all FRAMES Consortium project activities and staff. S/he will be responsible for technical leadership and administrative oversight of the FRAMES Consortium and will serve as the principal institutional liaison to the donor and local government entities.

The CoP shall have a keen understanding of the unique political dynamics and work carefully and collaboratively to support the various entities in Afghanistan.

S/he will manage a team of senior staff, sub-recipients, and engagement with stakeholders and ensure quality, timeliness, and efficiency of all products and activities generated under the grant. The CoP is expected to have strong leadership qualities and depth and breadth of technical and management expertise.

S/he also provides strategic leadership and supervision of sub-grantees and sub-contractors while ensuring the security, feasibility, and sustainability of the program and contribution to Child wellbeing outcomes.

 

Country and Grant Context:

WV Afghanistan together with its partners will be implementing the USAID BHA funded Fostering Resilience in Afghanistan through Multi-Sector Emergency Support (FRAMES) project. The FRAMES project responds to the needs of displaced populations, returnees, and host communities in Afghanistan’s Northern, Western, Southern, and Central Highlands provinces. The WV led FRAMES consortium is providing holistic, multi-sectoral interventions to meet the urgent needs of these communities, building on each partner’s strong operational presence, community acceptance, and existing work in these regions.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Relationships Management:

• Serve as the Primary contact point between World Vision Afghanistan (WVA) and USAID in Afghanistan.
• Manage proactive and responsive relationship with grant donor in close collaboration with World Vision Afghanistan Grant Aquisition Management (GAM) team.
• Liaise with local government officials, local communities, donor representatives and other stakeholders as appropriate.
• Participate, lead NGO – donor forum to represent WV, the project, and seek cooperation for joint advocacy opportunities.
• CoP will liase regularly with the Project steering committee based on the Consortium Governance manual.

Consortium Operations Management:

• Provide vision and strategic technical leadership for the project.
• Direct and oversee grant implementation, ensuring that all strategic objectives are met through proper design, staffing, implementation and quality assurance.
• Supervise a team of senior level international and national staff with skills across a diverse set of technical areas.
• Ensure proper technical capacity of staff to manage complex donor-funded projects.
• Lead grant staff and short-term consultants.
• Manage grant/project budget within approved spending levels and ensure accurate and timely financial reports to donors and Support Office (SO) staff.
• Consistently look for more effective and efficient implementation methods and opportunities to increase impact.
• Escalate grant management issues early and openly; resolve grant management issues quickly and fully.
• Manage PMU staff and ensure that they support all consortium partners equally and fairly in an agency neutral approach.
• Manage risks associated with implementing the FRAMES project and ensure that the consortium follows the agreed incident management protocols.

Programmatic and Financial Compliance

• Establish and maintain effective project reporting, evaluation, and communication systems.
• Submit timely accurate and professional reports that meet donor requirements.
• Participate and conduct on-going lessons learned with key staff and partners/sub-grantees.
• Ensure grant/project expenses are reasonable, allocated as per assigned budget, prudent and spent in accordance with donor rules and regulations to ensure low risk audits.

Growth and Continuity:

• Research new funding opportunities and develop and write funding proposals, to plug any funding gaps and if second phase of the grant or cost extension is planned.
• Close cooperation with NO GAM lead for implementation of the GAM objectives as well as close collaboration within the NO GAM Unit on donor positioning, lessons learned, grant health and quality improvements

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES:

• A Master’s degree in related field or equivalent qualifications in grant management and a technical field in developing countries.
• 7+ years of extensive international humanitarian experience managing large grant-funded projects.
• Proven ability to manage technical assistance teams.
• Knowledge of and familiarity with international assistance program requirements, preferably.
• Keen understanding of the unique political dynamics of the country and ability to work carefully and collaboratively to maintain productive relationships with the various government entities in (country of the grant).
• Proven ability in the management of large integrated grant-funded projects in developing countries.
• Familiarity with BHA programs, their history and their development; mastery of BHA regulations governing such programs.
• USAID/BHA and/or other funding agencies; their policies and regulations.
• Ability to integrate teams of professionals around common goals.
• Demonstrated accomplishment in working with host-country professionals, ministries and with donor colleagues in country.
• Strong presentation and report writing skills.
• Experience of leading large and diverse teams.
• Experience in leading and managing large grants in a complex environment.
• Experience as a CoP or senior expert advisor required.
• Experience managing sub grants and contracts under grants for complex projects.
• Fluency in English and the relevant other UN language, if it is officially used in the country.
• Professional licenses, as required in the field and by the donor.

 

Preferred Skills, Knowledge and Experience:

• Experience in managing inter-agency consortiums is preferred.
• Experience in a senior Operations management position is essential.

 

Work Environment/Travel:

• Be prepared to travel to implementation sites and regional, global meetings as required.