Consortium Director – Advancing Women-led Agro Businesses to Reach Economic Empowerment (AWARE), Afghanistan

About the role: This is a new, 3 year role with unaccompanied terms based in Kabul, Afghanistan with frequent visits to project areas and with a salary of Grade 6 €49,993 to €55,547

You will report to the Country Director and work closely with all members of the consortium, core Project management Team and Concern’s Programmes Director, Technical Specialists, Programme Managers, Finance and system departments, Concern HQ and the donor.

We would like you to start in April 2021

Concern Worldwide is leading a Consortium contributing to the Women’s Economic Empowerment National Priority Programme (WEE-NPP) by advancing Afghan women’s economic capacity and maximising their contribution to growth and poverty reduction. The project primarily supports underemployed/unemployed women (potential female entrepreneurs), and existing women-led micro and small agro business and foster an enabling environment for women’s economic empowerment in five urban and rural provinces of Northern Afghanistan―Badakhshan, Takhar, Kunduz, Jawzjan and Balkh – by jointly addressing economic and behavioural barriers.

Your purpose: The Consortium Director will be responsible and accountable for the overall management and oversight of the project including: overseeing the contract management and implementation, risk management and financial accountability, monitoring and documenting best practices, donor reporting and liaison, external representation, relationship management with downstream partners and government counterparts, and ensuring compliance with Concern and donor’s policies and procedures. S/he will be responsible to provide direction and support to the Concern Project team and Consortium members, and technical leadership to ensure high quality programming to achieve project results.

You will be responsible for:

Strategic Management:

· Provide overall leadership on detail planning and implementation of programme activities in the light of Consortium and donor strategic priorities and programme design/objectives.

· Providing line management to Concern project staff in accordance with the organisational policies and procedures.

· Provide strategic guidance to ensure consistent quality implementation and sustainable approaches across partners and geographic areas, taking into due consideration specifics of the contexts in which the partners operate.

· Ensure the attainment of appropriate level of competency of Concern’s and consortium member’s staff to implement the project.

Consortium Management:

· In consultation with the consortium members, develop consortium management approach to ensure smooth communication and decision making protocols.

· Develop and maintain strong working relationships with other consortium members. Maintaining regular communication with the members, including negotiating scope of works, addressing requisite revisions in programme work, and addressing issues that may arise.

· Represent Concern and the consortium to the donor (EU), and serve as the key liaison person with relevant government authorities.

· Provide line management to Concern project implementation staff in accordance with the organisational policies and procedures.

· Ensure that gender equality and diversity principles are up-held in the recruitment, orientation, performance and management of staff.

· Ensure the quality development of technical project implementation guidance and training documents.

· Oversee and monitor the programme risks (including financial, logistical and other support systems, security and safeguarding) and flag issues in a timely manner to the Concern Country Director, Programme Director and the Consortium Steering Committee.

Finance, Procurement and Donor Compliance:

· Ensure the programme design takes into account the payment-by-results (PBR) mechanism and results-based-management (RBM) approaches.

· Ensure compliance with organisational and donor rules and regulations, particularly with respect to financial, procurement of supplies and contract management, budget and expenditure monitoring.

· Provide managerial and technical support throughout the implementation of the programme, including management of the sub-contracts.

· Ensure payment requests from consortium members are processed, signed and recommended for payment to Concern Country Finance.

Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E):

· Coordinate with concern and consortium members MEAL unit to ensure the joint development of M&E framework and ensure all members to conduct protection and risk assessments at the inception phase.

· Provide strategic and operational leadership for the programme and leading on annual work planning, programme implementation, M&E and donor reporting.

· Ensure adherence to agreed programme quality standards, M&E guidelines, frameworks for the programme.

· Provide technical support to embed M&E and Accountability to Affected People in consortium implementation.

Knowledge Management, Advocacy, and Communications:

· Working closely with the Concern Afghanistan management and Concern head office, maintain regular and transparent communication and ensure high-quality reporting on the programme.

· Ensure timely development and operationalisation of advocacy, communication and visibility strategies of the programme.

· Ensure the adherence of EU’s General Data Protection regulations across the consortium members.

· Ensure the proper documentation of the joint Annual Review, Reflection, Accountability and Learning workshops.

Management of Risk:

· Ensure compliance with organisational and donor rules and regulations particularly with respect to financial and contract management.

· Ensure the proper planning and implementation of behavioural change and awareness raising activities to ensure enabling environment for women to actively participate in the project.

· Coordinate with Concern and consortium security focal persons and ensure the alignment of the activity implementation plan as per security and access strategy of the local areas.

· Ensure adherence/compliance across the consortium with Concern Worldwide’s Code of Conduct, Programme Participant Protection Policy, Safeguarding policy and associated policies.

· Promote and ensure accountability to programme participants and Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) principles across the consortium and throughout programme implementation.

Your skills and experience will include:

Essential:

· Appropriate qualification at Master’s degree level in relevant discipline (Project Management, Gender Studies, Public Health, or relevant Social Science discipline)

· Proven experience of working at least 6 years in senior programme management and leadership role equivalent to (Chief of Party or Team Leader) level with INGOs or international organisations or equivalent progressive experience in a relevant discipline.

• Proven experience working on consortia in programs related to women empowerment or gender.
• Experience and knowledge on adaptive programming and the ability to quickly identify risks and needs for adapting projects and reorienting resources.
• Experience and knowledge in attitude, behaviour and social norm change.

· Experience in building and maintaining effective relationships with senior representatives of donor institutions, particularly EU, INGO and Government structures and ability to represent Concern and the programme at various national or international level fora.

· Excellent written and spoken English language skills.

· Strong analytical, interpersonal, communication and organisation skills.

· Strong coordination skills specifically with the ability to effectively coordinate, influence and negotiate with partners and grantees.

· Thorough understanding of and experience working in gender, equality and protection issues.

· Strong financial management and donor compliance skills.

· Experience in the design and use of monitoring and evaluation systems.

· Knowledge of the key tools used by donor agencies, such as logical frameworks, results chains, theory of change, results-based management and financial administration systems.

Desirable:

· Knowledge of managing EU projects or similar and good knowledge of EU programme management processes and requirements.

· Experience or strong knowledge of the Afghanistan context will be an asset.

· Experience working in and understanding of gender inclusion, SGBV, and how to appropriately respond to disclosures and protection issues.