Grants, Subcontract, and Procurement Director

Chemonics seeks candidates for a Grants, Subcontract, and Procurement Director for the LIVE proposal, a five-year, USAID-funded initiative focused on Afghanistan Women and Men in Agriculture Activity (WAMA) in Afghanistan. This $60 million activity aims to enhance food security, build household and community resilience to climate change shocks, particularly water stress, and generate income for households. The activity places a strong emphasis on women’s participation, especially women-headed households, farmers, and women-owned and led businesses, ensuring they benefit from the agriculture sector. Additionally, the activity will support farmers and communities transitioning away from poppy cultivation to sustainable, USAID-supported value chains, as well as recent returnees seeking livelihood opportunities in the agriculture sector.

The fundamental objectives of this activity include:

• Objective I: Food Security Improved through Increased and Inclusive Resilience, Productivity, Diversification and Stability of Agricultural Value Chains
• Objective II: Enhanced Communities’ Resilience to Climate Change-induced Shocks, specifically Water Stress
• Objective III: Women’s Economic Empowerment strengthened, and
• Objective IV: Selected Emerging Agricultural or Economic Growth Issues and Challenges are Addressed Across Afghanistan

This position will be based at Afghanistan or Almaty, Dubai, Doha, and Istanbul.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as the primary point of contact for subcontractors, grantees, and/or vendors
• Ensure subcontractors and/or grantees are provided with sufficient technical assistance in financial management and reporting
• Responsible for reviewing the draft RFP/RFQs before they are released to properly compete vendors and subcontractors
• Monitors subtask orders, purchase orders, and other technical procurements to ensure compliance with USAID/Chemonics rules and local laws. Supervise the Grants and Procurement Assistants and build their capacity to effectively assist in implementation and monitoring of grant activities
• Ensures compliance with USAID rules and regulations governing grants and ensure subcontracts and negotiation memos are drafted in accordance with Chemonics’ policies, procedures, and best practices.
• Monitors contracts and purchase orders issued to vendors and follow up as necessary to ensure compliance to contract terms and conditions.
• Reviews subcontract deliverables and confirms deliverables are in accordance with contract terms and conditions
• Provides procurement status reports to the deputy chief of party
• Works closely with deputy chief of party and technical leads to support the implementation of all grants and subcontracts instruments
• Collaborates closely with Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL team) to ensure activity results under grants and subcontract interventions are properly measured and tracked
• Work with activity leadership to ensure inputs are being delivered according to established work plans and that lessons learned are successfully incorporated from program implementation into new activity developments.
• Establishes systems and procedures to manage activity Grants Program. Provides appropriate training to grants and procurement team, as well as technical team and short-term consultants, to foster clear understanding of grants procedures
• Experience in reviewing budgets and financial reports, preparing for, and monitoring audits of grantees
• Manages the execution of grant agreements and ensures the proper closure of all activities
• Responsible for the monitoring of individual grant budgets to ensure availability of funds
• Reviews applications, evaluates the cost application for cost realism and cost effectiveness, finalizes grant documents, and manages and monitors the grants approvals
• Provides training to project staff in procurement and subcontract policies and procedures
• Ensures that procurement requests are conducted in a timely manner and that procurement, and subcontract-related files are maintained in a current and complete manner and are audit-ready at all times
• Perform other duties as required or assigned

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in relevant field including, monitoring and evaluation, international development/social studies, business administration or economics, or closely related field. An additional 5 years of relevant technical experience can substitute a Master’s Degree
• Advanced degree, preferable in business administration, finance, or related field
• Minimum 10 years of procurement and grants management experience
• Experience with implementing grants under task order programs on USAID projects preferred
• Creativity and analytical capacity to manage subcontract/grant compliance issues and assist other staff in ensuring the implementation of SAF activities
• Proven ability to build and maintain collaborative relationships with donors, subcontractors, grantees, and multiple host-country counterparts
• English language proficiency is required, and local languages proficiency preferred
• Excellent verbal communication skills, strong writing and analytical skills are required
• Proven ability to interact with multidisciplinary team of professionals on large and complex international development programs
• Experience managing and mentoring a multicultural team of staff
• Experience building and maintaining relationships with host country professionals including implementing partners and grantees
• Preference will be given to Afghan nationals