Consortium Manager

Job profile

Reporting to the Afghanaid Deputy Director for Climate Action , you will manage a small team with overall responsibility for leading and supporting the activities of a consortium, including Afghanaid as lead agency, Danish Refugee Council (DRC), The Liaison Office (TLO) and The Afghan Education Production Organization (AEPO) in implementing the above 4-year, multi-million dollar project, entitled Climate Change Adaptation and Rural Livelihoods (CARL).

Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with Consortium partners to ensure they are fully informed and project partnership agreements (PPAs) are signed with them.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• In consultation with the Project Managers, coordinate, align, and monitor annual, quarterly and monthly work plans and budgets.
• 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.
• 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.
• Regularly visit field activities and meet with stakeholders to monitor, guide and support Consortium partners in attaining the outcomes/results of the project.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Monitor the timeliness, accuracy, completeness and quality of all project financial transactions and reports, ensuring complete transparency in the utilization of financial resources.
• 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.
• Coordinate with Consortium partners to ensure baselines, midterm reviews, studies and project evaluations are undertaken, documented and appropriately shared in a timely manner.
• Organise workshops and conferences, presenting and sharing best practices and lessons learned
• 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.
• Pro-actively work to grow and extend Afghanaid’s and the Consortium’s resources and relationships.
• 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.
• Identify potential successors and mentor and coach team members to succeed.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Any other duties as and when assigned by the line manager, MD and/or Directorate.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Education & Professional Qualification

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 5 years’ demonstrable experience in managing large development project(s) and teams, of which at least two year 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 international humanitarian relief, rural/urban livelihoods, Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and/or Climate Change Adaptation.

Professional Skills, Competencies, Values and Attitudes

Afghanaid seeks 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:

• 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.
• 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
• Proven and substantive expertise in policy analysis, development and advocacy, especially around leading edge DRR, resilience and/or climate change adaptation principles and practices
• Displayed ability in preparing well-organised, coherent reports, templates and other documents
• Consistent and proven track record as an exceptional team player and leader.

Key Skills and Competencies

Essential

• Native fluency in written and spoken English and demonstrated ability to write, lay out and present high quality documents and reports for diverse audiences.
• Personal integrity, initiative and drive to get the things done and achieve results
• Demonstrated ability to think strategically, plan effectively, set priorities and meet project deadlines in an emergency relief/ development context.
• Proven ability to effectively designs and implements logical frameworks, Detailed Implementation Plans and work plans.
• Excellent financial management, able to plan, control and manage budgets and cash flow.
• Excellent conceptual and analytical skills able to distil key ideas with clarity and precision.
• Strong organisational and coordination skills, able to work with significant levels of autonomy, manage personal priorities and meet tight deadlines.
• 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.
• 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.
• Strong facilitation, training design and presentation skills, able to organise and lead meetings, workshops, trainings, and conferences.
• Flexible and dynamic with the ability to deal with difficult, often ambiguous, and challenging situations and creatively solve problems.
• Proficiency in common office software of spread sheets, word processing, PowerPoint and Outlook
• 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.