Christian Aid (CA) is a UK-based international NGO partnering with others to end poverty in Africa. At the heart of this vision is the transformation of the lives of people who live in poverty, empowering them to have a brighter future. Christian Aid works in more than 30 countries and has been operating in Nigeria since 2003. The Nigeria Country programme focuses on Community Health and HIV, Accountable Governance including humanitarian response and Gender.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Grants and Compliance Officer

Location: Maiduguri, Borno
Type of Contract: Fixed Term
Contracted hours: 35
Contract length: 12 Months
Department: International
Competency Level: 2
Salary Band: E
Reports to: Programme Development and Funding Manager

Role Purpose

• The Grants and Compliance Officer plays an integral role in effective grants and contracts management. The role will support the country funding manager through conducting and support daily financial, operations, and programme compliance of Christian Aid.
• This will comprise setting up compliance monitoring systems; producing compliance reports; reviewing and evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of operations, reliability of financial reporting, compliance with applicable laws, and the safeguarding of assets.
• He/she will report back on internal assessments to ensure that financial control, financial guidelines, and other control procedures are in place and are being properly implemented and managed, build the capacity of staff and partners on compliance; be responsible for risk management; and ensure compliance with Christian Aid and donor requirements.

Key Outcomes
Objective 1 – Provide Strategic, Technical, and Coordinated support to Grants Management:
Tasks and Responsibilities:

• Ensure that all CA project financial and operational activities follow Nigeria laws, donor rules and regulations, and CA policies and standards.
• Develops compliance framework for CA, including compliance checklists for the various business processes, transaction classes, country laws governing NGO operations, specific donor requirements and an annual customized compliance monitoring plan.
• Periodically reviews and updates the compliance framework and other tools to stay current with CA procedures and policies.
• Follows-up on recommendations from internal and external auditors to ensure they have been implemented and adhered to.
• Tests internal controls to ensure their efficiency and effectiveness, targeting high risk areas, to identify weaknesses and compliance deviations and their impact and makes recommendations to SMT to address these weaknesses.
• Identify, assess, and manage risks impacting the country programme.
• Develop a plan and evaluation tools, and then carry out independent appraisals and verifications of the effectiveness of CA and donor policies, procedures and standards, and applicable Nigeria law, by which CA Nigeria financial resources are managed.
• Conduct thoroughly documented investigations of whistle-blower cases, and suspected fraud and will directly interface with the internal audit unit on these or other specific cases.
• Support the PDFM to facilitate kick-off, review and closing meetings to ensure project objectives are being met and identify and challenges, delays or deviations from the project plan.
• Maintain an in-depth knowledge of CA internal policies and proposal guidelines for donor organizations funding Nigeria programs/projects among project managers, technical as well as operational support staff.
• Support partners management through conduct of POCRA, onboarding and routine periodic monitoring visits

Objective 2 – Support the production and submission of quality and timely donor financial reports:
Tasks and Responsibilities:

• Undertake a qualitative review, of financial reports and ensure compliance to guidelines and donors requirements, use of proper templates.
• Ensure that internal timelines and external deadlines are met; maintain the reporting tracker developed by the team, follow up on inputs from project financial teams.
• Review all final financial reports for performing fund code reconciliations and recommend to the grant’s unit for project closure.

Objective 3 – Identification, coordination, preparation, writing, and submission of quality and timely concept notes and full proposals:
Tasks and Responsibilities:

• Assist with research on funding opportunities, and potential donors, partners, and their strategies.
• Assist the PDFM in the development of grant portfolio summaries, project, and donor brief/updates.
• Assist to identify potential opportunities for partnerships with local and international organizations and participating in the development of agreements and vetting processes.
• Ensure comprehensive grant files are maintained up to date and are available for use in both hard and soft copy (proposals, contracts, amendments, reports, etc.).
• Support the development of quality proposals by identifying risks affecting project implementation and providing strategies to prevent the risks from crystalizing.

Role Agility:

• Expected travel per annum Occasional travel On call/unsocial hours – No
• Surge capacity for emergency responses- No
• In order to respond to ever changing demands within the environment, Christian Aid operates within an agile framework (both in workforce and operational) that requires from all employees, a high level of responsiveness and adaptiveness to processes and structures making flexibility and a project based working approach the norm.
• To sustain this system, managers may/will agree further details of specific tasks and duties as part of the performance agreement.
• Any reasonable duty may be assigned that is consistent with the nature of the job and its level of responsibility, and employees may be required to change the focus of their role from time to time.

Role Context

• The role is based in Maiduguri, Nigeria. The Grants and Compliance Officer is a key position for supporting all aspects of Christian Aid’s Grant administration, financial compliance, risk management, and financial reporting.
• The role is key in providing support to Christian Aid Nigeria to ensure excellence in project, budget and grants management and delivery of intended outputs and impact.

Relationships:

• External: Maintains and builds relationships with donors, and other relevant external agencies Internal The position is line managed by the Programme Development and Funding Manager.
• The role links up strongly with various Christian Aid teams including the Finance Team, Restricted Funds Team, Program Managers, Internal Audit, and Local implementing partnersClick here to enter text.
• Outline the key internal relationships, frequency of contact, purpose of contact -liaison/influencing/negotiating etc.

Decision Making:

• Make decisions in order to manage team effectively, from recruitment of volunteers and program staff to day-to-day management of team members.
• Also providing technical input and overall leadership on all logistics, administration and procurement issues.
• Day to day decision to ensure adequate support to projects are running effectively and higher levels decisions on supporting the projects informed by Christian Aid’s strategy and strategic focus areas.
• Budgetary/savings responsibility – NA.

Developing self and others:

• Has direct responsibility for developing, coaching and motivating a team or teams of colleagues/project team members.
• Focus will be on advising and guiding project leads on policy issues/high level procedures.
• Number of Direct reports – NA
• Overall people management responsibility – NA

Person Specification
Applied Skills / Knowledge and Expertise:
Essential:

• Minimum of Undergraduate Degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Studies, Auditing or related field.
• Experience of managing grants/contracts from institutional donors (ECHO, DFID, Global Fund, UN).
• Experience of setting up and managing donor compliance monitoring systems, financial management of grantees, including grantee budgets and audits, grants disbursement and appropriate deployment of grants.
• Strong financial skills encompassing proposal budgeting, income tracking, budget monitoring and financial reporting.
• Ability to provide clear guidance on donor policies and procedures to other staff.

Desirable:

• Experience of working in a global team and distance support.
• Understanding of partnership approach to international development Network and alliance building.

Digital/IT competencies required:

• Word, Excel, PowerPoint Advanced.

Analytical Skills:

• Works on complex specialist/ technical issues. Problems and issue, risks and benefits may have implications across several departments.
• Required to develop new ways of doing things to better meet program goals requiring substantial creative or analytical ability.

Application Closing Date
13th May, 2023.