United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Regional Grants Assistant - West Africa

Location: London (with international travel for up to 5 weeks per year)

Contract: Permanent

Working Hours: Full Time (37.5 hours per week)

Salary:£26,000 per annum

BACKGROUND

Over the past 80 years, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has developed unparalleled expertise in responding to emergencies and helping uprooted communities to rebuild. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster.

The International Rescue Committee UK is part of the IRC global network, which has its headquarters in New York and London. The IRC is on the ground in more than 40 countries, providing emergency relief, relocating refugees and rebuilding lives in the wake of disaster. Through over 20 regional offices in cities across the United States, the IRC also helps refugees resettle in the US and become self-sufficient.

The IRC is committed to a culture of bold leadership, innovation in all aspects of our work, creative partnerships and, most crucially, accountability to those we serve. The IRC is a tireless advocate for the most vulnerable.

IRC-UK

Our European headquarters, IRC-UK, were established in London in 1997 to support the organisation’s global activities and particularly to diversify its donor base and be able to better advocate with European policy-makers on behalf of the people we serve. Since its establishment IRC-UK has grown rapidly and is now acknowledged for its high quality project management, technical expertise in governance and rights and economic recovery, and innovative thinking on early recovery and gender based violence. IRC-UK comprises approximately 100 staff across five departments.

The IRC also has offices in Berlin, Bonn, Brussels and Geneva.

The Global Awards Management Unit (AMU)

Established in January 2016, the Global Awards Management Unit (AMU) is a global unit spanning New York, Washington DC, London, Nairobi and Amman. It has responsibility for identifying, securing and managing all funding from statutory donors. The Unit is organised into five directorates: Strategic Partnerships & Analytics, Grants Management & Frameworks, Compliance & Policy, Programme Development and Training.

The Global AMU is a bridge between donors and the field: providing expert technical advice to the field while maintaining portfolio-level visibility to ensure consistency and compliance and manage risk. The AMU ensures that donor compliance policies and procedures are implemented consistently and supports all staff working across the grants management cycle for all restricted funding from global government sources. The unit operates within a matrix management system across the teams in the US and the UK, driving functional integration between all relevant units and staff in collaboration with the Vice President of the Global AMU and the Senior Vice President for Europe in relation to overarching issues with European donors. The matrix management structure ensures that AMU staff support the Europe strategy and work towards the pursuit of new opportunities while IRC-UK maintains accountability for European funding.

The Purpose of the Role

The Regional Grants Assistant (RGA) supports the Regional Grants Advisor in their efforts to ensure successful implementation of IRC European donor award requirements and reporting, ensuring basic compliance, accurate financial information and good quality narratives on programme outputs. Based in London the Regional Grants Assistant works under the supervision of the Regional Grants Advisor.

Awards Management (50%)

• Support the RGA in the management of the European award portfolio for a particular region and in the management other portfolios as is relevant and necessary

• Support the review of narrative and financial reports; consulting with and ensuring input from relevant staff

• Support budget realignments and grant amendments/modifications, where necessary

• Support the RGA to monitor projects to ensure progress against objectives and compliance with donor guidelines

• Assist country offices with ad-hoc queries on donor compliance issues

• Track and document lessons learned from finalised projects and ensure they are fed into the programme development team

• Refer high level compliance matters to Regional Grants Advisor – West Africa and Regional Grants Director – West Africa for consultation with the Compliance team

• Stay informed about programmatic issues and security & political developments in the region and how they might affect program implementation

• Maintain all trackers and reporting schedules

• Support country offices in maintenance of IRC’s grant management system, OTIS.

• Review financial codes (T1s) and liaise with country grants staff and HQ Finance to have accurate financial code T1s issues

• Maintain grant files

Capacity Building and Training (10%)

• Assist in the development and maintenance of work-processes and checklists for grant implementation and report review
• Assist in the development of training materials

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 pillars to ensure the use of all templates, guidance, policies and procedures established by AMU
• Maintain strong relationship with field grants teams offering regular support on reporting and compliance issues, in coordination with RGA
• Liaise with support departments and other teams outside of AMU as needed in order to provide the best support to country offices

Other (20%)

• Provide coverage for key program/support functions in the field as requested, to assist with short-term gaps and emergency support
• Provide back-up support when Regional Grants Advisor is absent
• Administrative duties as requestedAssist with the organization of conferences, workshops and meetings as requested
• Other duties as assigned by supervisor

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Essential

• Degree, preferably in a subject related to IRC’s work (International Relations, Refugee or Migration Studies, Development Studies, Public Policy), or equivalent experience
• Understanding of European institutional donors and their requirements, experience working with European donors preferred
• Understanding of humanitarian aid and development programming
• Ability to work collaboratively as part of a diverse team and manage a varied workload
• Able 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
• Both a team player and independent performer in a very fast paced environment
• A flexible work attitude and a calm manner
• Experience writing, reviewing and editing narrative and financial reports and excellent attention to detail
• Fluency in French
• Good IT skills (Word, Outlook, Excel)

IRC-UK strives to be an equal opportunities employer. IRC-UK is committed to equality of opportunity and to non-discrimination for all job applicants and employees, and we seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce regardless of gender, race, religious beliefs, nationality, ethnic/national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability.

The deadline for applications will be 9am on 26^th November 2018. Interviews will take place on 6^th December 2018.

Please follow this link to apply: https://rescue.csod.com/ats/careersite/jobdetails.aspx?site=1&c=rescue&id=3193