Programme Support Officer – West and Southern Africa

The Programme Support Officer (PSO) will play a vital role in the Head Office support of GOAL’s country programmes and will be part of the HQ Operations Team. Working in a fast-passed environment and undertaking tasking which will touch on a wide range of GOAL’s overseas programmes and HQ functions, they will be responsible for a broad and varying range of duties including grant management and country support

Grant Management

• As directed by team leadership, provide support for Operations Team members in their administration and management of GOAL’s portfolio of grants or other country programme related tasking during busy periods.
• Provide support for country programmes in the development of reports and proposals as required.
• Develop a working knowledge of mechanisms used to report to major donor agencies, specifically: Irish Aid’s Programme Funding and humanitarian instruments; USAID; ECHO; EuropeAid; DFID; etc. Develop familiarity with relevant donor guidelines in the event that support is required.
• Maintain GOAL’s registrations with all key donors.
• Gap fill for Desk Officers on leave / in the field / role under recruitment as required.

Country and Operations Team

• Arrange and minute communications for Operations Team meetings, weekly team meetings and programme review committee meetings and others as requested.
• Provide support on the consolidation and review of the Annual Country plans.
• Support the Director of International Programmes on the GOAL Programmes Subcommittee preparation, and other management information for GOAL board meetings as required.
• Work with the Communications Department and country programme teams to develop and submit high quality case studies, stories of change or success stories and media input.
• Emergency support – Providing general support for Desk during emergency response, including sitreps and GMS support.

Information Management:

• Providing support to Desk Officers to improve integrity and ensure the Grant Management System, GMS is up to date
• Where required, support the maintenance of key departmental systems including the internal SharePoint page and grant management system.

Other Responsibilities:

• Be prepared to assume a wide range of other activities as prescribed by the Operations Team’s leadership.
• Provide input and support to the Director of Strategy in the completion of a number of projects including Finalisation, publication and promotion of GOAL’s 2019-2021 Strategy and Implementation of a Targeted Operating Model

Person Specification

Essential

• A Bachelors’ degree in a relevant subject.
• A minimum of one years’ experience working in an NGO in a field-based or HQ role. Further field or HQ based experience a benefit, particularly in programmes focused roles.
• Experience in administration with demonstrable capacity for delivering accurate work on time in a dynamic and multi-priority context.
• A strong sense of mission and appreciation of the aims and objectives of GOAL.
• Adept in use of Word, Excel, PowerPoint.
• Fluent in spoken and written English with strong communication and analytical skills.

Desirable

• A Masters level degree in a relevant subject highly desirable.
• Fluency in French is highly desirable.
• Demonstrable experience in donor relationship management, including grant management, proposal and report writing, ideally within the development context and/or with GOAL’s key institutional donors (Irish Aid, USAID, OFDA, FFP, DFID, ECHO, EU DevCo, UN agencies, etc.). Familiarity with key donor priorities and grant implementation, monitoring and evaluation guidelines.
• Specific knowledge or experience of GOAL’s thematic programme or sectors.