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Grants and Risk Senior Officer, East Africa

Primary Responsibilities
Key responsibilities and tasks may include, but are not limited to:
Strategic Grants Oversight

• Lead the development and implementation of regional grant management strategies to align with the programmes objectives.
• Oversee the entire grants lifecycle, from solicitation and evaluation to disbursement and closeout.
• Ensure the regional grants portfolio is balanced and aligned with programmatic and donor priorities.

Team Leadership and Capacity Building

• Supervise and mentor the Regional Grants Officer(s) to ensure high performance and adherence to policies.
• Provide training and technical guidance to grantees and internal staff on grant management processes, financial reporting, and compliance.
• Foster a culture of accountability, inclusion, and collaboration within the grants management team.

Risk Management

• Identify and assess risks across the grant portfolio during project identification and throughout implementation of awarded grants, including environment, social and governance (ESG) risks, and financial, operational, safeguarding and reputational risks, ensuring that risks are effectively mitigated in line with the programme’s risk management framework, or that risks are escalated as appropriate.
• Conduct due diligence on prospective grantees (this may be shared/supporting project officers).
• You will serve as the regional risk lead, acting as a point of contact for regional risk management, including providing support to risk owners to facilitate management of portfolio and grant-level risks, mitigation activities and overall management of risk registers.
• Manage the regional risk register, ensuring adherence and understanding of the programme’s risk appetite and management framework to manage risks and opportunities.
• Oversee regional reporting updates on the risk register, working with internal risk owners to ensure timely and quality updates of risks.
• Facilitate/attend risk committees, working with the global Risk Lead and risk owners.
• Engage and train/guide grantees where appropriate to communicate the programme’s risk management requirements and build capacity of grantees to meet risk reporting standards.
• Familiarity and experience of working with Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) Risk management is desirable, as it is one of the key risk areas in which this role will operate. However direct experience with ESG risks and risk management more generally is not a barrier to starting in this role, as we will offer training on the aspects of the job that involve risk management.

Finance, Compliance and Reporting

• Ensure all grants adhere to the programmes policies and the donor’s compliance requirements, including safeguarding, anti-corruption, and environmental standards.
• Monitor grant budgets, expenditures, and financial reports to ensure compliance with agreements and donor requirements.
• Oversee the preparation of grant-related reports and data for internal and donor reporting.
• Support the preparation of financial forecasts and budget allocations for regional grant activities.
• Support internal and external audits, ensuring the availability and accuracy of all required grant documentation.

Stakeholder Engagement and Partnerships

• Serve as the primary point of contact for grantees on grant management issues.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with grantees, ensuring effective communication and addressing challenges collaboratively.
• Work closely with regional teams, including project officers, technical advisors and monitoring & evaluation staff, to align grant activities with programmatic goals.

Process Improvement and Knowledge Management

• Regularly review and improve regional grant management processes to enhance efficiency and transparency.
• Capture lessons learned and share best practices across the region and the wider program.
• Contribute to the development of tools, templates, and systems to streamline grant administration.
• Any other tasks requested by your Manager.
• The role may include national and international travel.

Reporting Lines

• The role will report directly to the Regional Manager.
• You will indirectly report to the Grants Fund Manager and work closely with the Risk & Grants Lead and Grants Fund Senior Officer.

Qualifications and Experience

Essential

• Demonstrable experience in grants management, program management, or financial administration, with experience coordinating or supervising others.
• Familiarity with UK FCDO compliance requirements.
• Demonstrated familiarity with donor-funded programs, particularly in development or sustainable land-use and forestry sectors.
• In-depth knowledge of financial management, grant compliance, and risk mitigation strategies.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to build relationships across diverse stakeholders and cultures.
• Proficiency in grant management systems, financial tools, and Microsoft Office Suite.
• Proficient in written and spoken English Language.

Communications and Stakeholder Engagement Senior Officer, East Africa 

Primary responsibilities

Key responsibilities and tasks may include, but are not limited to:

Communications responsibilities (approximately 50%, based on programme requirements)

• Work closely with the CSE Lead and Regional Man.ager to design and deliver a CSE strategy and workplan for East Africa that aligns with the global CSE strategy;
• Oversee and coordinate knowledge management and outreach activities for the programme in the East Africa region, to raise awareness of the programme across a range of stakeholders and audiences and promote participation and engagement in the programme by private sector actors, national governments, and international and local civil society organisations;
• Manage the implementation of communications and outreach activities in the East Africa region, including activities to support the identification of projects, activities to review and strengthen the communications activities of partners and grantees, and activities to capture and share learning from the programme in the form of ‘knowledge products’;
• Manage the development of strong and engaging communications and ‘knowledge products’ including presentations, films, blogs, articles, project summaries, press releases, and reports to help convey compelling stories and programme results from East Africa, ensuring the correct use of the programme’s brand assets;
• Work closely with the central project team in the UK and the regional team to align regional communications and outreach activities to programme priorities and ensure consistent messaging;
• Plan and deliver online and in-person local and regional events, including programme launch activities, pipeline building events, and webinars and roundtables to share programme learnings with programme stakeholders;
• Coordinatingly closely with the CSE Lead, create social media and digital content for LinkedIn, the website, newsletter, and other digital channels which represent core communications channels for the programme;
• Create, plan and measure effective email communications campaigns and improve the quality of existing contact data in line with GDPR requirements;
• Working closely with the Regional Manager and East Africa team, lead on a mapping exercise of regional stakeholders (e.g. incubators, global commodity platforms, investors, finance networks, corporate and DFIs), and support on designing engagement objectives for different groups;
• Working closely with the Regional Manager and Director, help to maintain relationships with existing and new external stakeholders, support their ongoing engagement with the programme and keep the programme’s contact database up to date;
• Keep the Knowledge Hub for East Africa up to date with new communications outputs and materials, coordinatingly closely with the CSE Lead;
• Support the Regional Manager with the creation of programme reports including the Annual Reports, ensuring correct use of the programme branded assets;
• Support on the delivery of activities and outputs to support the programme’s Learning Agenda;
• Support the Communications and Stakeholder Engagement Lead in carrying out the annual consultation process (including surveys);
• Support the delivery of communications activities for other climate on nature initiatives for the East Africa region, where there is a need and capacity to do so;
• Support the delivery and response to reputational risk activities;
• Participate in relevant management meetings in relation to communication, knowledge management and/or grants management;
• Support and mentor the Communications and Stakeholder Engagement Associate, Central Africa and/or any junior staff in the regions as requested; and,
• Any other duties reasonably required by the Communications and Stakeholder Engagement Lead or East Africa Regional Manager.

Project Officer responsibilities (approximately 50%, based on programme requirements)

• Act as the relationship manager for projects and partnerships in sustainable forestry and land use that are being considered for funding or are already receiving support from the programme;
• Work with project leads at partner/grantee organisations, as well as internal and external experts, to strengthen concept notes, project proposals and other documentation for review by management teams and FCDO;
• Oversee the implementation of projects by grantees and subcontractors, in close collaboration with the Grants,
• Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning and Communications teams;
• Ensure effective management of projects under implementation and ensure timely reporting and monitoring to achieve project outcomes and impacts;
• Responsible for ensuring projects under implementation achieve programme milestone targets as planned;
• Lead and actively participate in team problem solving sessions and provide data insight and trends;
• Accelerate the development of projects for grants approval/ Technical Assistance approval in the region;
• Conduct regular monitoring visits to project sites for successful implementation of activities;
• Actively participate in relevant stakeholder meetings to build knowledge and engage with key stakeholders in the region;
• Identify opportunities to improve on own competency by undergoing trainings to build ability to contribute to program delivery;
• Any other tasks requested by your Manager.
• The role may include national and international travel.

Experience and Attributes

Essential

• Significant experience in communications and outreach and stakeholder engagement, with experience coordinating or supervising others;
• Demonstrated familiarity with donor-funded programs, particularly in development or sustainable land-use and forestry sectors;
• An excellent communicator who is able to build strong working relationships both internally and externally;
• Demonstrated ability to unpack and communicate complex concepts simply with a range of stakeholders in multi-cultural settings;
• Good knowledge of digital channels and tailoring content to their requirements;
• Strong in use of MS Office Applications (Word, PowerPoint, Excel);
• Proficient in written and spoken English Language;
• Able to work within a fast-paced team and contribute to the delivery of high-quality communications products;
• Excellent organizational and multitasking skills – ability to manage multiple projects comfortably;
• Strong leadership and mentoring capabilities;
•  Commitment to promoting sustainability, equity, and inclusion in Communications and Stakeholder Engagement.

Desirable

• Experience working on sustainable forestry, climate change, sustainable land use sector projects;
• Video production and editing skills;
• Graphic design skills and familiarity with document management, content management and web-based design (e.g. InDesign);
• Proficient in written and spoken Swahili language and/or other local languages in the region.

Method of Application

Use the link(s) below to apply on company website.

• Grants and Risk Senior Officer, East Africa
• Communications and Stakeholder Engagement Senior Officer, East Africa