2.A General Context of the project
Over the past few years, Afghanistan has witnessed a relative improvement in security and stability across much of the country. This has allowed humanitarian actors like INTERSOS to maintain uninterrupted access and expand services in areas that were previously hard to reach. Despite this progress, the humanitarian situation remains critical, with millions of Afghans continuing to face acute vulnerabilities due to prolonged economic hardship, natural disasters, and limited access to essential services.
In 2025, more than half of the population is in need of humanitarian assistance, with food insecurity, child malnutrition, and displacement remaining key concerns. Natural disasters, such as floods and recent earthquakes, have further compounded the needs of already struggling communities.
INTERSOS continues to operate through a community-based approach with field bases in Kabul, Kandahar, and Zabul, delivering primary healthcare, nutrition, and protection services with a focus on women, children, and persons with disabilities. The organization enjoys strong community acceptance and collaborates closely with relevant national authorities, including maintaining the full participation of female staff in all activities.
While the operational environment is largely stable and conducive, funding shortfalls and systemic barriers such as restrictions on financial flows and administrative bottlenecks continue to impact the scope and scale of humanitarian response. Sustained support is crucial to ensure the continuity of life-saving services and to address the urgent needs of Afghanistan’s most vulnerable populations.
2.B.1 General Purpose of the position
In coordination with the Country Director (CD), Senior Management Team (SMT), Head of Programmes (HoP), Technical Coordinators, and Regional Office, lead and coordinate INTERSOS Afghanistan's grants management, business development, institutional fundraising, donor engagement, and strategic partnership functions. The role is responsible for driving resource mobilization and organizational positioning, identifying and pursuing funding opportunities, strengthening donor relations, and ensuring the timely development and submission of high-quality, competitive, and compliant proposals and donor reports.
The position provides strategic leadership to the Grants Unit and serves as the focal point for donor intelligence, fundraising coordination, partnership development, and consortium-building initiatives, while ensuring compliance with donor requirements and INTERSOS policies throughout the project cycle. It also leads the mission's localization and partnership agenda by supporting partner identification, due diligence and capacity assessments, partnership framework development, compliance monitoring, and capacity-strengthening initiatives, ensuring effective collaboration with local and international partners.
2.B.2 Main responsibilities and tasks
Portfolio development & Strategic positioning
● Work closely with the Country Director (CD), Head of Program (HoP), SMT, and Regional Office to develop and periodically update the mission's Business Development and Fundraising Strategy, ensuring alignment with INTERSOS' strategic priorities and country programme objectives.
● Monitor donor strategies, funding priorities, policy shifts, and emerging humanitarian trends to proactively identify funding opportunities and position INTERSOS competitively before funding opportunities are announced.
● Develop and maintain a comprehensive donor intelligence and funding pipeline, including donor mapping, funding forecasts, strategic calendars, and opportunity tracking.
● Lead the preparation and implementation of the annual fundraising action plan, regularly monitoring progress and recommending strategic adjustments.
● Establish and maintain strategic relationships with institutional donors, UN agencies, embassies, foundations, and other funding partners in coordination with the Country Director.
● Produce periodic business development analyses, including funding trends, donor priorities, competitive landscape, and portfolio performance, to inform strategic decision-making by the Senior Management Team.
Proposal Leadership & Quality Assurance
● Lead the institutional Go/No-Go processes, steering the SMT decision-making framework based on the technical and compliance analyses of Calls for Proposals provided by the Grants Department.
● Lead the strategic planning and coordination of proposal development processes, ensuring that funding opportunities are fully aligned with the country programme strategy, operational priorities, and donor interests.
● Steer programme design priorities across technical, finance, logistics, HR, and MEAL teams, setting the strategic framework for the Grants Manager to facilitate integrated, evidence-based, and competitive project concepts.
● Lead the strategic engagement and assessment of consortium partners, establishing high-level institutional collaboration frameworks throughout the proposal development and submission phases.
● Ensure proposals incorporate macro lessons learned, donor feedback, technical standards, and contextual evidence to maximize quality and competitiveness.
● Provide high-level strategic quality assurance and final sign-off on all proposal packages, ensuring institutional risk mitigation and overall alignment between strategic narratives and donor expectations, while leaving operational document matching and annex verification to the Grants Manager.
● Oversee the institutional review and submission processes with the Regional Office and Headquarters, ensuring timely feedback and compliance with INTERSOS submission workflows
Partnership development and management
● Define the strategic criteria for local actor mapping and oversee the maintenance of the mission’s stakeholder and partnership databases, managed operationally by the Partnership Officer/Manager.
● Oversee and validate the Capacity and Risks Assessments (CAR) for local NGO partners, ensuring that cross-departmental evaluations (from Finance, HR, Supply Chain, and Programs) are effectively synthesized and institutional risks are mitigated.
● Provide overall leadership in establishing collaborations, ensuring the high-quality review of Sub-Grant Agreements (SGAs) or MoUs before presenting recommendations to the Country Director for final approval.
● Ensure a comprehensive capacity strengthening strategy is in place for local partners, monitoring that specialized departments deliver the required technical and compliance support.
● Provide top-level oversight on partner compliance and performance, reviewing consolidated cross-departmental inputs and presenting strategic action points and partnership recommendations to the SMT and Country Director.
● Represent INTERSOS in sensitive, high-impact networks, partnership forums, and donor engagement activities related to localization, as delegated by the Country Director.
● Reporting Oversight, Compliance Control & Capacity building● Ensure top-level oversight of the mission's Master Planning/Reporting Trackers, ensuring internal and external accountability mechanisms are met.● Act as the mission's senior authority on compliance queries, advising the SMT and program teams on complex regulations and systemic risks.
● Supervise the internal quality control systems for donor reports, ensuring the Grants and Reporting Manager maintains strict data consistency between financial, logistical, and narrative inputs.
Develop and implement a capacity-building strategy for programme, technical, operations, and grants staff to strengthen institutional competencies in business development, proposal design, donor compliance, grant management, reporting, and project cycle management.
● Promote a culture of continuous learning and knowledge sharing by documenting lessons learned, disseminating best practices, and facilitating learning events across programme and support departments.
● Conduct regular field visits to mentor programme teams, strengthen grant implementation, assess compliance, identify capacity gaps, and maintain a strong understanding of the operational context.
● Support the capacity strengthening of implementing partners through mentoring, training, and technical guidance on donor compliance, programme quality, proposal development, and reporting standards, in coordination with relevant technical departments.
People management & Leadership
● Line-manage, coordinate, and evaluate the Grants and Reporting Manager, supporting their professional growth.
● Ensure, in close coordination with the HR department, that the entire Mission Grants Unit is fully trained on and strictly respects INTERSOS internal policies, values, and code of conduct.
● Oversee and conduct the periodic IRP performance appraisals for direct reports.
