Senior Finance Coordinator

Job Description

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is among the world’s leading humanitarian relief and development organisations. For 80 years, the IRC has been at the forefront of every major humanitarian initiative to assist people uprooted by war, persecution, or civil conflict. IRC staff go to the toughest places, implement both immediate response and long-lasting programs, and conduct the type of applied research and advocacy the aid community needs to continually push itself to find better solutions for people. In all its country programs and in the US, IRC partners with local governments and others to achieve outcomes related to people’s health, education, safety, power and economic well-being.

Present in Sierra Leone since 1999, IRC supports the Sierra Leonean institutions – government, civil society, community-based organizations and private sector – to provide improved social services. The IRC does this through programs and partnerships designed to improve the life of women, youth and children by implementing Health, Education, and Women’s Protection and Empowerment programming.

Background and objective of the Sierra Leone Secondary Education Improvement Project (SSEIP)

The SSEIP programme is a 5 year intervention with a potential budget of £10 million. The overall aim of the programme is to improve access, safety, learning and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) outcomes for 1.15 million children aged 12-17 (including 575,000 adolescent girls and 52,000 children with disability) over the life of the programme and lead to:

• A halving in the rate of adolescent girls out of school or in non-formal education

• A reduction in the rate of 15–19-year-old adolescents who have begun childbearing.

• At least 160,000 more girls, and children with disability, enrolled and progressing through school or provided with out of school learning opportunities.

• A doubling in the number of girls passing secondary school examinations.

Scope of Work

The IRC is recruiting for a Senior Finance Coordinator for SSEIP. The Senior Finance Coordinator has overall policy and management responsibility for the finance and accounting functions for the project. he Finance Coordinator provides the leadership and management necessary to ensure the project has the appropriate financial infrastructure and systems in place to support the smooth project implementation. S/he will contribute to the development of the Project’s strategic and operational plans and be accountable for ensuring and monitoring delivery against the financial plans through targeted and comprehensive financial analytical review.

Areas of Responsibility:

• Establishes project’s finance and supporting function policies, systems and procedures, and directs or performs their development, documentation, and implementation.

• Manages project finance activities and schedules to meet the financial reporting requirements and deadlines specified by London HQ and FCDO. Prepares quarterly accrual reports, expenditure reporting, and burn rate projections.

• Provides project management and program staff with monthly actual-to-budget analysis for project funds and facilitate the review and discussion.

• Ensures balance sheet reconciliations are completed monthly and on a timely basis and review final reconciliations and trial balances with the IRC Director of Finance.

• Closely monitors all financial activities, and keeps the Senior Team Leader advised of all situations which have the potential for a negative impact on internal controls or financial performance.

• Directs the preparation of and approval of all FCDO financial reports in respect to accounting, legal and contractual requirements and ensures the review of such reports by the Senior Team Leader and HQ prior to submission.

• Enforces internal control policies and procedures relating to the project.

• Maintains current knowledge of local government requirements related to financial matters and ensures compliance with tax regulations and other legal requirements.

• Establishes project finance roles and responsibilities matrix; ensures job descriptions are current; recruits and maintains qualified staff to perform finance functions.

• Develops and implements a training program for the project’s finance staff.

• Oversees the timely preparation, review and approval of project related monthly bank account and cash reconciliations.

• Designs, implements, and monitors systems, procedures and reporting necessary to maintain on current basis accurate forecasts of cash requirements for meeting future spending, including commitments entered into and which obligate IRC to future spending.

• Supervises the preparation of Cash Transfer Requests to London/New York and ensures that appropriate cash balances are maintained to facilitate project implementation.

• Lead the process of budget preparation and revision.

• Prepares the annual and monthly cash budgets based on approved funding.

Perform other duties and responsibilities as required.

Qualifications

To effectively deliver this engagement, the applicant should meet the following requirements:

• A bachelor’s degree from an accredited university in Accounting, Business Administration, Commerce or Finance with a recognized professional certificate in accounting such as CPA, or a master’s degree in Accounting.

• Minimum of 8 years in similar financial, compliance, or operational role supporting FCDO and international donor projects in similar development contexts and at least five years in a Finance Coordinator position.

• Experience with budgeting and financial reporting requirements on large FCDO funded projects in accordance with the appropriate award mechanism.

• Experience with financial management and reporting on projects with substantial subaward components.

• Strong knowledge of generally accepted accounting practices, financial reporting standards, financial management processes and procedures.

• Familiarity with FCDO rules and regulations.

• Extensive experience in working with computerized accounting systems, standard spreadsheet and database programs (ERP systems).

• Good written and verbal skills in English

Please note that the JD is high level and indicative only at this stage and may be subject to change once the Terms of Reference for the programme is released and as the opportunity develops. This position will be contingent on the outcome of the bid.

The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Equality and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.

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Qualifications