Program Specialist

Alema Sadat

703-***-**** ***************@*****.***

Fully Work Authorized (US Citizen)

PROFILE SUMMARY

Project manager with 14 years working experience in the field of grants management, financial assistance, gender, women empowerment, advocacy program and project management, child rights and also my qualification in the field of political and business administration especially in program management, election observation, monitoring and evaluation, financial management, admin, HR, procurement, contract & grants, business analysis, Reporting, planning & capacity building.

KEY SKILLS

Program Management

Project Management

Financial Management and Budgeting

Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability & Learning

Ad-hoc reporting and planning

Identification of Problems/Risk Mitigation

Training Material Development

Grants Management & Financial Assistance

Data Entry, Filing Legal & Compliance, Reporting and Database Management

PMIS

OneTAF

ClearingHouse.gov

Grants.gov

2CFR200

The Federal Clearing House (FAC)

Core Java

SQL

Selenium

GrantsSolutions

SOAPUI

PARASOFT/SOATEST

Git/GitHub

Agile

FBMS/PRISM

SAM.gov

RFMS Momentum

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Grants Management Specialist

IMS Solutions, Virginia December 2023 – April 2025

Ensure awards comply with the Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act, DOI policies, and related laws and regulations.

Analyze proposed budgets for cost reasonableness, allowability, and allocability.

Review noncompetitive justifications and credit reports; assist with pre-award actions.

Help determine and document the appropriate funding mechanism (grant, cooperative agreement, contract) and define federal involvement.

Track recipient compliance, financial reporting, and fund utilization.

Review and recommend action on payment and reimbursement requests.

Review and draft responses for no-cost amendments (budget, schedule, personnel changes).

Notify relevant officers about federally-owned property for disposition.

Assist in administrative closeout of awards and proper file retention.

Monitor audit recommendations and support FOIA request responses.

Guide recipients during award completion and closeout.

Attend relevant meetings and events to support grant programs.

Grants/ Program Management Specialist January 2022 – October 2024

Infosys - North Carolina, NC

Provided Support for all phase of the grants management lifecycle to include planning, requirement definition, Federal Notice of Development, Preparing Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), evaluation, award, post-award management, Cooperative/Grant award closeout, and administrative support.

Evaluation of grant applications based on statutory and Departmental policy criteria and formulates recommendations as to which proposals are worthy of Federal funds.

Grants administration involving some portions of developing solicitation and selection orders, grant setup, payment processing, monitoring, and close out.

Monitoring of assigned grant allowances to track the pace of expenditures and prevent lapse of funds or over expenditures.

Monitoring the implementation of projects involving infrastructure issues and producing reports that include the tracking of trends/patterns, data analysis, and/or grantees financial performance.

Preparing required records, files, and reports for use in conference discussions; preparing notices of schedules, agendas, and reports for office meetings; and coordinating with other organizations and/or agencies to obtain records and meeting materials.

Coordinating administrative functions supporting the Program

Applying statutes and policy in order to analyze grant applications and programmatic data.

Overall correspondence system training for new users. Serve as an EDMS subject matter expert regarding EDMS use for controlled correspondence

Assists with the development of internal policies and procedures.

Project Grants Manager - February 2019 - December 2021

The Asia Foundation (TAF), Kabul, Afghanistan

Worked closely with Director of Women Empowerment Program (WEP), providing regular updates on daily progress of grants.

Grants management until the end of the grants implemented and identified problems and risk.

Strived for the highest quality of services aimed at the elimination of violence against women services to VAW survivors. Recommended proper and responsive protection strategy to IP to support VAW survivors in eight provinces of Afghanistan;

Represented the project at donor’s meeting, Gender Based Violence (GBV) meetings and other relevant meetings with partner organizations, donors, and government stakeholders;

Managed Financial Assistance, Grants and Contract from initiation phase through closeout phases.

Respond to all project reporting requirements, including monthly, quarterly, bi- annually and annual project reports, and other deliverables, as specified in the DFAT and IP(s) contracts;

Developed project budgets and ensured spending projections are kept up-to-date, expenditures are within approved budgets, that spending targets are met, and that appropriate steps are taken in managing the project budget in accordance with the donor agreement.

Assisted with ensuring that each Financial Assistance/Grant awards is prepared and administrated in accordance with the Asia Foundation applicable statutes, regulations and policies.

Assisting in performing analysis of proposed budget to assure that costs in the award budget are reasonable, allowable, and allocable in accordance with the applicable cost principles.

Assisted with insuring that pre-award administrative procedures are carried out, reviewing any justification for noncompetitive award of discretionary funds and make determination of adequacy of that justification and the basis for that justification; review credit reports when negative findings are reported.

Assisted in the selection of the appropriate funding instrument to be used in a particular transaction e.g. grant, cooperative agreement, or the contract and development of appropriate special award conditions defined.

Received and reviewed financial reports submitted by the recipient to ensure that expanding funds at an appropriate rate and that matching requirements are being met, reports submitted by the recipient agree with TAF accounting records of disbursements.

Reviewed and recommended approve requests for advance or reimbursement or contact recipient if payment cannot be made as requested.

Reviewed requestions for no-cost amendment (which include, but are not limited to, budget revisions, time extension to the award period, or changes in the work schedule or key personnel) and draft approval notifications, subject to final approval/action.

Assisted with ensuring that the award is administratively closeout and, as applicable, and that the official award file is held in the appropriate records holding facility for the appropriate time period before the file is destroyed.

Gender Consultant (fundraise for Women Owned Business) November 2016 – February 2019 DAI/RADP_E/USAID, Kabul, Afghanistan

Worked closely with the Deputy Chief of Party, Technical Program Team and project implementing partners to provide technical assistance to community engagement and gender related tasks within all RADP East project components in assigned areas.

Maintained contacts with Afghanistan Ministry of Irrigation Agriculture & Livestock (MAIL), Ministry of Women’s Affair (MOWA), DAIL, PAIL and DOWA, related CSOs, Local organizations, women’s private sectors and women groups.

Wrote updates on women agribusiness, analysis women economic growth in 4 RADP-E value chains, through providing the grants.

Worked collaboratively with project management, design and implement sub-activities to foster understanding of gender and social inclusion concepts among project personnel and implementing partners.

Supervised Senior Grants Database Officer and Grants Database Assistant and ensured all grants were implemented per proposal objectives, deliverables and timelines.

Managed grant activities, implementation processes, regular monitoring, auditing, risk analysis & fraud prevention measures.

Ensured that RADPE/USAID grant making operations ran smoothly and accurately.

Prepared & conducted orientation sessions about proposal preparation & process of grant applications for interested organizations.

Liaised with the Finance Team and grantee organizations on matters related to grants financial reporting.

National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) (SPECS/USAID), Kabul, Afghanistan Sep 2012 – Nov 2016

Held two distinct positions of increasing responsibilities

Senior Grants Officer - Sep 2013– Nov 2016

Developed and Implemented NDI funded projects and ensure that the project activities are successfully implemented in accordance with project objectives throughout the project cycle, including meeting interlocutors, designing and implementing action plans, budgets, implementation plans and prepares final reports and evaluations.

Provided expert electoral advice, design and support and monitoring to further training capacity building of civil society organization at central and local level, as needed to address the needs in support of election matters.

Wrote updates on domestic politics & government laws and policies for NDI monthly and quarterly reports.

Drafted reports for USAID on its monitoring/support to the electoral bodies and partners.

Setting solicitation priorities and setting up Grants Technical Evaluation Committee (GTEC).

Senior Grants Officer/ Capacity Development Specialist (Team Leader) – September 2012–September 2013

National Democratic Institute (NDI)

Lead the design and development of Government District Local Council Affairs (GDLCA) grants program.

Familiarized NDI’s capacity development framework and deliver approaches (participatory, non-formal adult learning, etc.).

Lead the assessment and analysis of development and learning needs across the organization including NDI partners grantees and implementers.

Established and maintained NDI grants policies and procedures to support learning and development activities, designing instructional best practices innovative techniques online programs along with coaching and mentoring of grants and financial assistance program.

Lead and managed the implementation of NDI capacity development and learning strategies for NDI and GDLCSA personnel and provide regular reports to NDI senior management;

Lead and managed Grants Team and Supervised Technical Financial Assistance Team on selecting the potential implementers.

Grants/Financial Assistance Coordinator August 2010–September 2012

Oxfam GB, Kabul, Afghanistan

Provided support and guidance on the project tools.

Build the capacity of the Oxfam GB team in Afghanistan on importance of women’s active participation in decision making process of a program.

Ensured gender mainstreaming in all the concept, strategies, proposals and projects.

Presented Oxfam Afghanistan in regional initiative and campaign. Mobilized IEC/BCC activities of We Can campaign to be implemented by alliances partner.

Managed women's right project to ensured that all activities of the previous and new projects are develop and implement successfully.

Established Grants Management Team and provided technical support to the team by developing Grants Policy manual.

Lead the grants technical team

Managed the Women Empowerment Financial Assistance program from pre-award, post-award and closeout.

Project Specialist August 2009–August 2010

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Kabul, Afghanistan

Worked in close coordination with the Program Manager, review grant applications, and prepare documentation for grant evaluation and approvals.

Served as chair of the Grant Selection Committee in absence of the Grants Manager.

Reviewed grant applications, ensured they match the minimum eligibility criteria and project objectives before the selection committee convention.

In coordination with the Grants and Program Team, prepared grant agreements, and ensure appropriate documentation is completed and on file to ensure grant file audit readiness.

Remained knowledgeable of updates and revisions to the project Grants Manual, and recommend revisions, as program operations change.

Conducted pre-award reviews of potential grantees, regular mid-implementation audits, and pre-closeout grant file review in coordination with the Grants Manager, and other staff as required, to maintain clean, audit-ready files throughout the life of project.

Recorded and tracked payment of grant milestones to ensure compliance with technical plan and milestones and monitored the projected expenditures against their actual incurrence.

Ensured all entries of grants are entered into the GCC (Grants, Contracts, & Compliance) software and generate periodic reports.

In coordination with the Grants Manager, developed and maintained a schedule of grant actions, including milestone payments, deadlines and required modifications to allow for organized department activities.

Monitored technical implementation of grants to ensure timely progress and according to submitted technical reports, proposed strategy, and work plans.

Manage a project “Women in Poverty” with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA).

Program Officer

Italian Cooperation/Italian Embassy, Kabul, Afghanistan June 2008-July 2009

Participated in Meetings with Head of Economic Empowerment Department of Ministry of Women’s Affairs of Afghanistan (MOWA.

Participate cooperatively with Head of Economic Empowerment Department of MOWA in NGOs meeting regarding established of new grants programs for women.

Managed Sub-award agreement along with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs of Afghanistan

Monitored and oversaw the sub-award implementation within the Ministry of Women’s Affairs of Afghanistan.

Reviewed and provided reports to the higher management and to the Deputy of MOWA.

Held meeting times with foreign NGOs and embassies in Afghanistan.

Provide interpretation service and translate English data to Dari like, Contracts, Memorandums, agreements and letters.

Program and Accountant

Civic Association Berkat International, Kabul, Afghanistan December 2007–May 2008

Prepared all grant reporting requirements to the funder on monthly, quarterly, annually and as per funder requirement.

Led the discussion, on a regular monthly basis, regarding the fiscal status of each grant.

Monthly revenue recognition for all program activities and timely posting to the system.

Apply payments received in the accounting system, and reconcile to the amounts invoiced to the funders; identify and determine action on remaining balances.

Perform all budgeting requests pertaining to the operation of grants, renewing grants, or budgeting for new opportunities upon request; submittal of all Federal or Department of States grants budgets.

Maintain supporting documents of all pertinent information.

Assisted as appropriate with the annual fiscal audit and aid auditors, as needed, for all areas of the grant fiscal management.

Assisted the Senior Grants Manager/Financial Assistance Manager in obtaining and/or maintaining an appropriate Indirect Cost Rate.

Project Assistant

Good Neighbors International (GNI) Kabul, Afghanistan October 2002–Oct 2006

Collected the data and reports and submitted to the Program Director. Monitored, planed, organized and supervised Grants Technical Evaluation Committee on the pre-award stage.

Reviewed and Process grantees advance and reimbursement payment.

Provided technical assistance to the grantee.

Updated the financial assistance tracker

EDUCATION

MIR, Master’s in International Relations, Afghanistan, Kabul, Afghanistan 2017 - 2018

LLB, Bachelor of Law (LLB), Kardan University, Kabul, Afghanistan 2011 - 2014

More than 20 on the job training in Project Management, Grants and Financial Assistance, M&E, program design and financial management, ethics and etc.

REFERENCES

References will be provided upon request.

Contact this candidate