AID-Project Background

AID-Project was conceived by the staff of the AMIR Program, a project in Amman, Jordan funded by USAID and implemented by Chemonics, International. Word spread both inside USAID and among other contractors about the usefulness of the software. Now AID-Project is being used by a growing list of clients managing USAID-funded projects (in the fields of economic development, public health, financial management, trade promotion, and so on) in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.

AID-Project's online management approach has proven useful in facilitating communications:

  • Between projects and their USAID counterparts
  • Among project staff members located around the world.

Who Uses AID-Project?

AID-Project's online management approach has proven useful in facilitating communications between projects and their USAID counterparts among project staff members located around the world.

Project Field Office

AID-Project allows project staff in the field office to readily:

  • Create a work plan online and easily share the plan with project counterparts (USAID CTOs, home office users, project staff in other locations)
  • Keep USAID counterparts informed about country clearances, who is currently in the country and why
  • Store project documents (deliverables, approvals, reports, etc) online where they are easily accessible by all project staff and USAID colleagues
  • Create project budgets right in the context of the online work plan, and pull budget data into desktop reporting tools such as MS-Access, MS-Excel, and MS-Project.

USAID Mission Counterparts

AID-Project provides a special view into the project workplan for USAID users:

  • View the project work plan
  • Approve country clearances online
  • Approve other documents online
  • Follow who is currently in the country for short-term or long-term travel (for better security monitoring)

Home Office Project Staff (US or elsewhere)

Regardless of the size of a project's field operations, it is essential for home office managers to stay current with plans and activities in the field. For small projects, that might mean occasional monitoring and follow-up. For larger projects, the role of the home office staff may be nearly as important as the field office. No matter what time zone they are in, US-based managers can:

  • View and access the same work plan as the field office
  • Search and filter the work plan for activities that require US backstopping: procurements, US training, recruiting of consultants, etc.
  • Find and use the same project documents to which field office staff have access.
  • Download budget data into desktop reporting tools, just like field office managers

Subcontractors/Consultants

For larger projects, AID-Project also provodes restricted access for subcontractors and consultants, which permits the prime contractor to:

  • Delegate certain data entry tasks to subs and consultants (such as emergency locator information, address data, and other information)
  • Set up a special sub/consultant home page with links to documents and other web addresses useful to subs and consultants

Special Features

Additionally, project staff can set up a special USAID home page including:

  • Links to Documents (quarterly reports, budget summaries, etc) that USAID may want to see frequently. Having the documents online will save time both for project staff members and USAID counterparts.
  • Links to other web sites important to the project (the project web site, host country counterpart web sites, etc).