Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding. CRS has been working in Ethiopia for nearly 60 years, responding to natural and man-made disasters affecting Ethiopia’s most vulnerable communities. Moving beyond emergency response, CRS’ disaster mitigation and recovery projects in drought and flood-prone areas have rebuilt individual and community assets through non-food aid in the form of agriculture, livestock, health, nutrition, and water and sanitation assistance.

Job Summary:

The Grants manager is responsible to provide support to the Resilience Food Security Activity (RFSA) team (CRS and Partners) in financial management, budgeting, liquidations, and reporting. The Grants Manager will closely work with Partners and CRS Finance staff and follow up the timely clearing of liquidation and reimbursement of documents, advance and quarter cash forecast requests. S/he will strengthen Partners’ grant management capacity, improve communication and enhance effective delivery of program implementation.

Specifically, s/he is responsible to (1) Support RFSA team (CRS and Partners) in the process of annual budget planning and forecasts; (2) review Partner advances and liquidations to ensure accuracy and legitimacy while increasing Partners’ financial and internal control capacities; (3) build Partner capacity based on the identified financial capacity gaps/needs; and (4) ensure proper documentation of RFSA key documents on file.

Overall Responsibilities:

Provide support to the RFSA team and Partners on financial management, reporting, liquidations, and budgeting.
Track budget, expenditures of the RFSA project by expenditure type, partner, activity code and funding sources and report on regular basis.
Regularly lead the review of BCR, ageing report and questioned costs and take appropriate action with the relevant Partners.

Specific Duties and Responsibilities:

Leadership & Management:

• Ensure that all financial deliverables are met in a high quality and timely fashion.
• Work closely with RFSA Project Managers and Partners to review and explain budget levels, timelines, allowability, etc.
• Support partners to prepare quarterly forecast and monthly cash request, verify whether they are accurate, valid, and are supported by necessary attachments.
• Coordinate with the PMs to ensure that all expenditure requests are consistent with budget allocations, quarterly planning with CRS policy and donor requirements, and bring any irregularities to the attention of the RFSA COP and DCOP – Operations.
• Ensure by closely working with RFSA Project Managers, Partners and CRS finance team that all advances to partners are released on time.
• Facilitate development of annual budget plans and forecasts.
• Ensure to track budgets including modification, advances, liquidations, questioned costs and alert the Finance staff for timely clearance.
• Process routine grant management documents, including periodic reports and review payment requests following applicable rules and procedures.
• Maintain separate files for each partner, complete with all the necessary documents. (Approved Project Budget, Budget amendments, grant agreements, grant modifications, information on opening and closing dates of projects.).

Capacity Building:

• Serve as a technical support person for the RFSA and Partners to assist in strengthening capacity through training, networking, and exchange visits.
• Provide on-spot assistance and training to all PMs and Partners in the overall grant management and supervision, budget planning and utilization, documentation and reporting as required/needed.

Monitoring and Reporting:

• Coordinate with CRS Finance Department, participate on the sub-recipient financial monitoring process to conduct regular monitoring internal control system, support partners to develop internal control improvement plans and make a close follow up and support for the actual implementation of these plans.
• Monitor the financial management of Partners to ensure that finance related activities are performed to a high professional standard, effectively implemented, and fulfill CRS/Ethiopia requirements.
• Carryout other responsibilities given by his/her immediate supervisor.

Requirements:

Education and Experience

• MA/MSc in Finance, Accounting, Business Administration or Project
• Management with 5 years of relevant experience
• BA/BSC in Accounting, Finance or Business Administration with 7 years of relevant experience
• Experience engaging with Partner Organizations
• Grant and Budget management experience
• Experience contributing to the development of technical proposals.
• MEAL skills and experience
• Experience using MS Windows and MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications, information management systems.

Personal Skills

• Strong critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills with ability to make sound judgment.
• Strong relationship management skills and the ability to work effectively with culturally diverse groups.
• Experience working in complex environments.
• Good understanding of USAID rules and regulations
• Good personal & organizational skills, including team working skill and time management.
• Ability to meet deadlines and work under pressure independently/with limited supervision.
• Ability to work collaboratively.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with ability to write reports.
• Proactive, results-oriented, and service-oriented

Desired Competency

• Detail understanding of grant proposal process.
• Knowledge of project management phases and tools/processes used to deliver projects.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills that demonstrate the ability to present and communicate complex technical information, problems and alternative solutions to a broad range of technical and non-technical staff.
• Ability to develop mutual working relationships within the unit and partners.
• Knowledge of staff management and support functions.

Required/Desired Foreign Language : Good written and verbal communication skills in English.

Travel: Up to 25% Field travel required

Key Working Relationships:

Supervisory: Three Sr. Grant Officers based in Addis Ababa

Internal: RFSA COP, DCOP – Operation, other RFSA DCOPs, PMs, CRS Finance staff

External: RFSA Partners