Sub-National and Emergency Response

The Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief and Development (ACBAR) is an independent forum founded in 1988 in response to the demand from NGOs working with Afghan refugees in Pakistan and across the border in Afghanistan to more efficiently coordinate assistance and delivery of services. With its main office in Kabul since 2002, and seven regional offices supporting our work across the country, ACBAR brings together more than 200 National and International NGOs working in all sectors of humanitarian assistance and development in Afghanistan. ACBAR’s strategic pillars of service to its members include coordination and information sharing, advocacy for enabling environments, and supporting capacity strengthening and organizational development for our members.  ACBAR has a mission to provide an efficient platform for members to carry out effective humanitarian, development, and peace building activities in Afghanistan. The members are the drive behind ACBAR, and their active participation is essential to ACBAR’s continued dynamism.

ACBAR is currently expanding its coordination footprint at the sub-national level, developing the services we provide to members to support better engagement with local authorities, better coordination between various stakeholders, and improved delivery of aid by our members. ACBAR currently maintains seven regional offices based in Kandahar, Herat, Nangarhar, Balkh, Bamiyan, Khost and Kunduz.  We will be expanding our operations in each of these regions.  This expansion of services includes more robust and better-quality coordination among NGO’s prior to and during emergency response efforts, as well as more broad-based coordination support for all humanitarian and basic needs actors working in these locations.

ACBAR is hiring a Sub-national and Emergency Response Coordination Specialist in a consultancy role to provide support to ACBAR’s full-time, field-based team as they implement key strategic priorities related to the scale up of sub-national coordination activities.  This position will provide technical support in assessing the current coordination needs of NGO’s at the regional and provincial level, including further defining what needs NGOs have to improve coordination in the event of rapid onset emergencies.  This will also include reviewing the effectiveness of engagement and advocacy mechanisms at the regional level to support and maintain enabling environments for NGOs.  The Specialist will work with the ACBAR team in Kabul and in our regional offices to recommend key initiatives to improve delivery of coordination support to our members and other actors. Additionally, the Specialist will lead efforts to develop comprehensive plans at the national and sub-national level to improve emergency preparedness amongst NGO’s that will work in alignment with UN-led coordination mechanism (e.g. OCT’s) and in coordination with planning efforts from various Afghan line ministries, including the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA).

ESSENTIAL TASKS AND DELIVERABLES

• Design and support implementation of a comprehensive needs assessment of NGOs (Local, National and International) to further define the present gaps in the delivery of routine and emergency response programs at the provincial level and provide recommendations where coordination amongst NGO’s can be improved.  
• Based on recommendations from the assessment data, support ACBAR to refine and restructure our approach to managing our sub-national coordination to best meet the needs of our NGO members and wider-humanitarian and development actors.
• Co-lead the development and delivery of national and sub-national emergency preparedness coordination plans to support NGO members in their readiness to rapidly deliver assistance in the event of a rapid-onset emergency.  This will include final deliverable of a coordination response plan/manual at the national level and for each regional office.
• Support plans to develop rosters of national and local NGOs to whom ACBAR may provide rapid emergency response funding and ongoing capacity strengthening support related to emergency response planning.
• Support the development of frameworks and tools to support regular monitoring of activities and to assess the ongoing effectiveness of ACBAR’s sub-national coordination efforts and emergency response planning.
• Provide bi-weekly technical support to the ACBAR Emergency Response Coordination (ERC) Team as they implement developed work plans. 
• At the conclusion of the consultancy, deliver a final report to ACBAR to highlight key progress made and provide further recommendations to support sub-national and emergency coordination.

EDUCATION, TRAINING and/or EXPERIENCE

• Master’s degree from an accredited academic institution, preferably in humanitarian or development studies and/or management or business.
• Minimum of ten years of progressively responsible experience leading and managing humanitarian emergency responses in a conflict or post-conflict setting.
• At least two-to-three years of experience managing emergency response programming in Afghanistan, with direct experience working at the sub-national level.

OTHER REQUIRED SKILLS:

• Excellent writing and verbal skills in English.
• Knowledge of Dari and/or Pashto is preferrable but not required.
• Demonstrated experience developing and executing emergency preparedness and response planning in a conflict or post-conflict setting.
• Demonstrated experience leading or managing the completion of humanitarian needs assessments.
• Demonstrated knowledge and experience engaging and supporting humanitarian coordination infrastructure and/or the UN cluster system in an emergency setting.
• Demonstrated experience supporting partnerships with national and/or local NGOs or civil society.
• Demonstrated commitment to supporting equitable humanitarian response programming.
• Demonstrated experience and skill set to provide technical support to Afghan managers through remote mechanisms on a regular basis.

If you possess the necessary qualifications and experience, we invite you to complete the form using the link provided below by March. 31, 2026.  Prepare your CV and cover letter as a single file before applying; you will have to attach them.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Job Application Form Link: https://form.acbar.org/app/form?id=r2hWxA