DONOR COMPLIANCE ASSURANCE MANAGER

CARE is an international NGO with local staff and community partners in more than 90 countries. We create local solutions to poverty and inequality and we seek dignity for everyone every day and during times of crisis. These solutions have a broad range, from clean water to access to education; from microfinance to ensuring that everyone has nutritious food; from agriculture and climate change to disaster response. CARE puts women and girls at the center of everything we do because they have proven to be the best hope for creating lasting change in the world. Our staff live where they work, which makes us effective at understanding the challenges they face. We’ve been doing this for over 70 years, since World War II. It started with the world’s first CARE Package® of food for the post-war hungry in Europe. Our work today is as important as ever, we believe that poverty and inequality are historic injustices that we can end within a generation, for good. If you share our core beliefs: poverty is an injustice; poverty is solvable; and together, we have the power to end it, join us, and fight with CARE.

The purpose of the donor compliance assurance function is to “Improve CARE’s ability to conform with internal controls and external donor compliance requirements. Compliance program is an independently managed function within Award Management Solutions that will carry out its activities with objectivity. The program is integrated within the CARE USA structure and will work closely with country offices, regional management units, line management, Program Units and HQ departments. It is integrated within CARE USA system it will inform and be informed by the other functions such as Internal Audit, line management, SSC and Legal.

The Donor Compliance Assurance Manager will assess CARE systems, processes and behaviors at the CO, Regional and HQ (including Program Unit) levels to identify compliance risks, issues, and report back accordingly with insights and corrective action recommendations. The manager will use a structured approach based on data analytics and information from available data streams on areas to focus. S/he is responsible to achieve the objectives of the compliance assurance team and work with and support country offices and other units to identify and address any compliance risks and issues through carrying out regular compliance health checks for COs and programs that have been identified by the team on yearly basis. S/he will coordinate and communicate with relevant stakeholders in carrying out their duties. This will be achieved through the following broad departmental mandate:

1. Monitoring and detecting deviations from policies, internal controls and procedures, donor regulations, local laws and regulations.
2. Recommending and monitoring improvements to current systems, processes and procedures.
3. Fostering a culture of ethical, transparent and accountable working environment.
4. Escalating critical compliance gaps to senior management.

Responsibilities:

• Develop a Yearly Compliance Plan
  • Review existing data streams including IAD Annual CO assessment, Audit reports, ROAR, SSC reports, IPO reports.
  • Seek feedback from various stakeholders such as IPO, RMU, IAD, Fraud Team, SSC, Program Units to help in understanding the bigger picture about the COs.
  • Identify countries that should be in focus for the compliance annual plan.
  • Work with the team to develop a detailed compliance plan for countries in focus, the plan will identify what will be in scope for the compliance health check, tools used, timing and method.
• Carry Out Compliance Health Checks
  • Establish excellent working relationships with relevant staff from COs, AMS Regional Managers, HQ and Program Units and RMU colleagues. Use the annual compliance plan to prepare for compliance health checks with COs and HQ units.
  • Complete a comprehensive compliance health check when necessary through CO field visit or virtually. Work with AMS team members in completion of health checks when possible.
  • Request Supporting documents (in person, virtually) to examine the status of each compliance area.
  • Draft a report and a plan of action to address any insights and identified gaps. The action plan will identify the compliance area, the agreed solution with the CO, timing for the solution, and responsible person in the CO.
  • Provide feedback to AMS, IPO, HQ Program Unit colleagues and key stakeholders and decision-makers about the findings on a specific CO.
  • Escalate issues or risks to management.
• Regularly follow up on progress of recommendation implementation
  • Set up regular follow up meetings to discuss progress towards the identified solutions in the CO compliance action plan.
  • Request supporting documents to show evidence of progress.
  • Ensure that all records are kept on Share-Point of such evidence and update the action plan based on the results of these meetings.
  • Collaborate with AMS, IPO and HQ Program Unit colleagues to ensure that the CO progress is being recognized and appreciated.
  • Escalate issues and risks to management especially lack of progress as deemed appropriate.
• Update the Compliance Dashboard
  • Contribute to the development of a dash board V.1 that will transition to an online dashboard.
  • Regularly maintain and update the dashboard based on the CO health check reports and following each CO compliance call.
  • Manage feedback about dashboard to help improve it in the future.
• Data and Information Management
  • Set up or manage the SharePoint site to collect and store supporting documents for each CO per region.
  • Set up a share point site to collect all audit reports for each CO per donor.

Qualifications:

• A Bachelor´s Degree in Business Administration, Accounting, Risk Management or similar. Equivalent combination of relevant education and experience may be substituted as appropriate
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, fluency in English with a proven ability to express himself/herself well verbally and in writing,
• Fluency in French (one position) and fluency in Arabic (one position)
• Ability and willingness to travel to country program locations as needed, often at short notice 35% of their time
• Master’s degree in a relevant discipline preferred
• Certification in auditing, grants management, risk and/or compliance management
• Experience in high complex humanitarian crises such as Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Myanmar ..etc.
• Experience in risk management, compliance and/or audit preferred
• Proven knowledge and working experience with donor regulations such as USAID, EU, FCDO and other donors
• Basic understanding of internal control framework related to key functions and business processes such as Human Resources, Program Management, Financial Management, Supply Chain Management, sub grants management, Information Technology etc.);
• A minimum of five years of relevant experience working in related field of compliance or audit with similar organizations.
• Eight years’ experience in compliance or auditing fields.
• Expert knowledge in organizations’ internal control frameworks