Consortium Finance Coordinator

Work Arrangement: In-person

Job Description

Background/IRC Summary:

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to people affected by war or disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, we restore safety, dignity, and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure. The IRC leads the way from harm to home.

The IRC has been present in Nigeria since 2012 when the organization responded to flooding in Kogi state. In February 2014 the IRC moved into Adamawa State in NE Nigeria to provide humanitarian interventions through a multi-sectoral, integrated approach for conflict-affected populations. IRC Nigeria now operates a country office in Abuja and field offices in Mubi and Yola of Adamawa State, Maiduguri, Monguno, and Gwoza of Borno state, Damaturu of Yobe State, and a current extension to Zamfara and Katsina states, northwest Nigeria. Currently, IRC Nigeria implements programs for primary health care, nutrition, environmental health, women’s protection and empowerment, protection, child protection, education, economic recovery, and development.

The country program developed a strategic plan in the first half of 2021. IRC aim to provide the best possible impact for some of the most vulnerable children, women, and men. In all that we do, IRC strives to deliver through IRC’s core values of Integrity, Accountability, Service and Equality.

Project Overview:

The BHA (Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance) project, Integrated Emergency Response to the Displaced Population in Zamfara, Sokoto, And Katsina States, Northwest Nigeria” will be carried out by a consortium led by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in collaboration with four Partners aim to leverage each partner's expertise to provide immediate humanitarian assistance to internally displaced people populations through area-based approach. The Consortium partners will provide an integrated multisectoral intervention in Health, Nutrition, WASH, Protection, and Multi-purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA) activities in Zamfara, Katsina, and Sokoto states in collaboration with state governments, UN organizations and other key actors in Northwest Nigeria. The project will be implemented by a dedicated support, quality assurance, and coordination team, who will work closely with all partners through a management unit of well-structured consortium governance for the activity.

Job Overview/Summary

The Consortium Finance Coordinator is a key position for the BHA Northwest consortium which provides be responsible for overseeing the consortium finance portfolio. The position is primarily responsible for providing oversight and day-to-day financial management of the IRC led consortium, in very close coordination and cooperation with the IRC Nigeria Finance Team. The position will be responsible for capacity building of consortium members, to build their financial management and administrative capacity. Consortium Finance Coordinator will work in close collaboration with staff in the Program teams, BHA Northwest, Consortium team and Finance teams. The Consortium Finance Coordinator will provide support to the BHA Northwest Consortium team to review partners budgets at the proposal stage, participate in pre-award vetting processes, document all financial matters related to sub-awardees’ finances to assure audit readiness at all times, and manage sub-awardee finances documents/reports including budget review, financial report review, providing guidance and training related to finance to sub-awardees in order to strengthen their capacity. The Consortium Finance Coordinator acts as the focal point for financial and compliance aspects of the BHA Northwest Consortium for sub-awardees, including ensuring high-quality financial monitoring of sub-awardees.

Consortium Finance Coordinator

Major Responsibilities:

Financial Management

- Participate in partner’s proposal review and modification process focusing on sub-awardee budget. - Verifies partners’ financial reports and supporting documentation, making sure that expenses are reasonable, allowable, and allocable to the approved budget and comply with donor’s regulations. - Communicate findings to partners and ensuring timely follow-up to provide solutions and documenting the findings. Reviews must be based on partner risk and sampling or review of full documentation, as required. - Ensure proactive communication with sub-awardees about the submission of their financial reports according to terms of their sub-awards. - Ensure tracking of sub-awardee submission of financial reports, communicating delays to the Consortium Team Leader. - Review and validate spending plans from partners against reported expenditures, following-up with sub-awardees as needed. - Submit summary of reported expenditures and spending plans to Consortium Team Leader and Assistant Finance Controller and Deputy Director Finance, outlining follow-up steps. - Making sure that the sub-awardee financial reports are approved (signed) by the appropriate authority within IRC, preparing the Journal Voucher, fully coded and posted to Integra. - Respond to questions that arise from the Assistant Finance Controller and IRC HQ/UK regarding submitted financial reports. - Prepare Payment Requests for Sub-Awardee payment (advances and reimbursements), respond to questions that arise from the Abuja finance team and IRC HQ regarding submitted payment requests. - Ensure timely follow-up on the status of payments release, tracking them and informing sub- awardees in a timely manner on the status of the payments. Follow up with IRC HQ and sub- awardees confirm transfer and receipt of payments, respectively. - Ensure the financial monitoring and spot check visits to sub-awardee offices is conducted according to IRC requirements and standards. - Ensure monitoring visit plans drafted and submitted ahead of visits to Assistant Finance Controller to review and share monitoring visit reports in a timely manner to partners. - Participate in case management meetings with the program, finance, supply chain and other staff to respond to regular issues as they arise within partner management and ensuring properly coordinated and managed responses to sub-awardee issues as they arise. - Reconciling the sub-grantees advances on monthly basis, reports to the Assistant Finance Controller on all over-due, unliquidated advances, update on monthly basis all tracking sheets for sub-grants finances. - Ensure that a sound, accurate and organized archiving system is in place, both hard and soft (electronic) copies for all financial reports and their supporting documents. - Work with Assistant Finance Controller to collaborate internal and external audit to ensure proper compliance with all regulations and to ensure that all sub-awardee files in hard and soft copies are always 100% ready for audit. - In coordination with Consortium Team Leader and Assistant Finance Controller, develop or revise sub-awardee financial templates (including proposal budget formats, monthly/quarterly reporting templates, and other documents, as need). - Contribute to provision of guidance notes to sub-awardees for use of appropriate templates, overall budget drafting and submission as part of calls for proposals or budget modification sent to partners. Depending on nature of call or request, provide appropriate level of support current and potential sub-awardees to ensure proposal budgets and budget narratives meet IRC and donor requirements within set deadlines for submission.

Sub-Grant modifications:

- Review all sub-awardee budget modifications in coordination Consortium Team Leader, and Consortium Grants Manager ensuring clear action points for follow-up are communicated.

Vetting and Capacity-Building of Partners:

- Ensure to participate with IRC partnership team Pre-Award Financial Assessment (PAAs) is conducted for all new potential partners, as well as update the PAAs for all existing partners, on annual basis. Report to the Assistant. - Finance Controller and the Consortium Team Leader on the findings and provide recommendations for improvement. - Support in developing risk management action plan and suggest corrective actions to address/mitigate risks identified during the PAA process. - Design, update and deliver financial management training for partners’ staff, working closely with the Assistant Finance Controller on the training materials according to the needs in order to build the organizational capacity of the partner. - Conduct finance and general compliance monitoring visits to partners together with Consortium Grants Manager and prepare monitoring report and action plan to submit to Consortium Team Leader and share with partners in timely manner for each visit.

Management:

- Take the lead on the finance section of the Grant Opening, Review and Closing meetings, making sure that the partners are fully aware of donor regulations, all financial reporting requirements in terms of required documentation, reporting templates and deadlines. - Represents Finance in Sub-Grants Workshops, being the key facilitator and presenter for all Sub-Grants’ finance related sessions.

Other:

- Provide assistance with requests from IRC headquarters as directed by the Deputy Director Finance. - Any other duties as assigned by the Assistant Finance Controller and Consortium Team Leader

Key Working Relationships

- Position Reports to: Assistant Finance Controller. - Indirect/Technical Reporting: Northwest Consortium team Lead. - Position directly Supervises: Finance Manager/Officers

Qualifications

Education:

- Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, or any related field.

Work Experience:

- Minimum 7 years of progressive work experience in a non-profit setting overseeing and managing partners’ projects funded by major institutional donors, particularly BHA.

Demonstrated Technical Skills:

- Detailed knowledge of USAID/BHA rules and regulations. - Experience in USAID/BHA finance management and reporting. - Experience in training, capacity building, and mentoring staff, NGOs, and CBOs. - Excellent oral and written communication skills, including the ability to present to groups of all sizes. - Self-starter with the ability to work independently and as part of a team. - Demonstrated ability to work effectively under pressure and handle multiple simultaneous tasks. - Willingness to travel within Northwest- Nigeria. - Hard-working, sharp, and detail oriented. - Exceptional interpersonal skills, including tact, patience, diplomacy, and appropriate assertiveness. - Demonstrated managerial and leadership competencies.

Languages: Fluency in English

Computer/Other Tech Requirements:

- Proficiency in MS Office software suite – including Word, Excel, Power BI, PowerPoint and Outlook. - Experience working with databases and/or other tracking systems. - Ability to Travel: % of time if applicable.

Standards of Professional Conduct: The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in the IRC Way – Code of Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Harassment-Free Workplace, Fiscal Integrity, Anti-Retaliation, Combating Trafficking in Persons, and several others.

Gender Equality: IRC is committed to narrowing the gender gap in leadership positions. We offer benefits that provide an enabling environment for women to participate in our workforce including parental leave, gender-sensitive security protocols and other supportive benefits and allowances.

Working Environment

IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.