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Senior Finance and Grants Officer

The Position Summary

• The Senior Finance and Grants Officer is responsible for conducting pre-award assessments, post award management and close outs for Sauti subcontracts and sub awards. S/he will also support efforts to build the capacity of downstream partners to meet finance and compliance requirements of USAID, so that these partners develop professional personnel and systems. The Senior Finance and Grants Officer is responsible for review of financial files/records both soft and physical to ensure that partner files are up to date.

Essential Job Responsibilities

Process

• Conduct day to day management and implementation of the grants work plan under Sauti.
• Propose revisions to grant processes and procedures based on experience and lessons learned and coordinate proposed changes with the Finance and Grants Manager.

Pre-Award

• Participate in the solicitation and selection of sub recipients and subcontracts, working closely with the technical team to identify potential areas of support, eligibility and evaluation criteria
• Work with selected grantees to ensure budgets are in line with program activities and that costs are reasonable, allowable and allocable.
• Conduct due diligence assessments on all grants including business feasibility, evaluate environmental requirements and pre-award assessment of financial responsibility to ensure sub recipients have the capacity to comply with the terms of subcontract agreement, is free of conflicts of interest and are eligible organizations.
• Assist with drafting and reviewing of sub-award agreements, ensuring use of correct agreement templates, standard terms and conditions are included, follow up with both Mercy Corps and partner signing and ensure that a fully executed subcontract agreement is filed by both Mercy Corps & partner
• Develop financial monitoring plans for partners

Post-Award

• Conduct post-award trainings for the sub-recipients on grants administration, applicable donor regulations and reporting requirements.
• Identify sub-recipient/grantee capacity building needs and provide technical assistance where needed and trainings to assure compliance.
• Conduct financial monitoring office visits to ensure that the use of funds and the activities performed are in compliance with the terms and conditions of the subcontracts.
• Review sub-recipient/grant financial reports for accuracy and completeness and regularly monitor their budgets vis-a-vis financial reports
• Review sub-recipient/grant funds requests for accuracy and completeness and process payments/reimbursements as appropriate.
• Maintain complete and accurate files for all sub-recipient/grant files as per the Field Finance Manual.
•  Review and post the financial reports in Navigator ensuring they are reconciled to partner financial reports regularly.
•  Review status of subcontracts reports ensuring milestones in Navigator are up to date
• Serve as primary point of contact for all correspondence and notifications to partners.
• Facilitate sub-award modifications
• Maintain a log of details of all Sauti partners including name of sub-contractor, contact details (including address, email, telephone and contact names), types of services provided and duration of sub-contract
• Monitor grantee assets by ensuring that grantee assets are reported on and disposed of in accordance with donor rules
• Facilitate sub award modifications

Close-out

• Review final financial reports for accuracy and completeness
• Conduct final funds reconciliation and liquidation of sub contracts
• Participate in final close out reviews
• Review consortium partners and downstream files to ensure that partner records are complete
• Follow up on asset disposition ensuring that all assets purchased by the partners with Sauti funds are disposed of in accordance with donor rules
• Prepare final Close-out checklists and notification to consortium and downstream partners

Others

• Responsible for the preparation of monthly and quarterly reports for grant activities that feed into the Sauti report.
• Ensure that project activities comply with Mercy Corps internal policies and procedures, as well as Donor rules and regulations.
• Participate in the development and implementation of the project’s annual work plans.
• Support Finance team with other grants or finance sector activities.
• Coordinate expenditure verification and project audits and follow up on management decisions regarding audit findings ensuring these are documented and communicated to the partners
• Ensure that field staff are familiar with grants management procedures.

Supervisory Responsibility

None

Accountability

Reports directly to: Senior Finance and Grants Manager,

Works directly with: Chief of Party, Finance and Compliance Director, Programme Teams, Field Finance/Grants Team, Consortium and downstream partners.

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders

• Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills

• A Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Finance, Economics or relevant field; an advanced degree is preferred.
• Professional accounting certification CPA(K).
• At least five (5) years of demonstrated professional experience managing grants, subcontracts, procurement and compliance with donor regulations, preferably Donor-funded projects.
• Strong accounting skills and experience, including management of the general ledger, journal entries, payables and balance sheet.
• Demonstrated experience applying clauses and negotiating without heavy management oversight including developing amendments and modifications as a result of negotiations.
• Experience providing capacity-building training to staff partner organizations.
• Strong analytical and computer skills, with emphasis on budget and financial analysis and advanced computer skills in MS Office, particularly Excel are required.
• Fluency in the English Language is required.
• Other required competencies and skills include:

Grants Administration

• Knowledge and application of best practices in grant management.
• Demonstrated knowledge of financial and management systems, regulations and reporting requirements. Evidence of ability to be creative and flexile within those requirements.
• Analytical capabilities with accounting procedures and processes for structuring projects.
• Knowledge of grants management software and information technology skills.

Management and Communications

• Ability to communicate technical, budgetary and program details to staff, grantees and applicants.
• Ability to design and implement effective workflow processes and procedures.
• Capability to foster an atmosphere which recognizes and respects cultural and individual differences.

Program Officer (Mombasa)

General Position Summary

• The Program Officer is a key member of the program team and will report to the Chief of Party. She/he will support the day-to-day program team in the identification of the needs and opportunities and provide relevant information to facilitate the program team’s ability to develop activity ideas.

Essential Responsibilities

 PROGRAM SUPPORT

• Work with the Sauti Chief of Party and consortium partners to support all relevant aspects of Sauti implementation in pursuit of the program goals and outcomes.
• Provide updates and analysis of key developments in targeted thematic areas or geographies.
• Identify needs and opportunities and provide relevant information to facilitate the program team’s ability to develop activity ideas.
• Work with the grants team and downstream partners to develop organized, complete and thorough budgets that are harmonized with grant applications.
• Under the direction of the Chief of Party, develop and maintain relationships with organizations/ actors in key target sectors (e.g. faith organizations, youth groups, women’s organizations, CBOs/local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), local government officials, etc.).

 MONITORING AND EVALUATION

• Work with the monitoring and evaluation team and partners in program monitoring, evaluation and learning with:
• Support with tracking partners’ activities – attending all events in the targeted counties, as relevant.
• Support partners on activity-level M&E efforts, ensuring quality, reliability, and consistency in data collection efforts using program M&E templates.
• Help identify lessons learned from project implementation and facilitate the incorporation of those lessons into the activity development cycle.
• Meet regularly with the program team to evaluate project progress, identify successes, challenges and lessons-learned; and adjust practices as necessary to improve performance.
• Prepare and submit to the program team reports of specific events, field trips and meetings attended.
• Support the team in effectively utilizing established monitoring and evaluation formats and provide feedback for their improvement.
• Any other duties as assigned by your supervisor.

Supervisory Responsibility

• None

Accountability

Reports Directly to: Sauti Chief of Party

Works Directly with: Sauti Senior Program Manager, Director of Programs, PAQ Department, Partner Staff, Technical Advisors

Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills

• Bachelor’s degree in conflict/peace studies preferred, or appropriate social science discipline, community development, or related field.
• Minimum of 3 years professional experience, including (preferably) in implementing peace, Prevention of Violent Extremism and Conflict related projects.
• Highly developed analytical skills, including the ability to support design targeted activities to positively affect desired PVE outcomes with at-risk individuals and communities.
• Ability to interact effectively with the diverse project stakeholders especially with the security sector and electoral bodies.
• Experience working in PVE programming, conflict or post conflict settings and conflict sensitive programming.
• Experience working with stakeholders including the private sector, government, youth and women groups.
• Experience in project monitoring and evaluation.
• Strong analytical and report writing skills.
• Previous working experience in Mombasa and the Coast region is strongly preferred.
• Good knowledge and skills with the of MS Office applications such as Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and Access.

Monitoring & Evaluation Officer – 6 Months Maternity Cover (Samburu)

General Position Summary

• The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer is a key position for program quality assurance, accountability, documentation and learning. The position holder will support the USAID Nawiri team in planning and execution of monitoring and evaluation activities at the county level while ensuring implementation quality in accordance with accepted standards, providing essential feedback for learning, accountability and decision making. S/he will support the program adaptive management agenda i.e. collaborating, learning and adapting. Support county and sub-county teams in rolling-out a responsive M&E system that can provide updated and relevant information for effective program implementation. Support capacity building of program staff, County Data Focal Point Officers and M&E Assistants on data collection, analysis and visualization as well as strengthening the existing systems to be able to produce reliable/quality data and support data platforms, used for decision-making at sub-county and ward level.

Essential Responsibilities

STRATEGY AND PLANNING

• Support development and roll-out of USAID Nawiri monitoring and evaluation strategy and tools.
• Participate in platforms for the program management and collaboration at county and sub-county level and promote evidence-based county and program adaptive management. Support program targeting, design, integration, layering and sequencing and support tracking of resilience programing at county and sub-county level.
• Provide M&E leadership to Program teams and M&E Assistants at sub-county level and ensure program implementation coherence and integration.

RESULT BASED MONITORING & EVALUATION

• Conduct data collection, collation, review, validation, and analysis of program data at county, sub-county and Ward Level.
• Support the County Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Coordinator to roll-out M&E Plan at county and sub-county level.
• In conjunction with the County MEL Coordinator, development of supportive supervision and mentoring plan for the program team on data collection, entry, analysis and use for decision-making.
• Support learning initiatives at county and sub-county level including facilitating documentation of lessons learned and success stories.
• In collaboration with the MIS team, conduct program participant registration and maintain updates program participants databases to at county, sub-county and Ward-level.
• Support in conducting regular Routine Data Quality Assurance (RDQA) in collaboration with the program team for the reported data to ensure adherence to USAID/ Mercy Corps data quality standards.
• Support County Program team in the preparation of quarterly/annual activity reports and verification of reported data.
• Participate in county government M&E system strengthening strategy at sub-county and ward level including roll-out of Actionable Context monitoring system at county, sub-county and ward-level including ensuring data use for planning and decision-making at all levels.
• Participate in annual surveys, Qualitative Inquiries (QI) and Post Distribution Monitoring Surveys intended to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of USAID Nawiri programing at county level and meet required BHA reporting requirements Ensure adherence to Mercy Corps program management minimum standards and Community Accountability Mechanism (CARM)

CAPACITY BUILDING

• Facilitate program teams in periodic reflection and analysis of project monitoring information that feeds into USAID Nawiri programming and learning and sub-county and ward-level.
• Support timely production of weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual donor reports based on agreed performance indicators and timelines.
• Build the capacity of all relevant team members to implement program-monitoring tools, accurately enter program data into relevant databases, and enable them to develop excellent reports and other documents.

 PROGRAM ADVISORY

• Maintain an active advisory role with the program team to help guide them towards robust and relevant data collection, validation, analysis and decision-making.
• Actively participate in all implementation monitoring, providing timely feedback on quality-of-service delivery at any point.
• Establish and maintain strong working relationships with partners and government departments.
• Support the process of testing and adopting relevant technologies for improving the efficiency of the program’s MEL function. This will include supporting testing and rollout of Mobile Data Collection tools (Ona), CommCare, GIS/GPS technologies for Mapping, and managing MCK’s internal data management platform, Tola Data.

OTHER

• Conduct himself/herself both professionally and personally in such a manner as to bring credit to Mercy Corps and to not jeopardize its humanitarian mission.
• Other duties as assigned from time to time by supervisor.

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders

• Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills

• Must hold at least a bachelor’s degree in social science, Statistics, International development, Health, Agriculture or relevant field (with coursework in M&E, research and evaluation methodologies, statistical analysis or organizational development) or similar field of study.
• At least 2-4 years of program monitoring and evaluation experience
• Experience working with USAID funded project and familiarity with USAID/FFP M&E guidance and requirement is an added advantage.
• Should understand general MEL concepts and demonstrate skills in MEL system (i.e. Theories of Change, Results Frameworks/Logical Frameworks, MEL Plans and Data Collection tools).
• Must have good writing and analytical skills.
• Should have knowledge of quantitative and qualitative data collection, reporting techniques. S/he should understand and be able to apply basic measures of central tendency and spread.
• In addition to Microsoft Excel, the incumbent should demonstrate fluency in use of at least one data management software including SPSS, STATA, and Power BI/Tableau for visualization.
• Must be fluent in both spoken and written English. Understanding of local language will be an added advantage.

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