Job Openings at CARE

JOB SUMMARY & PURPOSE:

The initiative “Women’s Voice and Leadership Program – Kenya” will be implemented over a five-year period by CARE in Kenya. This initiative aims to contribute to gender equality and the increased enjoyment of human rights by women and girls in Kenya by improving the management, programming, and sustainability of local women’s rights organizations (WRO), enhancing their ability to deliver quality services, and increasing the effectiveness of Kenyan women’s rights platforms. The objectives of this program directly feed into Global Affairs Canada’s Women’s Voice and Leadership program, complimenting other programs by demonstrating and documenting good practice in WRO convening and accompaniment, by building intergenerational alliances within the women’s rights movement, by incorporating aspects of feminist monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL), and by showcasing sustainable methods of supporting and reviving WROs at a particular phase of a social movement.

This program has been designed based on extensive consultations with Kenyan WRO and feminist practitioners. The initiative has been designed to be implemented under the leadership of the WRO themselves, offering space for them to determine key priorities, selection processes, and results, and will remain flexible to the needs of the Kenyan women’s rights movement. This initiative will support approximately 20 women’s rights organizations with multi-year, flexible, operational funding to enable their agendas and capacity development, enhancing their ability to sustain their organizations with additional funding and improve their service delivery. While key results will be contingent on the needs and priorities of Kenyan WRO as they arise throughout the program duration, it is estimated that this initiative will reach an additional 120 organizations and their staff with capacity development activities.

The purpose of the Grants & Partnership Coordinator position is to support the Women’s Voices & Leadership Program Manager in managing and coordinating all financial aspects of the Program to ensure there is optimal compliance with contract obligations and that partners have capacities to administer the funds, utilise in an accountable manner and report timely. In order to achieve this, the Grants Coordinator, shall support the development of a programs operational and sub grants manual, ensure the operationalization of the program grants management systems; specifically ensure compliance with CARE Kenya’s financial systems and CARE Kenya Operational manuals, support interpretation and enforcement of all contract obligations in partner contracts, technical assistance (TA) and operational budgets; provide on going support and supervision to partners to comply with standard contract clauses to enhance quality program delivery but also compliance, provide technical advise on financial, grants and governance management components during field technical support visits while also implementing technical and capacity building on financial systems strengthening, to ensure sub contractor systems are supportive to Women voices and leadership program contract compliance; identify risks to contract compliance and adress these, while enuring to inform management on timely basis. Where need be, the grants Coordinator shall support the setting up of grants management systems for partners. The grants Coordinator shall support the Women’s Voices & Leadership Program Manager and Grants Manager, in developing grants portfolio performance reports with a view to monitoring and ensuring that CARE and contractor budgets are effectively and timely utilized as per Program work plan and targets, review partners’ financial reports submitted against program targets and partner contract provisions in consultation with program Coordinators; and support preparation of annual partners and audits.

The Grants Coordinator shall primarily report to the Women’s Voices & Leadership Program Manager – Women voices and leadership program as well as to the Grants Manager. He/She shall get day to day grants management and technical support from the Grants manager while working on operational areas with the Women’s Voices & Leadership Program Manager as well as closely with peer level MEAL Coordinator; shall get day to day management support from program and program support units to support effective administration of the program. The Grants Coordinator shall keep the program team informed of all processes and procedures related to grants performance, including capacity building and institutional support. He/she will work closely with the program manager to understand the technical components which will inform the grants component, support adherance to all financial contract compliance aspects by ensuring that funds are clearly programed and that targets are clearly costed and contracted by supporting partners development and review of budgets to ensure harmony with program performance targets, (financial and program targets), work plan per required timelines, funds utilization is adequately documented, accounted for, reported and cleared. A key indicator of success of the position will be the realization of full contract compliance per partner; that funds are fully accounted for within the program period under which they are utilized; improvement in partners technical capacities in financial and grants management and that the reports to the donor are shared on time as per contract requirements.

Tasks and responsibilities

R 1: Grants Coordination, Contract, Compliance and Capacity Building

• Develop principle recipient WROs contract agreements taking on board conditions of institutional assessments; ensure the contracts are reviewed by Grants Manager and Women’s Voices & Leadership Program Manager and facilitate signing by CARE country director and WROs representative.
• Develop specific principle recipient WROs grants and contract management work plans and share these with the Women’s Voices & Leadership Program Manager for review
• Work with partners to ensure the understanding of contractual clauses, support their development of actions (work plan) for implementing conditions in the grant agreement.
• Support WROs in capacity assessment and contracting of partner WROs.
• Develop reports and share with Women’s Voices & Leadership Program Manager highlighting risks and challenges foreseen on contract compliance during field visits and upon review of program reports, while identifying, recommending mitigation actions including and not limited to enforcement of contractual agreements, capacity development among others.
• Document progress made against grants and contracts management work plans and Capacity Building plans on a quarterly basis ensuring to focus on emerging actions for follow ups and improvements.
• Identify institutional gaps at partner level, discuss and develop conditions per partner and ensure that they are captured in partner contracts with clear timelines for meeting them and provisions for non-compliance, but also technical support required from CARE to improve on partner’s capacities.
• Develop in consultation with the MEAL Coordinator field monitoring work plans and share these for review by the Women’s Voices & Leadership Program Manager and Grants Manager, and upon approval implement these, with a view to strengthening partners’ oversight, identification of risks and taking actions to minimize risks to grants underutilization and misappropriation.
• Prepare field grants monitoring reports ensuring that you develop clear action points and timelines for follow up after field supervision visits and share these with the Women’s Voices & Leadership Program Manager and Grants Manager for review and further advice.
• Proactively and timely identify financial and governance risks of individual partners and communicate these in writing to CARE’s management through the Program and Grants Managers.
• Implement the operations manual, sub grants management, financial and sub grants policies and procedures to ensure effective CARE’s, partners and sub-contractors compliance to terms and conditions as well as systems and processes.
• Support the principle recipient WROs to develop funds disbursement requests.
• Provide technical capacity building for identified capacity building needs during sessions (on-site or workshop sessions) for partners and staff on grants management to enhance grants compliance and performance.
• Consolidate and share list of program assets inventory held by partners and ensuring reporting as per donor requirements and CARE Kenya policies and regulations.
• Ensure funds disbursement requests by partners are processed timely to facilitate timely disbursement of funds to partners and as per signed sub grants contracts and CAREs policies.

R 2: Budget Management and Partner Support

Tasks

• Support the program team in preparation and allocation of partners’ budgets, while ensuring that all partner scope is effectively budgeted, and are within approved budgets.
• With technical support from the Women’s Voices & Leadership Program Manager, support partners in developing and operationalizing the program budget, grants tracking tool, and provide technical training for partner grants officers to ensure that all activities are accounted for in a timely manner.
• Provide training and support to partners in budget tracking, cash advance management, procurement and reporting.
• Provide training support to the Program team in the utilization of grants management templates and provide technical support during ongoing implementation to ensure effective CARE and partners’ budget management.
• Undertake monthly review of budget utilization by partners and flag areas of under/overruns.
• Support timely preparation of donor financial reports and all expenses incurred by partners and ensure they are dully accounted for before submission of reports to donors.
• Provide support to partners for timely response to budget queries
• Ensure effective implementation of all CARE financial and operational and administrative policies and procedures while undertaking budget management roles.
• Attending program coordination meetings as shall be advised and as shall be relevant and upon consultation with line manager.

R3: Program Grants monitoring, evaluation and Reporting

Tasks

• Support the development of grants monitoring tools such as relevant forms and indicators for measuring compliance, field grants monitoring forms, budget tracking tools’, procurement plans and costed work plans and utilizes these in effecting monitoring and evaluation of performance of the grant to ensure optimal utilization and success of the program.
• Support the development of progress monitoring reports on grants performance
• Monitor partners’ utilization of grants monitoring tools developed for use by CARE and partners for the program and shares these reports
• Review partner reports for accuracy and compliance and share timely feedback on any questionable costs/activities.
• Review monthly expenditure statements generated by finance and advice on any adjusting journal entries.
• Ensure timely submission of financial reports to CMP and donors as per contract requirements.
• Support the Women’s Voices & Leadership Program Manager in the development of TORs for program evaluations and financial capacity building sessions to ensure that grants and financial components are well articulated;
• Support technical review of consultancy applications ensuring that concise assessment criteria is developed and operationalized;

R4: Partnership Strengthening, Technical Assistance, Knowledge management and learning

Tasks

• Support Women’s Voices & Leadership Program Manager in organizing partner review meetings while developing key points and grants performance review presentations to various actors in order to inform challenges, lessons learnt and promising practices for purposes of improving performance and knowledge sharing in the program.
• Identify and program financial and governance related technical assistance needs for adressing capacity weaknesses based on capacity assessment reports and field technical support sessions; and support the development and implemention of capacity building (CB) and technical assistance (TA) plans.
• Coordinate with other CARE Kenya program and Women’s Voices & Leadership Program Managers in informing learning and improvements on grants performance, partnerships coordination among key areas of institutional development.
• Support the development of a system to identify and document grants management promising practices at the start of the program, organize partner review and sharing sessions, present program progress, lessons learnt and best practices to enhance the learning agenda in the Women Voices and leadership.
• Support CARE’s achievement of strategic interventions as outlined in the strategic plan, program principles and other frameworks.

AUTHORITY:

1. Spending Authority: N/A

2. Supervision: N/A

3. Decision Making: Decision making on core JD responsibilities of Grants and Contract coordination and Compliance, budget management, grants monitoring, evaluation and Reporting, capacity building and technical assistance for their portfolio of partners in consultation with the supervisor.

CONTACTS/KEY RELATIONSHIPS (internal & external):

• Internal: Works as a peer and closely with finance Coordinators/officers to manage partners and technical support and technical supervisory support of the Grants Manager and Women’s Voices & Leadership Program Manager; seeks technical support from the sector managers, finance department especially the finance Manager. The position also works closely with the audit and compliance unit staff.
• External: The position offers day to day support to the partners in grants management, financial reporting, and technical assistance related to grants management. The position also comes into contact with other external parties e.g. auditors and program stakeholders.

WORKING CONDITIONS:

• Normal working conditions in a city setup with significant (over 50%) travel to county program sites. The employee may have to contend with traffic congestion during peak hours in Nairobi. The employee will undertake frequent field visits sub-recipients program locations (over 50%) to verify financial information reported by partners and to Coordinator technical support and supportive supervision. This includes travel to remote areas and therefore has exposure to road travel and security risks.

QUALIFICATIONS:

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in finance/accounting and CPA-K. Trainings on financial management and donor regulations are highly desirable.

Experience:

• At least 3 years of experience in similar capacity in grants making programs in reputable Non-Governmental organizations.

Competencies:

• Familiarity with Financial systems and procedures and various donor rules and regulations.
• Demonstrable program budget and grant management skills and experience
• Ability and experience to develop and implement grant performance management and monitoring plans
• Excellent inter-personal, facilitation skills and communication skills
• Ability to work well in a team and provide staff leadership
• Person of high moral character and professional integrity
• Must expressly be supportive to girls and women’s empowerment
• Training and facilitation skills Coaching and mentorship skills