Program and Award Advisor, West Africa

BACKGROUND

Over the past 90 years, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has developed unparalleled expertise in responding to emergencies and helping uprooted communities to rebuild. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. The IRC is on the ground in more than 40 countries, providing emergency relief, relocating refugees and rebuilding lives in the wake of disaster.

The IRC is committed to a culture of bold leadership, innovation in all aspects of our work, creative partnerships and, most crucially, accountability to those we serve. The IRC is a tireless advocate for the most vulnerable

IRC UK

IRC UK is part of the IRC global network, which has its global headquarters in New York. Our team in the UK works to raise profile, deliver policy and practice change, and increase funding to help restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Since 2021, IRC UK has also provided integration services directly to refugees in England, a programme that is rapidly growing.

In Europe, the IRC also has offices in Berlin, Bonn, Brussels, Geneva and Stockholm

The Awards Management Unit (AMU)

Established in January 2016, the Awards Management Unit (AMU) is a global department with the responsibility for identifying, securing, and managing all funding from statutory/government donors. The department is includes the following teams: Program and Award Support, Strategic Partnerships, Compliance and Policy, Business Development, and Training.

The AMU is a bridge between donors and country programs: providing expert technical advice to the country teams, while maintaining portfolio-level visibility to ensure consistency and compliance, and manage risk. This unit ensures that donor compliance policies and procedures are implemented consistently, and supports all staff working across the award management cycle for all restricted funding from global government sources.

The Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) Department

The Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) Department has a growing portfolio of humanitarian relief, post-crisis recovery, and development programs under their remit. This work focuses support in five key areas: ensuring safety from harm, improving health, increasing access to education, improving economic well-being and ensuring people have the power to influence decisions that affect their lives. In all these programs, there is a drive to address the unique needs of women and girls (who represent the majority of those displaced) – and the universal barriers they face.

The CRRD works across 6 regions globally, including West Africa, East Africa, Great Lakes, Middle East and North Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The regional teams are the links between country offices and key HQ departments, and aim to support and provide advice to country programs with a range of issues from strategic planning, business development to compliance, awards management and partnerships management.

The Purpose of the Role

The Program and Award Advisor supports country programs in ensuring compliance to donor rules and regulations and IRC systems and processes, leads on the review and submission of high-quality donor deliverables and ultimately support awards management to the regional unit as well as the seven (7) country programs of the region: Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. The Program and Award Advisor also manages donor relationships with HQ donor counterparts as needed and advises country programs in relation to the implementation of IRC’s partnership management approach and system – the Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results (PEER) System.

Scope and Authority

Line management of Program and Award Officer

Key Working Relationships

Reports to Director, Awards Management. Works closely with all Regional Program and Award Support team members, and across all teams within Awards Management Unit, Crisis Response Recovery and Development Department, Global Partnerships and Philanthropy, Global Supply Chain, Finance, Office of General Counsel, Technical Excellence, and other key departments within IRC. Donor and partner point of contact as applicable per region.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

Awards Management and Compliance (60%)

• Manage a portfolio of awards for the West Africa region. Main donors in portfolio will include FCDO, AFD, NORAD and CDCS but may also include other donors as assigned.
• Review, provide substantive feedback and ensure timely submission of reports, collaborating with and ensuring input from relevant technical and financial staff.
• Provide support on private proposals and awards management, in coordination with the Regional Support Manager and private fundraising team.
• Guide country offices in partnership with other relevant departments in the design, production, and submission of and revise and quality assure award amendments and modifications.
• Serve as first point of contact for country program-based awards staff to guide and advise country teams on all post-award issues and to act as a connecting point between country program and other AMU teams to facilitate the timely flow of key information between them.
• Review and lead negotiation of award agreements with donors, other IRC entities and partners according to IRC policies and internal processes.
• Guide and coach country offices in understanding policies, guidance and tools vis-à-vis working and managing local or international partners, ensuring that IRC’s PEER System is being followed and compliance rules from donors are cascaded to partners. Coordinate with compliance team as needed.
• Review and help processing sub-grants/partnership agreements in alignment with internal processes.
• Provide support to and monitoring of projects to ensure progress against objectives and compliance with donor guidelines and IRC internal requirements. Monitoring of awards can take the shape of monitoring visits, project implementation meetings and targeted calls following specific donor internal guidelines and IRC established processes.
• Provide technical advice to country offices on ad-hoc queries on donor compliance issues in coordination with the Compliance and Policy team on non-routine and high-level compliance matters and escalate to leadership for support as needed.
• Take part in regular meetings and calls with country teams to provide regular support and updates and collaborate closely on specific issues related to donor compliance, submissions and/or monitoring/award management.
• Ensure lessons learned from finalised projects are fed into the Business Development team.
• Stay informed about programmatic issues and security and political developments in the region and how they might affect program implementation.
• Advise and lead country programs appropriately to enable them to successfully follow internal IRC policies and procedures (e.g. OTIS, PEERS).
• Travel to provide additional support to or cover short-term gaps for awards and partnerships teams in the countries.
• Interviews for country awards teams and other support with country programs recruitment for Grants and Partnerships teams.
• Responding to data requests from other departments and accountability for portfolio-wide data needs.
• Coordinate with other members of the Program and Award Support Team and other AMU members for information sharing and to establish a coherent awards support.

Donor Liaison and Representation (15%)

• Manage donor relationships by maintaining communication on contractual issues, updates on program implementation and following up on compliance queries and securing changes and approvals as needed.
• Represent IRC externally at country specific meetings, with donors and stakeholder networks.

Capacity Building and Training (10%)

• Develop training materials and carry out training of IRC in-country staff, as required and in coordination with the Director, Awards Management (DAM).
• In coordination with the DAM, develop and maintain work-processes and checklists for award implementation and report review, as well as record lessons learned.
• Onboard new country office Grants and Partnerships staff and new Program and Award Support team to assigned donors, policies and/or IRC processes.
• Mentor and coach Grants and Partnerships staff on IRC systems and processes to ensure capacity is built at country level.

Staff Management, Learning and Development (10%)

• Coach, train and supervise a Program and Award Officer in carrying out essential functions as they relate to country program support and donor liaison.
• Ensure direct reports are trained on all relevant IRC processes and donor regulations.
• Support direct reports in achieving annual objectives, acting as a trusted and accountable manager, mentor and professional resource, including promoting collaboration, enabling adequate resourcing and ensuring accountability.

Other Responsibilities (5%)

• Contribute to AMU and regional strategic priorities and initiatives.
• Actively participate as a member of the Regional Team, engaging in strategy development and other initiatives as needed.
• Other duties as assigned by supervisor.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Essential

Skills, Knowledge and Qualifications:

• Experience with and a strong understanding of FCDO, AFD, and NORAD requirements strongly preferred
• Fluency in English and French, both spoken and written
• Understanding of other EU, UN or U.S. donors a plus
• Good understanding of humanitarian aid and development programming
• Ability to work collaboratively as part of a diverse team and handle a multifaceted workload
• Good financial management and budgeting skills
• Ability to analyze and synthesize information
• Proven organizational skills, detail-oriented, ability to prioritize tasks, and to learn quickly
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills: the ability to successfully and effectively liaise with people within and across departments in a multi-cultural environment.
• Ability to work independently in a very fast paced environment
• A flexible work attitude and a calm manner
• International work experience in the Global South is a plus
• Excellent IT skills (Word, Outlook, Excel)
• Ability to travel internationally, sometimes on short notice and to insecure areas

Experience:

• Experience in working at a distance and supporting field-based staff
• Experience writing, reviewing and editing narrative and financial reports and excellent attention to detail