Regional Finance Support Officer at People in Need

Position: Regional Finance Support Officer

Contract Length: 6 months with the possibility of extension upon mutual satisfaction

Country Programme: Syria and Iraq

Base: Erbil

Line Manager: Regional Finance Officer

About the Syrian Programme of People in Need:

People in Need (PIN) is an international, non-profit organization providing humanitarian and development assistance in over 20 countries worldwide. Formed in 1992 in the Czech Republic, PIN has grown to be the biggest organization of its kind in post-communist Europe, providing relief where it is needed, and empowering civil society at home and abroad.

PIN began its work in Iraq in 2003 focusing on reconstruction and renovation of schools and health centres. After a short break, PIN decided to re-establish its presence in the country in January 2015, mainly in response to deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country and massive displacement of people from conflict-affected areas. Since then, PIN has maintained a strong presence in Iraq, and has gradually extended its activities across the Governorates of Ninewa, Salah Al-din, Kirkuk and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Typical recipients of our aid are internally displaced persons, returnees, and people who survived the fighting near their homes and meet the pre-defined criteria of vulnerability.

Apart from humanitarian aid, PIN is currently working on long-term programmes supporting restoring livelihoods, education, access to water and hygiene. These programmes should facilitate people´s return to their original homes and support the stabilisation process after the defeat and removal of IS.

PIN has been working in Northern Syria since 2012, providing emergency relief and early recovery support to conflict-affected communities. Programmes for conflict-affected communities in Syria focus mainly on Emergency Food Assistance, WASH, and Education, in addition to Early Recovery activities. PIN’s contribution to the Syria humanitarian response is amongst the largest, with an annual turnover of over $35 million, engaging over 350 full time staff members across Northern Syria and cross-border response hubs in neighboring countries.

About the role:

The RFSO is a member of the country support team and under the direct supervision of the Regional Finance Officer shares the responsibility for smoothly running cost forecasting process; ensuring cash flow health of the CP; administers the CP budget allotted to the expatriate positions and increases the capacities of fellow expatriate colleagues in the area of finance and administration.

This position should prepare the RFSO for future work in other Relief and Development Department (RDD) positions at either country programmes or at HQ. Therefore, the Line Manager should strive to build the capabilities of the RFSO by progressively increasing her/his responsibilities.

Main Duties & Responsibilities:

Grants management – financial aspects

• Creates the Navision resource cards for shared grants
• Designs, prepares and updates the project forecasting tools (technical set up, maintenance of tables, ensuring correctness, update ledger entries)
• With support of RFO upgrades the forecasting tools or creates new ones if needed
• With close cooperation and supervision of RFO, consolidates budgets for newly designed projects (inputs received from hubs), both internal and donor versions
• Reviews the data for financial reporting, checking the consistency of allocation among hubs, communicates about discrepancies
• Consolidates the data for reporting, transfers it into donor templates
• Supports in donor communication (queries about proposals, modification, reports), consolidates the inputs across the country program
• Keeps and updates the overview of reporting deadlines across the country program

Cash-flow

• Coordination and consolidation of weekly money requests and uploading them to ELO for approval
• Coordination with HQ banking department in regards to instalments, payment to suppliers, transfers to CP
• Monitoring and maintaining an overview of instalments from donors
• Shared regional costs management
• Monitoring of shared regional costs (salaries, travel costs, across hubs shared costs on visibility, accountability, MEAL, security, capacity building etc.), inputs relevant data into Navision plans and forecasting files – requires liaising with various responsible people across country program
• Sending the salary breakdowns to expatriate staff
• Approving expatriate invoices and contracts in ELO, allocating related costs to projects
• Approving expatriate travel requests in ELO, approving respective flight ticket invoices

Capacity building

• Provision of Navision training/induction to newly recruited staff (finance and non-finance), in Erbil and on remote (if relevant)
• Provide trainings on forecasting tools to finance and non-finance staff
• Provide refresher training to CP staff on various finance topics (specified based on CP needs, and skills/knowledge of trainer)
• Provision of ELO training/induction to newly recruited staff (finance and non-finance), in Erbil and on remote (if relevant)
• Provision of financial orientation (expat invoicing, system of expat advances, operational advances etc.) to non-financial as well as regional staff arriving to Erbil

Country program economy

• Collects the data for updating Regional financial tools (coverage table, Annual budget) as per the guidance from RFO
• Participates in creating new tools for CMT (excel overviews, pivot tables)
• Supports RFO in data analysis, has overview in Navision set up cost categories, structure of implementation budget, suggests adjustment to better fit country program needs, harmonise among hubs where relevant

Other

• Supports hubs in case of understaffing, unexpected workload as per needs and RFO guidance
• Supports country program and HQ team in specific tasks during high workload periods (project audit, yearly closures, statutory audit, reporting, budgeting), this will be assigned on ad hoc basis

Main requirements:

• Advanced level of English
• Technical / Analytical thinking
• Keen eye on details and passion for working with numbers
• Knowledge of MS Excel
• Cultural sensitivity and good communication skills
• Desire to work for an international NGO
• Background in economics/finance/accounting is an advantage but not a condition, relevant training will be provided

PIN Offers:

• Work experience with professional and largest NGO in Central-Eastern Europe
• Interesting and creative work with international reach
• PIN supports professional and personal development
• Possibility of cooperation across various country programs
• Subsistence allowance 1350 EUR monthly to cover living expenses in the country (no salary is provided since this is a PIN Volunteer position but the allowance is sufficient to cover all common living expenses in the duty station)
• shared accommodation (each staff member has/his own furnished room) is provided by PIN
• A flight ticket home or a regional ticket covered by PIN for every 3 months spent on mission
• 25 days of annual leave and Sick days
• Laptop and mobile phone with the company tariff
• Travel health insurance provided
• Open and informal organizational culture
• Friendly colleagues with similar values from various cultural backgrounds
• E-learning courses, webinars, training possibilities