Finance Coordinator at Plan International

Role Purpose

• The purpose of this role is to support the tracking of Lake Chad Crisis fund raising, provision of timely and accurate financial information and ensure that Grants expenditures are in line with specific FAD/donor requirements.
• The role’s support is to the Humanitarian and Lake Chad Programmes.

Dimension of Role

• Communicates within Plan International Nigeria, Cameroon & Niger. The post holder will contribute towards grant and financial management of the offices and programmes, interfacing with both operational and programme team members.
• Budgets - Monitor budgets of the Lake Chad programme.  
• Reporting - Support financial reporting on all grants including that of the Lake Chad Programme.
• Coordination of consolidated grants and financial management reports of the Lake Chad Crisis in the three (3) countries, and in Chad from later in 2021
• Fund Raising - Support funding raising activities and help track funds raised.
• Area of Responsibility - LC Programme in Nigeria and the other countries in the Lake Chad Country Crisis

Key Roles/Responsibilities
Programme development & Quality Management

Strategy:

• Contribute to the achievement of Lake Chad Crisis Strategy and support the effective grants and financial management in the three Countries.

Grants Administration:  

• Support the full cycle of grants management activities beginning from pre-award assessments, monitoring/compliance visits and close-out procedures.
• Track grantee contractual obligations, e.g., pre-award conditions.
• Support the Finance Operations Manager and Project Managers to prepare the annual grants budgets for the Lake Chad Programme.
• Provide Quality assurance on information reported by all 3 countries on the grants tracker and other reports.

 Capacity Building and Support:

• Provide technical assistance in terms of accounting (use of SAP), financial management, financial policy formulation, and systems of internal control to all partners/grantees to ensure compliance with donor rules and regulations.
• Review partner budget and provide assistance and guidance where necessary including the monitoring and interpretation of project budgets versus actual expenditures.
• Support train staff and partners on donor policies, rules and regulations.

Business Planning Process:

• Participates in the budgeting process and in establishing a master budget for the Lake Chad Crisis response.
• Ensures that the budget for Lake Chad to be recovered from grants is provided for in the grant portion of the budget.
• Participates in the review of the grant proposal to ensure that part of the budget is allocated to cover regular Plan expenditures as well as Lake Chad Crisis.
• Track grants income receipt to ensure liquidity and monitors cashflow to various countries
• Provides assistance during audits for accurate, timely and organized audit activities.

Reporting:

• Monitor and track grants related performance measurement indicators and liaise with Finance & Grants Manager-Humanitarian to implement strategies to improve performance.
• Monitor the partner burn rate and offer timely advice to the partner and programs team for prompt action and decision-making.
• Explain donor requirements and organizational financial policy & procedures to staff and ensure compliance.
• Prepare the monthly Consolidated Lake Chad burn rate - expenditure traffic tracker.
• Prepare the monthly Consolidated Lake Chad cost recovery tracker.
• Support the preparation of the Lake Chad funding/grant tracker liaising with the 3 countries.
• Prepare the Lake Chad budget and expenditure tracker for the FOA (FAD open to all).
• Support the 3 COs in recharging costs to the FOA as per intercompany charges procedures.
• Support 3 COs to update the Financial Tracking Services (FTS).
• Monitor updating of funding for Lake Chad Crisis in the Financial Tracking Services (FTS)
• Track all deployments costs and ensure these costs are charged to the projects timely.
• Liaise with all sending countries for deployed staff to ensure costs are timely recorded and to the correct grant.
• Support the cost allocation to the grants as per cost recovery procedures in all the Lake Chad Crisis 3 countries.
• Be able to navigate in SAP and assess spending progress for all the 3 countries.
• Ensure all countries are uploading grants tracker on Planet including the consolidated tracker.
• Support the grants and finance manager in the preparation of financial reports based on donor requirements.
• Fulfill Plan’s Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy at all times.
• Perform any other project related duties as specified by Supervisor(s).

Technical Expertise, Skills and Knowledge
Qualifications and Experience:

• Degree in Accounting or equivalent.
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in donor funds grants administration.
• Fluency in English required (working knowledge in French will be an added advantage).
• Preferred qualifications: knowledge of and experience with the key donors in the industry is strongly preferred.
• Knowledge of SAP/Dynamics 365 will be an added advantage

Skills & Knowledge:

• Excellent and demonstrable experience in grant and financial management.
• Knowledge and understanding of Nigeria’s policy environment
• Highly developed interpersonal and communication skills including good listening skills, influencing, negotiation and coaching.
• Capacity to build and maintain relationships and to work effectively in a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic environment respecting diversity.
• Experience with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

Behaviours:

• Creates strong sense of purpose and commitment within own part of operations and with stakeholders.
• Holds self and others to account to deliver on agreed goals and standards of behaviour
• Demonstrates a high degree of professionalism/integrity.
• Provides good and adequate support to enable programmes to meet it’s agreed financial and program outcomes.
• Actively seeks for support in addressing difficulties in execution of duties.
• Strategic thinking and effective contribution to own work and Organizational development.
• Sound judgments and decision-making in complex situations.
• Strong emotional intelligence including self-awareness.
• Leads by example to motivate high performance of others.
• Very strong commitment to continuous learning.
• Excellent communication and people management skills.