Saeed Ahmed Email and Phone Number

Leading a USAID Initiative for Strengthening Local Administration (ISLA) project to improve Governance, public finance, participatory budgeting, policy advocacy, promoting economic activities through public private partnership. in areas of health, education, agriculture and IDPs in Afghanistan. I have managed the project across 16 provinces using results based project management principles. Helped run a successful women and youth internship program by placing over 2500 young graduates with government entities. Helped streamline and institutionalize capacity building of the government, CSOs and IPs on management, communication, and advocacy. Developed and implemented sub- national governance and operational framework to help improve government’s ability to prioritize service delivery and develop central and subsequently provincial plans and budgets that represent provincial interests and public needs. Helped to have a positive impact on citizens’ needs in health, education, TVET, security, justice, gender and youth emancipation, land reforms, civil society engagement, and essential civic services. Helped the government develop and rollout 140-member strong CSO network for public accountability at the provincial level for the health and education sector by developing community-based -monitoring (CBM) tools; Developed Provincial Strategic Guidelines to help government implement its Sub-National Governance Policy (SNGP);

Led the research and technical assistance portfolio of the organization to conduct an independent analysis of public finance management and National Elections Commission of Liberia under Elections Democratic Assistance project of USAID by engaging the national and sub-national stakeholders through a systematic designed research methodology. Developed a framework of sustainability of Elections Commissions and Public Finance Management by focusing on sustainability, resilience, transparency and accountability in public finance management and improvement of democratic institutions for institutionalizing the frameworks through a sustained capacity building and public engagement strategies.

Managed a Global Health Emergency program with the host governments and 23 international donors under the National Emergency Operation Centre. Successfully managed portfolio including grants and contracts to improve program operations, finances, logistics, M&E Framework, Capacity development, research, outreach, public, and media engagement. Developed and implemented program plan, policy advocacy, engagement, resource mobilization, and Crisis Communication strategy. Managed Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) by developing a collaboration with all development partners (WHO, BMGF, Rotary International, JICA, CIDA, IsDB, KfW, Japanese, Italian, Canadian, Australian governments. Developed coordination between EPI and the Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) and implementing partners of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative; Developed, conducted field research and developed policy advocacy platforms by engaging with federal and provincial ministries. parliamentarians, CSOs, Community of Interests, pediatricians, nutritionists, and religious Scholars; Developed in-house and partner capacities, managing budgets, grants, donor reporting, and AEFI issues; Developed and maintained a 24/7 structured media monitoring system to monitor over 100 print publications and over 180 TV news networks to ensure pro-active management of Crisis Communication; Developed evidence-based leads for advocacy, mass media advertisements, and social media besides developing IEC material (weekly newsletter, sit-reps, infographics, etc), key messages, top lines and talking points for program leaders; designed, developed and conducted sensitization and capacity building sessions with various stakeholders including media, parliamentarians, CSOs, Pediatricians, and religious scholars.

As a Program Director and at times Acting Chief of Party designed, implemented, monitored, and reported the organization's Five-Year programmatic strategy including Theory of Change, key thematic areas, resource mobilization, capacity building, implementation partners, governance, and government relations. Developed and implemented a holistic Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) framework to support the core functions.Successfully did representation, program development, and quality, program operations, awards management, MEAL, and the procurement by gradually developing the portfolio from 60 million to over 100 million USD by engaging donors and private sector in program financing..Ensured compliance of all programmatic areas with the Strategic Plan, Theory of Change, operational, awards, Donor reporting, and MEAL standards;Provided active leadership for developing strategic communication with key donors and raised 45 million USD in one record yearSupported establishing, maintaining, and improving active and regular working relationships with the host government, donors, Implementing Partners, UN, local and international NGOs including regional and global members of Save the Children;Led the internal capacity building of the programmatic teams;Build capacity of field teams to deliver on the country 2016-2030 strategy by mentoring, coaching and team building;Developed a local network of 110 CSOs for Scaling Up Nutrition in Pakistan (SUN-CSAPak),Developed Knowledge Hub: a digital data-bank for organizational knowledge management and learning platformDeveloped Public-Private Partnership (PPP) ventures to win over USD 20 million through CSRs from Shell, P&G & IKEA.Acted as Media Focal Person for the organization when Save was clamped down in Pakistan and helped to undertake negotiations with various Government entities and helped re-open the offices across the country within 12 record days

Managed the Knowledge and Program Management (KPM) at the Hague Office provided pro-active program management/development leadership to 19 countries in four regions (Asia, HECA, MENA, and the Mekong), Developed policy advocacy campaigns for active citizenship, projects on TVET, CSO Networking, Public-Private Partnership, Youth and Gender Mainstreaming, Tax Heavens, and Governance Accountability; Developed "Knowledge Hub" at the Confederation level around Active Citizenship and Governance; Developed global Access to Information Policy (A2I) for Oxfam confederation (32 affiliates and 119 partners); Developed Governance and Active Citizenship framework/programmatic approach and projects for Horn, East, and Central Africa (HECA) region, OPTI & South Asia and won 34 million Euro worth of projects; Coordinated with 19 country teams across Asia, MEKONG, HECA and South Asian regions for the development of Annual Plans, Finance Projections, Budget allocations/Management, Donor reporting, Resource management, Resource mobilization, Capacity Building, Project Management of each country office; Developed Country strategy for Oxfam Novib Head Office in The Hague and later the same for 19 country offices; Developed training Manuals and Modules for Capacity Building for the country teams on program development, project management, development of Theory of Change, Development of LFAs, Advocacy, Campaigning, Media and Communication as per regional requirements after thorough consultations and considerations of the regional and even country level environment / sensitivities.

To explore the drivers, enablers, and supporters of VE and propose CVEs, I have successfully led a team of ten researchers to develop a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative research methodology which included a rigorous system to assess context and program results, field research, questionnaires, surveys, data analysis, online questions, and stakeholder analysis to collect data, synthesize it and then analyze it using MAXQDA software for drawing qualitative conclusions. The research was done with an eye on the context-specific, community-led initiatives that worked to strengthen resilience and addressed both push and pull factors. Special attention was given to draw a research methodology and tools for research that help capture all segments of society especially youth and women's voices for peacebuilding rather than stigmatizing them as risks and threats. I developed a Violent Extremism Assessment methodology to analyze drivers that stretch across geographic locations—global, regional, national, and local— as VE ideologies, propaganda, and assets cross borders because of their close proximity to the country contexts. It helped to address the root causes of VE and find out community-driven as well as sustainable methods to draw a CVE approach which helps foster not cohesion but development.

As a project lead, designed, trained, moderator hosted discussion surrounding reporting from Conflict Zones with senior media and Nonprofit experts as well as with parliamentarians and academia, reporting safely from Conflict areas was taken up as a thematic area to engage policymakers and leading Anchors from media side and advocacy-focused NGOs from conflict zones; to develop a discourse and future strategy. Leading up to policy debates/discussions, a series of training workshops were conducted by developing three-day and four-day training modules/manuals for TV, Print and Radio journalists to sensitize them on ethics, conflict and crisis reporting, importance of research and evidence-based reporting and most importantly ensuring safety and security while working in/on conflict areas through ethical, investigative and objective reporting.Key Achievements: Developed Proposals for Media Mobilization/Sensitization in Conflict Zones Developed Trainees and Trainers Manuals and ModulesDeveloped PowerPoint Presentations for each Manual with guiding notes for ToTs participants andTrained over 500 Journalists across remote parts of the country and mentoring them with or without any project or contract because I believe in training them so that we can get diversification and quality reports for sake of informed discourse

An EU/KfW-funded project in India for preparing communities, civil society, women, and youth groups across 50 villages in two districts of the Indian state of Manipur to develop and implement sustainable livelihood, watershed management, community networks, value chains for local products, I developed Communication Strategy, Visual Identity, Crisis Communication Strategy and Monitoring mechanism for improving the income and living standard of locals (poverty alleviation) by addressing various cross-cutting themes like education, health, WASH, environment and gender empowerment. Developed work plans, Advocacy, Communication and Community Engagement (ACCE) Strategy for the Government-led PMU for reaching out to vulnerable communities and target groups and help them develop community development plans, Livelihood plans and implement them, and monitor them for meaningful impact; Produced various IEC material, Advocacy workshop content, manuals and conducting training with villagers and government officials for sustainability of the project.

As information analyst on political, socio and economic subjects, led English Language newspaper in, Wrote political, social, diplomatic and developmental contents, was instrumental in ensuring ethical and responsible investigative journalism, issue-based reports and community focused coverage. Represented media organization at various international forums like the Humanitarian Forum of Baku, International NATO conferences in Berlin & Chicago, International Development Conference in Istanbul and International Federation of Journalists.Developed Media's editorial and business strategy for the largest and leading media houseManaged a network of investigative reporters and business executivesDeveloped a dynamic web and interactive social media platforms for the media houseProduced both TV and Print media content, editing, and transmission on a daily basisDeveloped business plan, targets for the marketing teams and followed it up with editorial policy and content

Public-private partnership and developing business to business relations was a novice idea in early 2000 especially for developing markets of Asia and Africa. Developed meaningful connections between the corporate and development sectors and secured following funding from the corporate sector for humanitarian and development sectors USD 2 million for Flood Relief (Oxfam Novib) USD 6.5 million for TVET project in Kenya and Pakistan from EUEU 2 million for Child Protection from IKEAUSD 20 million for CSO capacity building from USAID Developed Business Portfolio of the organization by 70 percent on a year-on-year basisEngaged successful public-private partnership models by engaging government sector in education and health with private sector organizations like mobile companies and other corporate sector entitiesDeveloped strategic partnerships with leading international development organizations