The CARE Kenya’s Girls Empowerment Project aims at effectively empowering marginalized adolescent girls expand life choices through access to quality learning; equip them with knowledge and skills to be engaged in the 21st Century. The project will use a multi sectoral approach to lifelong learning to capitalize on opportunities to learn about the intersection of quality education, leadership skills development, adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH), economic empowerment and utilization of Information, Communication and Technological (ICT) to support and enhance learning.
The purpose of the Grants Officer position is to support the Project Manager and Grants Manager in managing and coordinating all financial aspects of the Project to ensure there is optimal compliance with contract obligations and that partners have capacities to administer the funds, utilise in an accountable manner and report timely. In order to achieve this, the Grants Officer, shall support the development of a projects operational and sub grants manual, ensure the operationalization of the project grants management systems; specifically ensure compliance with CARE Kenya’s financial systems and CARE Kenya Operational manuals, support interpretation and enforcement of all contract obligations in partner contracts, technical assistance (TA) and operational budgets; provide on going support and supervision to partners to comply with standard contract clauses to enhance quality program delivery but also compliance, provide technical advise on financial, grants and governance management components during field technical support visits while also implementing technical and capacity building on financial systems strengthening, to ensure sub contractor systems are supportive to Girls Empowerment Project contract compliance; identify risks to contract compliance and adress these, while enuring to inform management on timely basis. Where need be, the grants officer shall support the setting up of grants management systems for partners. The grants officer shall support the Project Manager and Grants Manager, in developing grants portfolio performance reports with a view to monitoring and ensuring that CARE and contractor budgets are effectively and timely utilized as per Project work plan and targets, review partners’ financial reports submitted against project targets and partner contract provisions in consultation with project officers; and support preparation of annual partners and audits.
The Grants Officer shall primarily report to Project Manager – Girls Empowerment Project as well as to the Grants Manager. He/She shall get day to day grants management and technical support from the Grants manager while working on operational areas with the project manager as well as closely with peer level project officers; shall get day to day management support from program and program support units to support effective administration of the project. The Grants Officer shall keep the project team informed of all processes and procedures related to grants performance, including capacity building and institutional support. He/she will work closely with the project officers to understand the technical components which will inform the grants component, support adherance to all financial contract compliance aspects by ensuring that funds are clearly projected and that targets are clearly costed and contracted by supporting partners development and review of budgets to ensure harmony with project performance targets, (financial and project targets), work plan per required timelines, funds utilization is adequately documented, accounted for, reported and cleared. A key indicator of success of the position will be the realization of full contract compliance per partner; that targets contracted and financed per delivery area, and operational areas are fully accounted for within the project period under which they are utilized; improvement in partners technical capacities in financial and grants management and that the project is cleared in all audits to CARE and partners.
Tasks and responsibilities
R 1: Grants Coordination, Contract and Compliance and Capacity Building
1.1. Support the Project Manager in the development of project grants management systems and cycles notably; develop/review the partners accounting manual, M&E framework and ensure to provide feedback on indicators for grants compliance and tracking.
1.2. Develop specific partners’ grants and contract management work plans and (sub sets of the work plan) and share these with the Project Manager, for review and consolidation for use in preparing the PMF (Project Monitoring Folder) and in doing so identifying and lifting core contract components per partner and mechanisms for supporting partners implementation of the same.
1.3. Work with partners to ensure the understanding of contractual clauses (standards and conditions), support their development of actions (work plan) for implementing conditions in the grant agreement and jointly identify indicators for results of tracking conditions by dates, and provide CARE’s support required to support these components and working with them as appropriate to ensure conditions are met as per project requirements.
1.4. Develop reports and share with Project Manager highlighting risks and challenges foreseen on contract compliance during field visits and upon review of project reports, while identifying, recommending mitigation actions including and not limited to enforcement of contractual agreements, capacity development among others.
1.5. Document progress made against grants and contracts management work plans and Capacity Building plans on a quarterly basis ensuring to focus on emerging actions for follow ups and improvements.
1.6. Identify institutional gaps at partner level, discuss and develop conditions per partner and ensure that they are captured in partner contracts with clear timelines for meeting them and provisions for non-compliance, but also technical support required from CARE to improve on partner’s capacities.
1.7. In liaison with the project officers and upon development of work plans and budgets, timely prepare partner contracts taking on board conditions of institutional assessments; ensure the contracts are reviewed by Grants Manager and Project Manager.
1.8. Support the Project Manager in developing indicators for measuring compliance to sub-contractor clauses and in consultation with Project officers, Grants Manager and Project Manager, ensure these are consolidated and lifted in partner field monitoring forms for use by the grants and project officers during field supervision visits as shall be required from time to time.
1.9. Develop in consultation with contact project officers field monitoring work plans and share these for review by the Project Manager and Grants Manager, and upon approval implement these, with a view to strengthening partners’ oversight, identification of risks and taking actions to minimize risks to grants underutilization and misappropriation.
1.10. Prepare field grants monitoring reports ensuring that you develop clear action points and timelines for follow up after field supervision visits and share these with the Project Manager and Grants Manager for review and further advice.
1.11. Develop key points of lessons or challenges encountered during grants coordination and administration and share these with Supervisors while developing presentations for grants management sessions.
1.12. Proactively and timely identify financial and governance risks of individual partners and communicate these in writing to CARE’s management through the Project and Grants Managers.
1.13. Prepare, on a timely basis, requests for support from key departments and individuals through the Project Manager, matters related to contract management and compliance and ensure timely follow up i.e. financial reporting, funds transfer/disbursements, procurements, among others.
1.14. Implement the operations manual, sub grants management, financial and sub grants policies and procedures to ensure effective CARE’s, partners and sub-contractors compliance to terms and conditions as well as systems and processes.
1.15. Support the Project Manager to develop funds disbursement requests.
1.16. Develop partners’ portfolio performance reports, after undertaking individual sub contractor reconciliations and identifying actions needed per partner and timely share these with the Project Manager to consolidate and develop grants portfolio performance on a monthly basis. Upon decisions on actions required per partner based on the portfolio performance reports, develop action points for follow up, monitoring and tracking while keeping the Project Manager informed.
1.17. Review individual partners financial expense reports in consultation and jointly with project officers in order to ensure harmony in project targets achieved and funds utilization on a monthly basis and as often as reports are submitted, provide feedback to contact Project officer, Grants Manager and Project Manager for actions that are required for onward communication and follow up. To ensure optimal compliance, the reports must be reviewed against contractual requirements and in line with budget provisions.
1.18. Provide technical capacity building for identified capacity building needs during sessions (on-site or workshop sessions) for partners and staff on grants management to enhance grants compliance and performance.
1.19. Support the Project Manager in drafting management letters to partners and or addendums for review of contracts in time, upon identification of needs and upon advise and request by the Grants and Project Manager by CARE’s management through the Grants Manager.
1.20. Document, file while referencing all correspondences by date and per partner and periodically review actions taken to ensure that all concerns raised in contracts, correspondences are well addressed and therefore enhance optimal contract compliance.
1.21. Support the Project Manager in the preparation, review and production of project reports (inclusive of financial components).
1.22. Consolidate and share list of project assets inventory held by partners to Project Manager for consolidation and ensuring reporting as per donor requirements and CARE Kenya policies and regulations.
1.23. Support the Project Manager in preparation of annual audits and lead the coordination of contact partners’ annual audits in consultation with Project Manager and as shall be advised by the Project manager while ensuring provision of timely, accurate and authentic responses to project audit queries.
1.24. Ensure funds disbursement requests by partners are processed timely to facilitate timely disbursement of funds to partners and as per signed sub grants contracts and CAREs policies.
1.25. Facilitate timely liquidation of outstanding advances as per the accepted financial accounting documents from partners.
1.26. Facilitate effective communication regarding partners’ financial obligations and accounting issues in line with CAREs management procedures
R 2: Budget Management and Partner Support
Tasks
2.1. Support the project team in preparation and allocation of partners’ budgets, while ensuring that all partner scope is effectively budgeted, and are within approved budgets.
2.2. With technical support from the Project Manager, support partners in developing and operationalizing the project budget, grants tracking tool, and provide technical training for partner Project managers to ensure that all transactions undertaken are posted in the budget tracking tool on a daily basis for purposes of ensuring that partners are able to effectively manage Project budgets and ease financial and project reporting. Periodically and at a minimum monthly, review budget utilization per partner and prepare portfolio performance and share these with Project Manager for review, consolidation for the project and advice for decision making.
2.3. Provide training and support to partners in the utilization of budget tracking, procurement plan and costed work plan templates as developed by the Project Manager and Grants Manager; Ensure partners’ utilization of the templates and compliance, and provide feedback to Project Manager and Grants Managers after partner visits.
2.4. Provide training support to the Project team in the utilization of grants management templates and provide technical support during ongoing implementation to ensure effective CARE and partners’ budget management.
2.5. Undertake monthly review of budget utilization by partners and undertake reconciliation of the Girls Empowerment partner project accounts against budget utilization, and advise Project Manager and Grants manager as appropriate.
2.6. Support timely preparation of donor financial reports and all expenses incurred by partners and ensure they are dully accounted for by CARE before submission of reports to donors.
2.7. Provide support to partners for timely response to budget queries
2.8. Ensure effective implementation of all CARE financial and operational and administrative policies and procedures while undertaking budget management roles.
2.9. Support preparation of funds management presentations to Girls Education and Empowerment project forums as may be requested by project management from time to time.
2.10. Attending project coordination meetings as shall be advised among other project coordination meetings and as shall be relevant and upon consultation with line manager and management.
R3: Project Grants monitoring, evaluation and Reporting
Tasks
3.1. Provide support to Project Manager in documenting processes for meeting contractual conditions such as minutes of meetings, processes and deliverables, management letters among others that CARE will use to support decisions made on key contractual issues. These may include partner selection processes and tools used for assessment of capacities, minutes of selection of auditors among others.
3.2. Support the Project Manager in developing grants monitoring tools such as relevant forms and indicators for measuring compliance, field grants monitoring forms, budget tracking tools’, procurement plans and costed work plans ( for CARE and partner) and utilize these in effecting monitoring and evaluation of performance of the grant to ensure optimal utilization and success of the project.
3.3. Review the M&E framework developed with a view to informing management for review to incorporating grants management indicators and monitor grants indicators performance for partners in liaison and close working relationship with partner project level staffs on a monthly basis or as need arises.
3.4. Support the developing progress monitoring reports on grants performance
3.5. Monitor partners’ utilization of grants monitoring tools developed for use by CARE and partners for the project and shares these reports
3.6. Coordinate field monitoring visits for project and grants officers to ensure cost effectiveness, technically sound support and those partners are supported effectively and that grants monitoring information from partner monitoring is as accurate as possible.
3.7. Support the Project Manager in the development of TORs for project evaluations and financial capacity building sessions to ensure that grants and financial components are well articulated; support technical review of consultancy applications ensuring that concise assessment criteria is developed and operationalized; provide technical oversight to project financial related consultancies for contact partners to ensure deliverables are met to stipulated standards and document clients’ feedback; timely follow up with grants accountants in processing of payments for such engagements.
3.8. Support the Project Manager in developing components of grants project progress reports. The reports should reflect progress in achieving targets, conditions precedent and standard conditions, partners’ compliance to contractual obligations, risks assessment per partner and impacts on the Girls Education and Empowerment Project, support required from project and project support teams to enhance success of project and overall aspects across the components of the PMF.
R4: Partnership Strengthening, Technical Assistance, Knowledge management and learning
Tasks
4.1. Support Project Manager in organizing partner review meetings while developing key points and grants performance review presentations to various actors in order to inform challenges, lessons learnt and promising practices for purposes of improving performance and knowledge sharing in the project.
4.2. Identify and project financial and governance related technical assistance needs for adressing capacity weaknesses based on capacity assessment reports and field technical support sessions; and support the development and implemention of capacity building (CB) and technical assistance (TA) plans.
4.3. Provide technical support for economic citizenship scope of work to ensure capacity building of project participants on financial education and literacy and adoption of models that enhance economic empowerment of impact group, their households and partners.
4.4. Coordinate with other CARE Kenya program and project managers in informing learning and improvements on grants performance, economic citizenship, partnerships coordination among key areas of institutional development.
4.5. Support the development of a system to identify and document grants management promising practices at the start of the project, organize partner review and sharing sessions, present project progress, lessons learnt and best practices to enhance the learning agenda in the Girls Education and Empowerment Project. Support team cohesion across all areas of CAREs programming
4.6. Support CARE’s achievement of strategic interventions as outlined in the strategic plan, project principles and other frameworks.
AUTHORITY:
- Spending Authority: N/A
- Supervision: N/A
- Decision Making: Decision making on core JD responsibilities of Grants and Contract coordination and Compliance, budget management, grants monitoring, evaluation and Reporting, capacity building and technical assistance for their portfolio of partners in consultation with their supervisor.
CONTACTS/KEY RELATIONSHIPS (internal & external):
Internal: Works as a peer and closely with project officers to manage partners and technical support and technical supervisory support of the Grants Manager and Project manager; seeks technical support from the sector managers, finance department especially the finance Manager and the CO Budget and Grants Manager. The position also works closely with the audit and compliance unit staff.
External: The position offers day to day support to the partners in grants management, financial reporting, and technical assistance related to grants management. The position also comes into contact with other external parties e.g. auditors and project stakeholders.
WORKING CONDITIONS:
Normal working conditions in a city setup with significant (over 50%) travel to Kajiado and Nairobi county project sites. The employee may have to contend with traffic congestion during peak hours in Nairobi. The employee will undertake frequent field visits sub-recipients project locations (over 50%) to verify financial information reported by partners and to officer technical support and supportive supervision. This includes travel to remote areas and therefore has exposure to road travel and security risks.
QUALIFICATIONS:
- Education:
Bachelor’s degree in any finance related field and CPA-K preferred; Trainings on financial management are highly desirable; Coupled with at least 2 years of experience in Grants capacity in grants making projects in reputable organizations.
- Experience:
Previous work in related diverse projects components as reflected in the Girls Education and Empowerment project will be an added advantage
- Competencies:
a. Familiarity with Financial systems and procedures and performance based funding,
b. Demonstrable project budget and grant management skills and experience
c. Ability and experience to develop and implement grant performance management and monitoring plans
d. Excellent inter-personal, facilitation skills and communication skills
e. Ability to work well in a team and provide staff leadership
f. Person of high moral character and professional integrity
g. Must expressly be supportive to girls and women’s empowerment
h. Training and facilitation skills Coaching and mentorship skills
HOW TO APPLY:
If you feel you meet the requirements for this position, send your updated CV with email & telephone contacts of three professional referees and the application letter quoting the Reference number & Titleof the position as the subject to: The Human Resources & Development Manager, CARE International in Kenya, Email: Vacancies@care.or.ke to be received not later than 24th September, 2015. Do not attach any certificates/Scanned documents to your application.
Only short listed candidates will be contacted.
CARE is an equal opportunity employer and promotes gender equity. Canvassing will lead to automatic disqualification.
CARE International in Kenya does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process. (Application, interview, meeting, processing, training or any other fees).
N.B) The interested applicants must indicate their expected remuneration level.
