Grants Manager at Solidarites International

Location: Maiduguri, Borno
Desired Start Date: ASAP
Duration of the mission: 6 months (renewable)

About the Mission

• Solidarites International opened the Nigeria mission over the summer 2016. Starting with a single project, this mission has quickly expanded and SI is now a major WASH and shelter actor in the Borno State.
• The current political and military crisis has affected millions of lives in the area and SI is answering the needs of displaced populations and host communities in Borno State. The targeted areas of intervention are WASH, shelter, logistics, food security and livelihood.

Programs Currently Running:

• Multi-sectorial WASH and FSL project funded by EuropeAid over 3 years in consortium leaded by ALIMA – started in January 2018 in Monguno, Ngala, Askira/Uba
• Logistic Platform project funded by WFP in Monguno
• Emergency WASH and Shelter response funded by OFDA – Maiduguri, Monguno, Dikwa, Ngala
• Emergency WASH in Health funded by ECHO – in partnership with ALIMA (leaded by SI) in Maiduguri and Monguno
• Emergency WASH funded by ECHO in Maiduguri, Monguno and Dikwa

This mission is strong and has potential to continue developing relevant and mandate-based interventions to cover the humanitarian needs in the area and to ensure a real humanitarian impact. The team is well staffed with very diverse profiles (former SI, former national staffs from several SI missions, various backgrounds and technicalities). Overall, the atmosphere is very good, people get along well and they love to play volleyball on Sundays.

Here are the key numbers and information about the mission:

• 5 bases (Maiduguri, Abuja, Dikwa, Ngala and Monguno) plus Coordination Office in Maiduguri.
• The number of expatriates is around 20
• The national staff are approximately 220
• The total budget of the mission is around 7,5 million euros

About the Job

• As part of the coordination team and reporting to the Deputy CD, and working closely with the program and support departments at coordination level, as well as the base teams, the Grant Manager is the mission’s focal point on ensuring accountability to donors. Specifically, he/she is in charge of:
• Contributing to the mission’s strategic development.
• Monitoring and identifying funding opportunities in line with SI country and global strategy.
• Overseeing compilation of timely and high quality proposals, reports and contract modification requests for submission to donors and consortium partners.
• Monitoring compliance with donor procedures throughout the grant cycle and building capacity of new and existing staff on internal accountability tools and donor procedures.
• Proactively following-up on donor contractual obligations, from contracting to closing and archiving, and ensuring contractual obligations are known and understood by relevant staff/departments.
• Centralizing and preparing relevant documentation for external audits and audit report archiving.
• Managing the Reporting Officer and Communication Officer

The Main Tasks
Donor relations:

• Contributes to the CD/DCD’s representation with donors by providing briefing papers and accompanying meetings as requested.
• Supervise the development of communication materials (by the Reporting and Communication Officer) targeting donors and other external partners.

Financing Strategy:

• Actively monitors and identifies funding opportunities from SI institutional donors, new institutional donors, funding from foundations and private donors as well as co-funding opportunities.
• Analyzes funding opportunities and eligibility in line with SI country and global strategy.

Document Development and Review:

• Coordinates the dialogue between departments in the response design phase and coordinates the involvement of consortium partners.
• Monitors the retro planning for concept note, proposal, and report writing.
• Compiles all contributions (from relevant departments and implementing partners) to draft high quality concept notes, and proposals - including corresponding annexes.
• Reviews, proofreads and finalizes proposal narratives and budgets before submission to HQ, ensuring compliance with internal and donor requirements, in close consultation with other departments.
• Finalizes narrative and financial reports (interim and final) before submission to HQ or donor.
• For submission at field level (including submission via online donor platforms), submits proposals/reports to donor.

Contractual Management:

• Introduce or disseminate tools and methodologies to improve project implementation follow-up/ good grant management.
• Contributes to reviewing terms of contract with donors or prime recipients before signature.
• Facilitates kick-off meetings to disseminate contractual obligations to all relevant staff.
• Coordinates contract amendment requests, budget or schedule revisions.
• In collaboration with the Finance coordinator, follows-up on requests for installments/funds.
• Monitors validation by the donor of final reports and last payment – closure of the grant.
• Facilitates project pre-closure and closure meetings.

External Compliance:

• Collaborates with the coordination team to ensure due diligence and vetting of potential partners is conducted.
• When SI works with implementing partners, ensures donor contractual obligations explicitly appear on partners’ sub-award agreements and monitors partners’ compliance.
• Answers to due diligence exercises conducted by donors or Prime recipients.
• Provides trainings to new and existing staff on donor accountability tools and donor procedures.
• Works closely with all relevant departments to proactively and regularly monitor programmatic compliance in accordance with donor requirements (progress against indicators, project schedule, facilitate project review meetings).
• Monitors and disseminates reporting, proposal and audit deadlines to all relevant staff.

Internal and External Communication:

• Ensure content (articles, pictures) are provided on a regular basis to the communication department, and are compliant with contractual obligations.
• Ensure the proofreading of articles and the sharing of information in collaboration with the Country Director and communication department.

External Audits:

• Monitors and disseminates deadlines for incoming audits, liaises with the Transparency and Institutional Development department at HQ to plan the audit and contract with the audit firm (if relevant).
• Centralizes and prepares documentation for external audits at field level, files the audit report.

Your Profile

• University degree in International Affairs, Mass Communications or related subject
• At least two years experiences working in emergency programs
• Previous successful experience developing projects and writing proposals for public donors
• Knowledge of main donor regulations and priorities, especially ECHO.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Detail oriented, organized, and able to manage competing urgent requests and priorities
• Works well in team, comfortable in a multi-cultural environment, flexible and able to handle pressure well
• Previous experiences in unsecure and tense environment

SI will offer You

• A salary starting from 1800€ gross per month + valorization of your experiences
• A monthly Per Diem of 600 USD
• SI also covers accommodation costs and travel expenses between the expatriate’s country of origin and the place of assignment.

Vacation:

• During the assignment, a system of alternation between work and time off is implemented at the rate of one break every three months. Our policy was just modified: from now on, Solidarités offers you 7 working days ever three months, with a 850 USD allowance for each break.
• In addition to these regular break, SI adds a day off per worked month. These days off as well as the breaks are not deducted from the paid leaves that are paid every months with your salary as they are offered by the organization.

Social and medical cover:

• Expatriates benefit from an insurance package which reimburses all healthcare expenses (including medical and surgical expenses, dental care and ophthalmological expenses, repatriation) and a welfare system including war risks. Essential vaccination and antimalarial treatment costs are refunded.

Living Conditions:

• The living conditions of the base are comfortable (A.C, comfortable beds, TV, tennis table, good cooking etc) with possibility of finding a wide range of goods for cooking.
• Despite restriction (curfew & limitation of movement), the level of activities is quite good (Sport: Soccer, volleyball....and interactions with other INGO).
• The multicultural environment allows for enriching exchanges and extensive discussions, as the atmosphere is very uplifting.
• The problematic aspect is that security procedures are quite restrictive (which is normal given the context) but it means that movement are limited and that knowledge of the city and the culture will be also very limited.