Program and Award Officer, West Africa

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IRC - The International Rescue Committee

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Over the past 80 years, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has developed unparalleled expertise in responding to emergencies and helping uprooted communities to rebuild. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster.

The International Rescue Committee UK is part of the IRC global network, which has its headquarters in New York and London. The IRC is on the ground in more than 40 countries, providing emergency relief, relocating refugees and rebuilding lives in the wake of disaster.

The IRC is committed to a culture of bold leadership, innovation in all aspects of our work, creative partnerships and, most crucially, accountability to those we serve. The IRC is a tireless advocate for the most vulnerable.

IRC UK

IRC UK was established in 1997 to support the organisation’s global activities and particularly to diversify its donor base and be able to better advocate with policymakers on behalf of the people we serve. Since its establishment IRC UK has grown rapidly and now comprises approximately 170 staff.

The Awards Management Unit (AMU)

Established in January 2016, the Awards Management Unit (AMU) is a global unit with the responsibility for identifying, securing, and managing all funding from statutory/government donors. The unit is organized into five pillars: Strategic Partnerships, Program and Awards Support, Compliance and Policy, Business Development, and Training.

The AMU is a bridge between donors and Country Programs: providing expert technical advice to the country teams, while maintaining portfolio-level visibility to ensure consistency and compliance and help manage risk. This unit ensures that donor compliance policies and procedures are implemented consistently and supports all staff working across the grants management cycle for all restricted funding from global government sources.

The Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) Department

The Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) Department has a growing portfolio of humanitarian relief, post-crisis recovery, and development programs under their remit. This work focuses support in five key areas: ensuring safety from harm, improving health, increasing access to education, improving economic wellbeing, and ensuring people have the power to influence decisions that affect their lives. In all these programs, there is a drive to address the unique needs of women and girls (who represent the majority of those displaced) – and the universal barriers they face.

The CRRD works across 6 regions globally, including West Africa, East Africa, the Great Lakes, the Middle East and North Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The regional teams are the links between country offices and key HQ departments and aim to support and provide advice to country programs with a range of issues from strategic planning, business development to compliance, awards management, and partnerships management.

The Purpose of the Role

The Program and Awards Officer, supervised by the Program and Awards Advisor, supports country programs in their efforts to ensure successful implementation of IRC European donor award requirements and reporting, ensuring basic compliance, accurate financial information, and good quality narratives on program outputs. While this position will work across donor portfolios in the West Africa region, this role has a particular focus to support the IRC’s French government portfolio of grants, such as Agence Française de Développement (AFD) portfolio, across multiple regions as needed.

Scope and Authority

No direct reports.

Key Working Relationships

Reports to Program and Awards Advisor, West Africa. Works closely with Country Program and Regionally based colleagues in the West Africa region, as well as with the Director of Awards Management, with other Program & Awards Advisors and Officers, and across all teams within the Awards Management Unit, Crisis Response Recovery and Development Department, Global Partnerships and Philanthropy, and other key departments within IRC, with particular focus on supporting France Multi-Year Donor Engagement Strategy group.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

Award Management and Compliance (60%)

  • Support country programs of the West Africa region in the management of their portfolios funded by IRC’s European institutional donors in close collaboration with the Program & Awards Advisors.
  • Provide particular administrative and other support to country programs with an AFD portfolio and other French donor-funded work globally and across regions, including the processing of hard copy documents.
  • Working together with Program and Award Advisor support the France Donor Engagement Strategy, working together on supporting strong internal processes and capacity building in countries.
  • Review of narrative and financial reports, collaborating with and ensuring input from relevant colleagues.
  • Support country-based Grants & Finance colleagues and the Program & Award Advisors with budget realignments and award amendments/modifications, where necessary.
  • Support tracking of projects to ensure progress against objectives and compliance with donor guidelines.
  • Assist country offices with use of the IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results System (PEERS) - working with partners.
  • Assist country offices with ad-hoc queries on donor compliance issues.
  • In collaboration with Program and Award Support colleagues, track and document lessons learned from finalized projects and ensure they are fed into the Business Development team.
  • Inform and refer high level compliance matters to Program and Awards Advisors and the Director of Awards Management, West Africa for consultation with the IRC’s Compliance and Policy team.
  • Stay informed about programmatic issues and security and political developments in the region and how they might affect program implementation.
  • Maintain relevant team trackers and project reporting schedules.
  • Support country offices in maintenance of IRC’s award management system, OTIS, supporting awards teams to ensure that all IRC internal documentation and processes are followed, including support to internal project code updates as needed. Onboarding of country program Grants staff on OTIS as needed.
  • Handle hard copy document processing, timely signatures, and courier services.
  • Maintain regional award files in collaboration with the Regional Program and Awards Support team.
  • Keep IRC’s IATI publishing data up to date for any FCDO and DMFA-funded projects in the West Africa region on a quarterly basis, and for other donors as required.

Coordination (20%)

  • Maintain a strong relationship with country program teams, offering regular support on reporting and compliance issues, in coordination with Program and Award Advisors.
  • Maintain a strong relationship with the Regional Program & Awards Support team – reporting in regularly and copying them on relevant communications through an established communications protocol.
  • Maintain a strong relationship with all AMU teams and other departments to ensure the use of all IRC templates, guidance, policies, and procedures, and for participation in AMU working groups or work streams, as needed.
  • Assist with the organization of and note-taking for conferences, workshops and meetings as requested.
  • Liaise with support departments and other teams outside of AMU as needed to provide the best support to country offices.

Capacity Building and Training (10%)

  • Assist in the development and maintenance of work-processes and checklists for grant and contract implementation and report review.
  • Assist in the development of training materials and facilitate trainings.

Other Responsibilities (10%)

  • Provide coverage for key program/support functions remotely and in-country as requested, to assist with short-term gaps and emergency support.
  • Provide short term cover when Program and Awards Advisors are absent, supported by their line manager as needed.
  • Attend internal (and, where appropriate, external) trainings as available on donor, compliance and awards management, PEERS, or other subjects relevant to the role.
  • Additional duties in addition to the core job role will be discussed with supervisor as appropriate and could include, for example:

- Being the first point of contact for country programs on certain donor awards.

-Supporting with negotiation of contracts.

- Taking a lead on developing training in response to identified needs in the regions supported.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Experience and/or Qualifications:

Diversity of relevant experience is welcomed for this role. For example, experience may come from a mixture of paid and/or volunteer work, internships, transferrable skills from another industry, a gap year, etc.

Essential

  • Good understanding of Agence Francaise de Développement (AFD) and other European institutional donors and their requirements.

  • Good understanding of humanitarian aid and development programming.

  • Experience writing, reviewing and/or editing narrative and financial reports.

Desirable

  • Experience working with AFD would be a strong asset.
  • Experience working with other European institutional donors.

Skills:

  • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills - verbal and written English and French are essential
  • Ability to work collaboratively as part of a diverse team and manage a varied workload
  • Ability to efficiently multi-task and manage deadlines effectively
  • Excellent attention to detail
  • Solid organizational skills, including prioritization of tasks
  • Ability to work with colleagues successfully and effectively, within and across departments, in a multi-cultural environment
  • Both a great teammate and an independent performer in a fast-paced environment
  • A flexible work attitude and a desire to contribute to the culture of a supportive, highly engaged team
  • Good IT skills (Word, Outlook, Excel).

Candidates must have the right to work in the UK.

The closing date for applications is10th Feb 2023

IRC UK strives to be an equal opportunities employer. IRC UK is committed to equality of opportunity and to non-discrimination for all job applicants and employees, and we seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce regardless of gender, race, religious beliefs, nationality, ethnic/national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability.

IRC UK welcomes applications from all candidates, including underrepresented groups and refugees who have the right to work in the UK.

IRC UK will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable adjustments to participate in the job application and/or interview process, and for essential job functions if appointed to a role. Please contact us if you may need such adjustments.

If you have any questions or need assistance with the online recruitment process, please contact the IRC UK HR team atapplications@rescue-uk.org

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Added 1 year ago - Updated 11 months ago - Source: rescue.org