Grants & Compliance Officer at Marie Stopes International

The DESIP Grants and Compliance Officer (GCO) will report directly to the DESIP Programme Director.

MSI and consortium partners are seeking a qualified GCO for a five year, multi-million pound sexual and reproductive health (SRH) programme funded by the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID). The programme will increase access to FP for women, men, and adolescents in 19 regions of Kenya through a combination of: (i) increasing awareness of the benefits of modern contraception; (ii) increasing access to quality contraception; and (iii) strengthening public sector services and systems. The programme will be strongly committed to leaving no one behind and as a result will have a strong focus on reaching people with disabilities, adolescents, and people living under 1.90 USD per day.

The Role

The purpose of this role is to be the lead on management of partner administration, reporting, and compliance. The GCO will ensure that donor standards are met or exceeded and that the implementation of the project aligns with MSI’s global standards. The GCO will work closely with programme, finance, and operations to contribute to quality management of the programme.

The GCO will assist the Programme Director in partner compliance management, ensuring due diligence is completed, reporting to the consortium lead is timely and of good quality, and all processes are properly documented. S/he will be responsible for driving communication between the partners in country, and across the programme.

This role is subject to the successful award of the contract and the programme is due to commence in 2019. The role will be for a minimum of one year and may be extended for the full duration of the programme (4.5 years).

Key Responsibilities

Grants management and compliance

• With guidance from the MSI donor compliance team, ensure partner due diligence is completed in timely manner; lead administration of due diligence follow-up for all partners.
• Lead on compiling of programme and key performance indicator data from all consortium partners, monitoring progress, and escalating risks or implementation issues to the Programme Director.
• With guidance from the MSI Regional Support Team and DFID team, develop a calendar and tracker for all DFID reporting requirements and key compliance areas and disseminate these amongst all consortium partners, ensuring that guidelines are disseminated to and followed by all consortium partners. Where necessary, develop standard reporting templates and tools that will support improved narrative and logframe reporting from partners.
• Manage quarterly and annual donor reporting by collating high quality draft narratives from consortium partners; requesting performing the initial formatting and editing of the draft report before review by the Programme Director and all the relevant MSI internal reviewers – within the stipulated time frame.
• Maintain risk register for the programme, monitor risk mitigation plan, and raise risk and compliance issues proactively with the Programme Director.

Coordination and partner engagement

• Facilitate open communication channels between the consortium management unit and the consortium partners, including programme and consortium updates, deliverables and activities, compliance questions, security, and access concerns as relevant.
• Develop a calendar for monthly partner, review, steering committee, and advisory group meetings; send out invitations; take meeting minutes, keep track of agreed action plans, and highlight deadlines; maintain a tracker of progress made against planned actions and identify areas for escalating to the Programme Director for action.
• Do the preparatory work for the annual work planning workshop, consolidating draft activity plans and budgets from consortium partners into one programme plan; and analysing them for alignment with the technical proposal and programme deliverables.
• Assist in the setting up of meetings between the programme team and representatives of DFID Kenya, the Ministry of Health and associated institutions, bi-lateral and multi-lateral agencies, district local governments, and other stakeholders as and when necessary.
• Schedule monitoring and supervision field visits for the Programme Director and other key staff to all consortium partners and programme sites for monitoring implementation and technical, and financial compliance; contribute to relevant internal audits.
• Maintain open and professional relations with the consortium management unit and key partner personnel, promoting a strong team spirit; providing oversight and mentorship to partners staff to successfully perform their programme-related tasks.

Administration and documenting

• Establish and maintain an orderly and up-to-date filing system for key programme documents, including grant and subgrant agreements, proposal and support documents, narrative and financial partner and donor reports, binding donor correspondence, and other relevant documents.
• Develop and maintain the conflict of interest register and asset list for all consortium partners.
• Track key training information for all partners, especially around safeguarding.
• Perform any other duties as may be requested by the Programme Director in support of achieving programme deliverables. **

Qualifications, skills, and experience (essential/ desirable)

• Minimum five years’ work experience especially in private sector or NGO (essential)
• Demonstrable experience managing donor grants or funds (essential)
• Experience in writing donor reports for large grants, including narrative and results matrices (essential)
• Experience leading or working in cross-functional teams or inter-departmental teams (desirable)
• Fluent in English with excellent verbal and written communication skills (essential)
• Strong IT skills, including Microsoft Office package (essential)
• Strong quantitative and qualitative analytic skills (essential)
• Master’s degree in Public Health or subject relevant to the programme proven employment experience (essential)

Personal Attributes

• Approachable with strong interpersonal & listening skills together with the ability to empower their team
• Track record of delivering targets
• Results focused, high attention to detail
• Self-motivated and a self-starter
• The highest levels of integrity, strong ethical attitude
• IT literate

MSI Behaviours and Values

Team Member Behaviours

• Work as One MSI
  • You contribute, use, and share accurate data and evidence to improve understanding, insight and decision-making across MSI, enabling us to maximise our ability to influence others
  • You share relevant knowledge, expertise and resources to strengthen teamwork and prevent duplication of effort
  • You actively work as part of a team, providing support and flexibility to colleagues, demonstrating fairness, understanding and respect for all people and cultures.
  • Show courage, authenticity and integrity
  • You hold yourself accountable for the decisions you make and the behaviours you demonstrate
  • You are courageous in challenging others and taking appropriately managed risks.
• Develop and grow
  • You seek feedback to enable greater self-awareness and provide the same to others in a way which inspires them to be even more effective
  • You manage your career development including keeping your knowledge and skills up to date.
  • Deliver excellence, always
  • You strive to consistently meet and exceed expectations, putting clients at the centre of everything, and implement smarter, more efficient ways of performing your role
  • You build and maintain effective long-term working relationships with all stakeholders, and are a true MSI ambassador.
• Leadership (For Leaders only)
  • You inspire individuals and teams, through situational leadership, providing clear direction
  • You seek and provide opportunities which motivate team members, helping to develop skills and potential whilst strengthening our talent and succession pipeline
  • You are aware of emerging developments in our sector, demonstrating strategic insight about our clients and business and encourage this in your team
  • You articulate a vision of the future which inspires and excites others.

MSI Values

• Mission driven: With unwavering commitment, we exist to empower women and men to have children by choice, not chance
• Client centred: We are passionate about our clients and dedicate our efforts to delivering agreed objectives to the highest possible quality
• Accountable: We are accountable for our actions and take responsibility for everything we do to ensure long-term sustainability and increased impact
• Courageous: We recruit and nurture talented, passionate and brave people who have the courage to push boundaries, make tough decisions and challenge others in line with our mission.