Senior Grants Officer at Creative Associates International

Job ID: 2021-1820
Location: Maiduguri, Borno or Yola, Adamawa State.
Category: Grants Management

Overview

• The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has contracted Creative Associates International to implement the Northeast ConNEction activity to strengthen the resilience of communities vulnerable to violent extremist infiltration and conflict. By targeting communities not yet under the control of violent extremist organizations (VEOs), this activity will seize the opportunity to mitigate the grievances that make communities vulnerable to violent extremism, while building social cohesion within and across communities in northeast Nigeria.
• In addition to helping northeastern Nigerians create a stronger foundation against the violent extremist and conflict threats, the activity is designed to develop local capacity to respond to emerging threats.
• In order to enable flexible and adaptive management of the activity in a complex environment, the activity includes a focused effort on research and analysis of the threats and coordination around programmatic opportunities and responses.

Position Summary

• The Senior Grants Officer will serve as the principal point of contact and Manager for Grant Administration.
• S/he will be responsible to ensure effective and efficient management of grants administration and to ensure flexible, innovative, and rapid-response mechanisms are designed to target key zones within Nigeria.
• S/he will also ensure that the Grant Management and administration function is always in compliance with Creative and USAID’s policies and procedures; and will work towards capacity building of the recipients as well as the other staff members in the area of grants management.

Responsibilities
Primary responsibilities include but are not limited to the following:

• Provides oversight and management of grants staff and grants program.
• Organizes and coordinates organizational staffing structure and workflow of grants staff activities and administration.
• Responsible for ensuring quality control and the integrity of the data in Creative’s online grants database and ensures that the data in the system is always up-to-date.
• Responsible for ensuring compliance with Creative’s grants policies as detailed in the Field Manual and the projects Grants Manual.
• Coordinate closely with program staff to ensure timely administration and monitoring of grant agreements.
• Coordinate with finance, procurement, and program staff to facilitate grantee kick-off meeting, monitoring and closeout of grant activities.
• Coordinate closely with Grants, Procurement and Programs to ensure activity-level spending is on track and provide quality control on any required budget modifications.
• Provide guidance and interpretation for program staff as well as grantees of Creative’s grants policies and procedures and USG regulation.
• Manage the grants and direct implementation pipeline.
• Manage the financial commitments, spending, and deobligations of the activities pool and all program fund sources.
• Ensure that grant master files are always up-to-date and ready for audit.
• Lead the grants management team to serve as a central point of grant activity coordination and facilitation.
• Provide support to technical units on grants compliance and the online grants database.
• Provide training in grants compliance to project staff.
• Other tasks as needed.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or professional Accounting/Financial qualification is required.
• Minimum of five (5) years professional experience (with previous supervisory experience preferred) working in complex and challenging field operational contexts.
• Minimum three (3) years’ grants administration experience with international donors is required, previous USAID grant experience strongly preferred.
• Competence in computers and using financial software.
• Understanding of budget and cost control management.
• Excellent written and spoken English skills.
• Fluency in one or more of the local state languages in the Northeastern part of Nigeria.
• Ability to work under pressure and efficiently handle multiple tasks.
• Ability to work under own initiative or as a part of a team.
• Must be willing and able to work in Maiduguri or Yola, Nigeria.
• Must have existing work authorization for Nigeria.