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Program and Award Officer, East Africa
The Purpose of the Role
- The Program and Award Officer is responsible for providing awards and partnerships management and operational support to country programs as well as to the regional unit. This role supports the Program and Award Advisor and country programs in their efforts to ensure successful implementation of IRC’s donor award requirements and reporting, ensuring basic compliance, accurate financial information, and good quality narratives on program outputs. The position entails the potential for limited in-country or remote support to country program Grants and Partnerships teams and/or regional teams. While the Program and Award Officer will work across East Africa’s donor portfolio, this role will support a particular on US Government, UN and other US managed portfolio of awards as agreed with the line manager.
Scope and Authority
No direct reports
Key Working Relationships
- Reports to Program and Award Advisor. Works closely with Director Award Management, all Regional Program and Award Support team members, and across all teams within Awards Management Unit, Crisis Response Recovery and Development Department, Global Partnerships and Philanthropy, and other key departments within IRC.
KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES
Award Management and Compliance (60%)
- Support the Program and Awards Advisors and country programs in the management of the award portfolio for the region.
- Review, edit, and provide substantive feedback on donor narrative and financial reports, coordinating with and ensuring input from relevant staff prior to donor submission and submit reports in a timely manner.
- Assist Program and Award Advisor to provide key programmatic and awards related communications to donors.
- Assist Program and Award Advisor in the preparation, review, and submissions of new award agreements and award modifications, including liaising with various departments to obtain signed approvals and helping to complete modification packages.
- Support budget realignments and award amendments/modifications, where necessary.
- Collaborate with Program and Award Advisor in review of sub-award and partnership packages, including sub-award proposals, sub-award agreements and modifications, as well as collaboration agreements and MOUs, ensuring compliance with donor requirements and IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results System (PEERS).
- Assist Program and Award Advisor with the development and review of program proposals as necessary.
- Support monitoring projects to ensure progress against objectives and compliance with donor guidelines.
- 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 program development team.
- Inform and refer high level compliance matters to Program and Award Advisors and Director, Awards Management for consultation with the 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 and communicate an accurate record of award deliverables to country program grants teams on a regular basis.
- Maintain the region’s award filing system at HQ and update on a regular basis regional trackers, including awards trackers – as specified by region.
- Work with Program and Award Advisor and country office grants staff to ensure that award opportunities on OTIS (internal web-based grants management system) are up to date.
- Provide ad-hoc trainings and technical assistance to grants and partnerships staff on IRC systems, awards management processes, and donor compliance, as necessary. This includes assisting country offices with the use of IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results System (PEERS).
- Keep IATI data up to date on a quarterly basis for relevant donors, as required.
Coordination (20%)
- Maintain a strong relationship with the regional team members – reporting on a regular basis 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 templates, guidance, policies and procedures established by AMU, and for participation in AMU work groups or work streams, as needed.
- Maintain strong relationship with country program awards teams offering regular support on reporting and compliance issues, in coordination with Program and Award Advisors.
- Assist with the organization and note taking of conferences, workshops and meetings as requested.
- Liaise with support departments and other teams outside of AMU as needed in order to provide the best support to country offices.
- Provide additional operational support as needed and requested.
Capacity Building and Training (10%)
- Assist in the development and maintenance of work-processes and checklists for award 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 Award Advisors are absent supported by their line manager as needed.
- Attend internal (and where appropriate external) IRC trainings as available on donor, compliance and awards management, PEERS, or other relevant subjects to the role.
- Participate in special projects and/or additional duties as needed, and in agreement with the Program and Award Advisor. This could include, but is not limited to:
- Being the first point of contact for country programs
- Supporting with negotiation of contracts
- Taking a lead on developing training
- Serving as the focal point for regional donors on certain awards
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PERSON SPECIFICATION
Essential
Skills, Knowledge and Qualifications:
- Understanding of institutional donors and their requirements; experience working with USAID, PRM, and other U.S. Government donors as well as UN donors.
- Good understanding of humanitarian aid and development programming
- Ability to work collaboratively as part of a diverse team and manage a varied workload
- Ability to multi-task and work to tight deadlines
- Excellent communication skills including active listening and verbal and written English
- Solid organizational skills, detail oriented, ability to multi-task and prioritize tasks, and to learn quickly
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, the ability to successfully and effectively liaise with people within and across departments in a multi-cultural environment
- Ability to proactively take initiative and ownership for their scope of responsibilities with minimal prompting needed from others
- Both a team player and independent performer in a very fast paced environment
- A flexible work attitude and a calm manner
- Fluency in English
- Good IT skills (Word, Outlook, Excel)
Experience:
- 2+ years’ experience in working in the humanitarian sector, particularly with donors such as USAID, PRM, and the UN
- 2+ years experience writing, reviewing and editing narrative and financial reports and excellent attention to detail
- In-country experience preferred, regional experience in particular
- Experience working in the region desirable, particularly in one of the countries in which the IRC is currently operating