Reports to: Project Director, ACCESS/PROTECT
Location: London, United Kingdom
Salary Banding: £34,088 – £39,769 (C1 – C3) pro-rata
LOE: 60% (3 days a week)
Type of contract: Fixed-term until November 2023
ABOUT INTERNEWS :
Internews works to ensure access to trusted, quality news and information that empowers people to have a voice in their future and to live healthy, secure, and rewarding lives. We envision a world where everyone can communicate freely with anyone, anywhere, and exchange the news and information they need to shape their communities and the world.
For 35 years and in more than 100 countries, we have worked with our local partners to build hundreds of sustainable organizations, strengthened the capacity of thousands of media professionals, human rights activists, and information entrepreneurs, and reached millions of people with quality, local information, improving lives and building lasting change. On issues ranging from health and the environment to conflict and governance, Internews has developed approaches that harness the power of media and information to create positive change.
Internews is a charity operating internationally, with administrative centres in California, Washington DC, London, and Paris as well as regional hubs in Bangkok and Nairobi. Formed in 1982, Internews currently has offices in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and North America.
GENERAL FUNCTION:
The Programme Officer (PO ) will provide the highest standards of programme and operational support to Internews’ various multi-country consortium programmes and other projects managed by the HQ. This role will support two current consortia projects: ACCESS and PROTECT.
Approaches in Complex and Challenging Environments for Sustainable Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (ACCESS) is a DFID funded UK Aid Connect project. The project works on the production of a set of scalable, evidence-based, participatory approaches that support and engage marginalised and under-served populations in complex and challenging environments to claim and access comprehensive sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information and services. Internews’ role focuses on understanding how SRH information and rumours move in the targeted communities and establishing what the information needs and gaps are. This project is currently in close-out and due to end in October 2021.
The Protecting Rights, Openness and Transparency Enhancing Civic Transformation (PROTECT) is a DFID funded UK Aid Connect project which seeks to foster open societies based on expanded and protected civic space. The impact is focused on shifting the paradigm from unequal and closed societies, where shrinking space, threats to media freedom and challenges to access and use of data fail to deliver tangible change for people’s lives, towards free and open societies with civil society, including media organisations, able to help people to hold governments to account, make information meaningful and drive social and political change for the better, leaving no one behind.
You will represent Internews at partner and donor meetings, mentor and support project staff, and assure the quality of Internews’ deliverables. You will support the grant management of your portfolio of projects, administer donor awards, submit donor reports, build the grant-management capacity of project staff and partners, and facilitate project audits. You will ensure that Internews implements projects in compliance with its own and donor’s policies, rules and regulations. You will provide consistent support and advice to project teams and partners and ensure control and reinforcement of all aspects of the project management cycle as related to effective grant management and contractual compliance.
You will contribute to Internews knowledge management and improvement of Internews systems. The role will actively participate in representing and building Internews’ credibility with institutional donors. This role may involve travel to project sites.
Roles and Responsibilities
Representation 10%
- Shares responsibility with project leads and business development colleagues for representing thematic approaches and programme activities to donors and partner networks
- Attends relevant partner network meetings, provides update briefings on Internews’ programmes and maintains correspondence with partner networks
Programme Support and Donor Interface 50%
- Works closely with consortium partners to support / lead collaborative outputs and outcomes, as assigned by Project Director(s);
- Serve as Internews Europe’s official points of contact for donors for contractual compliance and financial management of donor awards
- Works with the Programme Finance Analyst to prepare accurate financial reports for donors
- Provides grants and contracts management support for projects in their portfolio
- Provides support to country teams, consortium partners and other relevant local partners in the planning, design, troubleshooting and re-design of project activities
- Support the Project Director in facilitating collaboration across consortium partners, including by acting as the lead for working / reference groups where appropriate
- Supports project start‐up phases by coordinating project stakeholders and ensuring that all relevant processes and procedures are put in place
- Participates in the recruitment of project staff
- Prepares and conducts inductions and trainings for staff and partners on grant management and compliance
- Leads on process of due diligence in preparation for sub‐granting to local partners. Prepares partnership, sub-granting agreements and services contracts with external vendors, making sure that they comply with Internews’ and donors’ requirements
- Supports project directors to set up grant management schedules for donor reporting coordinates quality‐assurance of donor reports and submits them to donors
- Monitors projects’ implementation and trouble-shoots as necessary
- Identifies and documents best grant management practices from individual grants, works with M&E colleagues to coordinate project debriefings with stakeholders
- Leads on the preparation of HQ project audits
Compliance Monitoring 30%
- In collaboration with project director(s) conducts monthly budget vs. actual analysis. Makes recommendations for spending and resource adjustments
- Regularly reviews grant management schedules and works with Project Director, country teams, thematic leads, Finance staff to ensure timely submission of donor deliverables and reports
Knowledge management 10%
- Provides ongoing feedback to the project director(s) and other colleagues at the HQ on required improvement and updates on donor regulations and contractual obligations to ensure organisational knowledge is built and improved continuously
- Ensures good knowledge management across projects, including key project documentation, to enable all project teams to access information and provide a fully auditable trail.
QUALIFICATIONS:
Qualifications and Experience
Solid experience of grant management and donor financial reporting for large projects with major institutional donors, including DFID. Proven experience of grant management support in humanitarian programming is desirable
Essential
Experience in preparing budget proposals for institutional donors. Experience working with private donors would be an asset.
Essential
Professional qualifications or equivalent work experience, in international development and/or project management
Essential
Excellent communication skills both oral and written; ability to produce high quality reports and presentations
Essential
Proven experience of managing relationships in complex organisations with numerous stakeholders. Good people management skills
Essential
Ability to matrix manage a group of staff in different teams to take forward common and effective ways of working
A high level of numeracy skills, and ability to carry out complex budget analysis
Essential
Solid experience of direct, hands-on delivery of key components of financial and grant management
Essential
Proven track record of building capacity of project staff and partners in grant management, donor compliance, and project management
Essential
Experience of travelling to challenging and remote locations. Willingness and ability to travel with an understanding and appreciation of culture and diversity
Essential
Exceptional organisational and administration skills, with the ability to plan and prioritise work for self and others
Essential
Advanced expertise in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel
Essential
Proven ability to manage complex, multi-disciplinary programme of work
Essential
Experience in managing financial and management accounting processes, including annual accounts, audits and external reporting
Desirable
Experience of working in, or support field office in developing countries and humanitarian scenarios
Desirable
Knowledge
Good knowledge of donor regulations and systems, especially those of DFID
Essential
Experience working in/on consortia programmes
Essential
Good understanding of the project management cycle
Essential
Personal attributes
Creative problem solver: uses creativity to develop new ideas and solutions to problems
Essential
Self-starter and dynamic with strong level of self-awareness. Assertive, with the ability to work on own initiative with little supervision
Essential
Ability to work both independently and as an effective team member
Essential
A willingness and ability to adopt a hands-on approach as well as to provide strategic direction
Essential
Strong communication, liaison and interpersonal skills to work effectively with people at all levels, and represent the organisation externally
Essential
Strong analytical, problem solving and creative thinking skills
Essential
Languages
Fluent English
Essential
- Closing date for applications: 04 August 2021
Candidates must submit a succinct covering letter of no more than 2-pages explaining how they satisfy the requirements of the person speciation in addition to a CV highlighting relevant experience. The successful candidate will also be asked to provide three professional referees, one of whom must be from their most recent employer.
The above noted job description is not intended to describe, in detail, all the tasks that may be assigned but rather to give the job holder a general sense of the responsibilities and expectations of his/her position. As the nature of business demands change so, too, may the essential functions of this position.
This position will be located in the United Kingdom or Nairobi, Kenya and therefore a successful applicant must obtain the Right to Work in either location in order to commence their employment.
Please note that this vacancy is funding-dependent and may be withdrawn if the funding is not secured.