Action Aid – Manager

ACTIONAID INTERNATIONAL DIRECTORATE: Fundraising and Communications Position: Grants and Compliance Manager Location: Johannesburg or London Duration: 2 years Fixed term Contract Salary: £45 489per annum International Grade E Purpose of the Role: The Grants and Compliance Manager works as an integral part of the International Partnership Development (IPD) team and collaborates with other functions and ActionAid International (AAI) members to support effective institutional fundraising and contract management. This includes developing and embedding best practice to comply with donor financial rules, supporting donor proposal budgeting, analysis of institutional income, donor contract expenditure tracking, monitoring and providing management information on key risks, contributing to the implementation of improved financial systems and processes to facilitate better donor reporting and compliance, and capacity building of IS and country staff with grants and compliance related roles.

Key responsibilities include but not limited to:

• Conduct comparative analysis of past, present and future income trends against targets to inform countries, senior management and thematic teams in funding planning and investment decisions
• Collate, analyse and disseminate management information on performance of institutional donor contracts against defined risks and financial indicators to inform mitigation actions
• Communicate with institutional donors (directly or indirectly through relevant AAI account managers) to negotiate financial requirements in contracts, resolve specific problems or to respond to donor requests for information
• Contribute to the development and embedding of the programme led funding planning approach across the federation
• Support relevant donor account managers to negotiate financial requirements in large multi-country, consortium and new donor contracts to ensure that AAI signs up to contractual requirements that are not onerous, including proper cash flow and pre-financing plans and respond to donor requests for information
• Gather and disseminate knowledge to bridge any gap between the requirements of institutional donors and ActionAid’s processes and systems helping to ensure alignment and compliance
• Prepare and submit institutional grants and contracts information required to comply with the International Aid Transparency Initiative ( IATI) and other donors like DFID, EC and USAID
• Line manage Grants and Compliance Officer including setting performance objectives, regular supervision through individual work plans, conducting periodic appraisals, and supporting personal development plans
• Conduct contract management training through inception workshops, coaching and mentoring in setting up systems to monitor key accountabilities eg co-financing, exchange rates, interest and budget rules in line with contractual requirements
• Establish and coordinate a community of practice on institutional income planning and contract management

Desired Skills & Experience

• The successful candidate will have:
• Postgraduate degree and/or professional qualification in Accounting, Finance, Business Studies, Auditing, Economics or related field
• Minimum five years’ experience in NGO sector in progressively senior finance management positions with cross organisational perspective
• In-depth understanding and experience of working with proposals and contracts from institutional donors such as EU, ECHO, DFID, USAID and UN
• Experience of complex planning and budgeting processes including the ability to provide clear guidance on donor policies and procedures
• Comprehensive understanding of financial reporting, review and analysis
• Experience of working in a global team and providing support from a distance
• Willingness to travel up to 25% of the year
• Knowledge of Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA)
• Knowledge of French, Spanish and/or Portuguese

Application Procedures Applications should be sent with your CV, motivation cover letter by no later than 17th November 2014. You are requested to highlight in the motivation letter how specifically you meet the criteria for this role.  Please clearly indicate which position you are applying for. External Applications to be sent to: frcomms.jhb@actionaid.org Due to high volumes of applications received, we can only correspond with short listed applicants.  Should you not have received feedback on your application within two weeks of the closing date, please consider your application unsuccessful.  ActionAid International will not consider candidates from recruitment agencies.  We reserve the right to withdraw any of our vacancies at any time.