Ethiopia: Grants and Communications Officer

Job Purpose:

The prime responsibilities of this position are to:

• Support funding and consequentially programme teams in ensuring compliant, timely and high-quality donor reporting and knowledge management;

• Supports and coordinates Concern Ethiopia’s budget proposal development, and cost allocation. Supports the Grants Manager and technical leads in proposal development.

• Leads the development of a coherent realistic and accurate budget that is aligned to the technical work plan; donor’s, Concern, HQ, and government rules and regulations

• Organize and compile organizational information and communication materials and ensuring all Concern staffs are informed of key developments in the office. The Grant and Communications Officer will play a critical role in facilitating the development of quality donor reports, ensuring knowledge management and learning and supporting new business development opportunities. S/He is also responsible for gathering content from the field on project activities and achievements and creating compelling stories out of them in the form of case stories, short videos, project briefers and other communications materials.

Main duties &

Responsibilities:

Scope of Work:

Donor Reporting and Contract Management (40%)

· Supporting the program team to produce timely and high-quality donors’ reports by providing adequate guidance, improving report quality and ensuring narrative/financial reporting consistency; ensuring timely submission of high-quality donor reports in coordination with programme and finance staff. As needed, take responsibility for initial narrative report drafting.

· Ensure grant management tools and resources are streamlined and disseminated to relevant Concern staff in the national and field offices

· Ensure compliance of all donor contracts in line with donor and Concern policies and procedures;

· Provide advice to programme teams in Addis, field project sites, and to partners in complying fully with the terms and conditions of donor contracts.

· Monitor program implementation and analysing consequences on contract management (NCE, amendment, exchange of letters).

· Supporting the Program Teams (Addis and field based) on day-to-day request related to donors and grant management.

· Preparing, updating and circulating monthly donor reporting schedules.

· Support grant opening, review, and closing meetings, including attendance at meetings when required.

· Travel to the field sites as needed to support program monitoring/contract management.

· Assist in maintaining Concern’s Grant Management System by updating proposal/project status and income management.

Budget Proposal development (40%)

· Supports the generation of funds from donors and HQ through active involvement of quality proposal budget development process; identifies key finance related risks in concept notes, proposals and grant agreements; and provide budget analysis, cost estimation, inflation analysis, and foreign exchange management.

· Ensures readiness to respond to calls for proposals for large grants and provide necessary budget formulation support to program staff.

· Ensures that information is provided in a timely fashion in the proposal development process (schedule)

· Verifies that budget proposals adhere to donor and Concern standards

· Ensures that all budget proposals, contracts and amendments with donors follow internal procedures.

· Be the point of contact for budget proposal development and act as a key gatekeeper for ensuring budget quality control of proposals. Responsible for developing comprehensive budget for new proposal. The process requires effective planning and coordination: which includes clearly defining expectations and assumptions; developing budget timetables and identifying responsibilities for budget preparation; developing a coordinated calendar of activity; communicating a well-documented applicable policies and procedures; and determining the budget development approach

· Responds to budget-related donor post submission questions.

· Oversight, review and communicate in seeking the relevant staff involvement at each stage for quality assurance and structured communication.

· Responsible to lead cost and pricing functions to ensure that this need is represented in proposal deliberations, process, and approval.

· Develop justifiable costing strategies that reflect donors and Concern’s thematic focuses.

· Perform any other activities based on Line manager’s assignment

Communication and Information Management (20%)

· Ensure the proper use of communications plan and strategies for internal and external communications.

· Support the preparation of internal and external communications plans for humanitarian responses and development programming

· Gather content from projects; such as case studies, success stories and news articles for editing and sharing,

· Oversee the quality and timeliness of the production of internal communications materials ·

· Plan for editing and writing content for a variety of internal communications (including internal monthly update reports) mediums

· Ensure that cross cutting themes like participation, gender, disability are mainstreamed in all internal communications work

· Identify target audiences for messages developed with specific purposes and Prepare materials, including brochures, posters, newsletter content.

· Maintain a highly updated library of stories, videos, photographs and database for future learning and quick reference.

Emergency response

Concern is committed to responding to emergencies efficiently and effectively in order to help affected people meet their basic needs, alleviate suffering and maintain their dignity. To this end, when emergencies strike and the Ethiopia Programme is to respond, all staff are required to actively participate in the response, regardless of location and contribute to the efforts aimed at achieving the humanitarian objective of the organization.

Gender Equity

· Ensure that programme/project staffs have a strong understanding of gender mainstreaming and that gender mainstreaming tools are effectively implemented across all programs/projects

· Ensure quality reporting on gender mainstreaming in all programme reports

· Demonstrate understanding of Concern Ethiopia’s Gender Equality Strategy

· Contribute to ensuring that Concern Ethiopia is a place where men and women are treated equally and with dignity and respect

· Demonstrate gender equality awareness and gender sensitivity and an ability to integrate a gender equality perspective into tasks and activities.

Person specification:

Essential

· Bachelor (BA) Degree in Accounting or relevant field that can bring an added value to the post from a recognized university/collage

· Relevant experience of minimum 2 years (at least one year budgeting and grants management experience)

· Familiarity with major donor rules and regulations

· Excellent analytical and problem-solving capacities – ability to identify issues with contractual implications, ensure consistent donor reporting and support teams in providing appropriate analyses of activities.

· High adaptability – ability to work with large range of actors including institutional donors and partners and to develop understanding of various contexts.

· Proven excellent writing skills – experience/training in reports writing.

· High attention to detail in reviewing and inputting to reports, proposals and other documents.

· Advanced interpersonal skills and good pedagogy – ability to support staffs in ensuring compliance with donor requirements

· Ability to thrive and act independently in a high-pressured, results-focused, dynamic environment.

· Creative communicator, able to develop inspiring and engaging communication products.

· Highly developed cultural awareness and able to work well in a diverse environment.

· Good proficiency in Microsoft Office – significant experience with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.

Desirable

· Good knowledge/understanding of humanitarian and development programs.

· Good knowledge of institutional donor environment and main donor guidelines (such as ECHO, EC, OFDA, GAC, UN agencies, Foundations, etc.)

· Demonstrated commitment to learning and using learning to strengthen practice.

· Willing to take on new responsibilities, within reason and if needed, especially in emergency scale-up.

Personal Qualities

Essentials

· Accountable and transparent

· Rigorous and attention to details

· Committed to Concern values and aims

· Autonomous and able to take initiative and manage own time

Desirable

· Creative in identifying adequate solutions to varied issues

· Tact and Diplomacy

OTHER

· Flexibility to travel frequently in Ethiopia

· Flexibility to adapt the workload which is deadline driven

Competencies:

Managing yourself– Holds an awareness of own abilities and areas for development; adapts and uses abilities to work well with others and to help achieve Concern’s objectives.

Leadership– Acts to inspire others by clearly articulating and demonstrating the values and principles that underpin Concern’s work. Holds a sense of pride in Concern and loyalty to the organisation. Supports others to achieve excellent results.

Communicating and working with others– Uses the most appropriate channel to share information with others both inside and outside Concern; adapts the message to meet the communication needs of the audience.

Delivering results– Systematically develops plans towards achieving Concern’s objectives and delivers on commitments; uses appropriate techniques to help achieve agreed objectives

Planning and decision-making– Systematically develops plans towards achieving Concern’s objectives and delivers on commitments; makes clear, informed and timely decisions appropriate to role, in the interests of Concern and those we work with

Creativity and innovation– Seeks out, develops and successfully implements new ideas that further the needs of Concern and those we work with; builds on proven approaches and learns from ongoing work to improve it

Influence, advocacy and networking– Engages with others inside and outside the organisation to promote the interests of Concern and those we work with; gathers and shares a wider knowledge of issues relevant to Concern’s work

Change– Responds positively and constructively to change; manages or takes part in change processes in a way that is appropriate to role in the organisation

What we offer

· A competitive salary and benefit package

· Excellent medical benefits (100% cover including dependents)

· 20 days annual leave

· 26 weeks (paid) maternity leave, 18 weeks (unpaid) parental leave

· Opportunities to travel overseas and gain international experience

Interested applicants should send non-returnable C.V., application letter outlining how their experience and education fit this vacancy, please note that no need to submit your supporting documents at this stage:

Ethiojobs.net OR Concern Ethiopia, Human Resource Department

P.O. Box 2434, Addis Ababa.

OR

Apply in person at our Office in Addis Ababa