Senior Project Development and Grants Officer

Position: REACH Senior Project Development and Grants Officer

Contract duration: Fixed

Location: Nairobi, Kenya (with travel to Hargeisa and Addis Ababa)

Starting Date: March 2023

Background

ACTED is a French humanitarian NGO, founded in 1993, which supports vulnerable populations, affected by humanitarian crises worldwide. ACTED provides continued support to vulnerable communities by ensuring the sustainability of post-crisis interventions and engaging long-term challenges facing our target populations, in order to break the poverty cycle, foster development and reduce vulnerability to disasters. Their interventions seek to cover the multiple aspects of humanitarian and development crises through a multidisciplinary approach, which is both global and local, and adapted to each context. ACTED’s 3,300 staff are committed to responding to emergencies worldwide, supporting recovery and rehabilitation, and towards sustainable development.

REACH was formed in 2010 as a joint initiative of the Swiss-based association IMPACT Initiatives (IMPACT), ACTED, and the United Nations Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT), in order to promote and facilitate the development of information products that enhance the humanitarian community’s decision making and planning capacity. REACH is responsible for supporting humanitarian coordination mechanisms through non-proprietary information that can be shared across organizations. REACH has a proven operational capacity in the Horn of Africa, where it established its first operations in 2012. Today REACH is present in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, through a regional office based in Nairobi and national offices in Hargeisa, Addis Ababa and Mekelle.

Within the initiative IMPACT supervises REACH’s activities at country level, hires international staff, provides technical backstopping to country teams, defines country interventions, and validates all REACH products. At a global level, IMPACT engages with REACH’s global partners and oversees rapid deployments. IMPACT is also responsible for REACH’s global communication, resource centre, and online products. Present in over 40 countries, ACTED hosts REACH’s country-based teams, providing them with operational, security and grant management support. ACTED is also responsible for national HR recruitment and management, security and logistics support.

We are currently looking for aSenior Project Development and Grants Officer to overseeour project development and grant management activities in the Horn of Africa (Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia).

FUNCTIONS

Under the management of the Regional Country Coordinator (RCC), the Senior Project Development and Grants Officer (SPDGO) is responsible for identifying, developing and managing grants to fund the country specific strategies in the Horn of Africa. The ideal candidate would be eager to work within a dynamic and motivated team and will have a clear focus on project development as a tool to improve the efficacy of the humanitarian response in the region.

RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Support to positioning and fundraising

All the below tasks are in support of the RCC and the Regional Senior Management Team, (SMT) and involvement may vary according to the profile and context.

Context Analysis

• Analyse the three countries’ respective socio-economic situation, (donor) trends, funding trends, needs and gaps.
• Regularly conduct stakeholder analysis, who does what and where.
• Alert the RCC and Regional SMT of gaps and emerging needs to trigger donor discussions/assessments in a timely manner.

Strategy development and Fundraising

• Contribute to the development of a mission programme strategy in alignment with IMPACT’s global strategy and road map through engagement with external actors, context monitoring, and relevant focal points.
• Based on the IMPACT strategy, support the identification of funding opportunities and donors to ensure funding continuity as well as support the diversification of IMPACT’s donor portfolio through tracking funding opportunities, also potentially engaging with donors and donor working groups.
• In line with IMPACT’s strategy and expertise, contribute to partners mapping, to support identifying potential relevant international and/or local partners (academia, think tanks, national and international NGOs, private sector partners, etc.).

External relations

• Support the overall cooperation between IMPACT and ACTED in relation to project development and grants management ensuring communication is regular and timely and synergies are sought and built.
• Contribute to establishing, maintaining and improving active and regular working relationships with donors and, where relevant, act as point of contact for all formal/informal donor communication.
• Establish, maintain and improve active and regular working relationships with IMPACT’s partners, NGOs, UN agencies, relevant working groups, consortia and academia in relation to project implementation and proposal development.
• Maintain an up-to-date directory of donors, international and local NGOs, other partners and stakeholders.
• Ensure fundraising activities are appropriately tracked in the Funding Tracker (or similar tool), which is updated on a regular basis to log-in the latest negotiations and proposal possibilities with donors.

2. Grant management

Proposal Development

• Oversee project proposal conceptualisation (problem statement, logframe), and the development of other fundraising documents (Expressions of Interest, Concept Notes) in line with IMPACT’s regional/country strategy and donor requirements and in close collaboration with IMPACT/hosting partner Field and HQ Grants Department (GD) and Finance.
• Liaise with the RCC, Research Managers, Head of Operations and other relevant departments to ensure proposals are relevant and technically sound, as well as with other internal stakeholders such as Finance for the budget and other budget related documents (e.g., budget narrative).
• Ensure that learning from previous projects (e.g., lessons learnt and best practices) is incorporated into new proposals.
• Ensure validation of all proposals before submission to IMPACT HQ GD, and relevant HQ partners through partner’s field focal point (where relevant) is sought.
• Ensure follow-up tools (such as the fundraising tracker) are correctly up to date.
• Address and coordinate the timely response and submission to all comments by donors on proposals in liaison with relevant staff in country, IMPACT HQ Grants and Finance teams.

Contracting

• In coordination with the RCC and IMPACT HQ, review/negotiate proposals and/or contracts with donors, ensuring requirements are clear and understood.
• Contribute to due diligence exercises of funding partners in liaison with HQ.

Project Implementation and Follow up

• Ensure the timely completion of grant related processes such as Project cards, Monthly Reporting Follow Up (RFU) and Reporting Deadline Tracker.
• Ensure timely Kick-off meetings are held involving all project components and focal points.
• Ensure the establishment and regular updates concerning project progress, key findings and success stories (including key M&E findings – where relevant).
• Ensure that all contractual obligations are clearly defined and communicated internally in terms of deliverables as well as narrative and financial reporting requirements, in close coordination with HQ GD and (as relevant) with partner’s PD and finance department.
• When any issue is identified in meeting deliverables in the given timeframe and budget, inform relevant staff in country and suggest potential solutions that would meet donor rules.
• Ensure ad hoc requests from donors are addressed in liaison with the RCC, Programme and support teams.
• Implement and oversee the project specific filing system for grant management and ensure it is regularly updated.
• Provide ad-hoc support to project implementation through trouble shooting and eliminating blocking points.

Reporting

• Oversee the development of quality project narrative and M&E reports (in support of donors’ requests), reflecting the progress and status of projects in a transparent, timely and professional manner, in liaison with IMPACT HQ GD and finance.
• Liaise with Program teams when preparing reports, and with Finance to ensure coherence and alignment between financial and narrative reports by crosschecking the matching of data in the narrative and financial reports.
• Oversee the monthly RFU and ensure smooth and regular communication with IMPACT HQ GD.
• Where relevant, ensure regular coordination with partner’s Project Development, Finance and other FLAT departments at all stages of project development and implementation, including consultations for donor discussions, participation in project kick off and lessons learnt meetings, and drafting of donor reports or amendment requests.

Partnerships

• Contribute to identifying potential partnerships for providing operational and/or technical support for IMPACT programs.
• Contribute to due diligence and vetting of partners in close liaison with IMPACT GD.
• In coordination with HQ GD, facilitate or take part in discussions with implementing partners, including in relation to formalising contractual modalities (due diligence and the outline of contracts).
• Ensure partners have a clear understanding in terms of IMPACT’s policies, procedures, compliance, programmatic and financial reporting requirements.
• Where relevant, review partner reporting regularly and flag any issues in a timely manner to the RCC, Finance and partner focal points, and suggest potential solutions.
• Where relevant, act as field point of contact for all formal/informal implementing partner communication.

3. Monitoring and Evaluation

• Ensure a clear M&E framework for each ongoing project is developed based on project proposals, implementation plans, and donor reporting requirements (including contractual monitoring and evaluation indicators to be tracked as part of activities).
• Where possible, and in close liaison with relevant research focal points, contribute to ensuring all activities have a measurable impact on the humanitarian response.
• Ensure M&E policies and procedures are implemented, maintained and tracked for reporting purposes.
• Ensure that M&E findings are reflected and their recommendations are incorporated in future concept notes, proposals, donor reports and implementation plans.

4. Protection mainstreaming– Promoting of and adhering to Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse policy and guidelines (for site residents, ACTED staff, partner agencies, casual labours etc

REQUIREMENTS

• Excellent academic qualifications, including a Master’s degree in a relevant discipline (International Relations, Political Sciences, Social Research, Economics, Development Studies, or similar);
• Excellent communication and drafting skills for effective reporting;
• Proven institutional fundraising experience, familiarity with the humanitarian coordination system, and understanding of donor and governmental requirements;
• Proven knowledge of the Microsoft Office Suite, to include Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, Office 365, the Adobe package and Trello;
• Fluency in English;
• Solution-oriented, flexible, and open-minded, including ability to operate in a cross-cultural environment;
• Coordination, organizational and planning skills required, including ability to manage large workloads, effectively meet deadlines, through an excellent ability to multi-task and prioritize in complex environment;
• A self-starter with a proven ability to work independently;
• A sense of curiosity, drive to improve the humanitarian sector and ability to see the bigger picture.