Program Award Advisor, Central Africa

Program Award Advisor, Central Africa

• Berlin or nationwide in Germany| as soon as possible
• full-time | 2 years

About Us

Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. In 2016, IRC Germany was founded and is involved in the areas of education, economic wellbeing, and safety, legal protection, and empowerment throughout Germany.

IRC DE was established in 2016 to further enhance the profile of the German humanitarian and development sector and to provide further opportunities for advocacy on behalf of the people we serve. Since its establishment, IRC DE has grown rapidly and has representations in Bonn and Berlin. It is working with major German statutory donors, like the German Federal Foreign Office, KfW, and GIZ. IRC DE is also cooperating with German civil society organizations. In Europe, the IRC also has offices in Brussels, Geneva, Stockholm, and London.

The Program and Award Advisor supports country programs in ensuring compliance to donor rules and regulations and IRC systems and processes, leads on the review and submission of high-quality donor deliverables, and ultimately support awards management in the Central Africa region (Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Tanzania). The Program and Award Advisor also manages donor relationships with HQ donor counterparts as needed and advises country programs in relation to the implementation of IRC’s partnership management approach and system - the Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results (PEER) System.

Major Responsibilities

• Manage a portfolio of awards for the Central Africa region. Main donors in portfolio will include GFFO, BMZ, KfW, GIZ, and ECHO, but may also include other donors as assigned.
• Review, provide substantive feedback and ensure timely submission of reports, collaborating with and ensuring input from relevant technical and financial staff.
• Provide support on private proposals and awards management, in coordination with the Regional Support Manager and private fundraising team.
• Guide country offices in partnership with other relevant departments in the design, production, and submission of and revise and quality assure award amendments and modifications.
• Serve as first point of contact for country program-based awards staff to guide and advise country teams on all post-award issues and to act as a connecting point between country program and other AMU teams to facilitate the timely flow of key information between them.
• Review and lead negotiation of award agreements with donors, other IRC entities and partners according to IRC policies and internal processes.
• Guide and coach country offices in understanding policies, guidance and tools vis-à-vis working and managing local or international partners, ensuring that IRC’s PEER System is being followed and compliance rules from donors are cascaded to partners. Coordinate with compliance team as needed.
• Provide support to and monitoring of projects to ensure progress against objectives and compliance with donor guidelines and IRC internal requirements. Monitoring of awards can take the shape of monitoring visits, project implementation meetings and targeted calls following specific donor internal guidelines and IRC established processes.
• Provide technical advice to country offices on ad-hoc queries on donor compliance issues in coordination with the Compliance and Policy team on non-routine and high-level compliance matters and escalate to leadership for support as needed.
• Take part in regular meetings and calls with country teams to provide regular support and updates and collaborate closely on specific issues related to donor compliance, submissions and/or monitoring/award management.
• Ensure lessons learned from finalized projects are fed into the Business Development team.
• Stay informed about programmatic issues and security and political developments in the region and how they might affect program implementation.
• Advise and lead country programs appropriately to enable them to successfully follow internal IRC policies and procedures (e.g. OTIS, PEERS).
• Travel to provide additional support to or cover short-term gaps for awards and partnerships teams in the countries.
• Interviews for country awards teams and other support with country programs recruitment for Grants and Partnerships teams.
• Responding to data requests from other departments and accountability for portfolio-wide data needs.
• Coordinate with other members of the Program and Award Support Team and other AMU members for information sharing and to establish coherent awards support.

• Manage donor relationships by maintaining communication on contractual issues, updates on program implementation and following up on compliance queries and securing changes and approvals as needed.

• Represent IRC externally at country specific meetings, with donors and stakeholder networks.
• Develop training materials and carry out training of IRC in-country staff, as required and in coordination with the Director, Awards Management (DAM).
• In coordination with the DAM, develop and maintain work-processes and checklists for award implementation and report review, as well as record lessons learned.
• Onboard new country office Grants and Partnerships staff and new Program and Award Support team to assigned donors, policies and/or IRC processes.
• Mentor and coach Grants and Partnerships staff on IRC systems and processes to ensure capacity is built at country level. Coach, train and supervise, where relevant, a Program and Award Officer in carrying out essential functions as they relate to country program support and donor liaison.
• Ensure direct reports are trained on all relevant IRC processes and donor regulations.
• Support direct reports in achieving annual objectives, acting as a trusted and accountable manager, mentor, and professional resource, including promoting collaboration, enabling adequate resourcing and ensuring accountability.

Your Profile

• Degree, preferably in a subject related to IRC’s work (International Relations, Refugee or Migration Studies, Development Studies, Public Policy) or equivalent experience.
• While experience with and a strong understanding of ECHO and German government donor requirements is strongly preferred, the understanding of other EU, UN or U.S. donors would be an added advantage.
• Good understanding of humanitarian aid and development programming with experience in the global South.
• Good financial management and budgeting skills with the ability to analyze and synthesize information.
• Ability to travel internationally, sometimes on short notice and to insecure areas.
• You have German French and English language skills at C2 Level (Native level) according to theCommon European Framework of Reference for Languages (CERF)

What We Offer

• Meaningful work in a multi-cultural team
• A starting salary between 61,285 EUR and 63,400 Euro gross per year as well as a merited annual salary increase.
• Attractive benefits for employees such as gym membership, company pension plan, job bike leasing, job ticket subsidy and special leave days
• 30 days of annual leave
• Flexible hybrid-work options (working hours, office/homebased)
• Training and development opportunities.

As an organization committed to an empowering and inclusive work environment, we avoid any form of discrimination. We welcome applications from people regardless of their national origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability status or age and strongly encourage applications from candidates with a history of migration and resettlement. We believe in fair and equal treatment of all applicants and therefore kindly ask you to refrain from including photos in your application documents.

Please submit your complete application documents via our application portal:

• Please answer the questions on the application portal (no cover letter needed), and then attach
• curriculum vitae (max. 2 pages),
• at least three references

Unfortunately, we cannot consider applications submitted by e-mail.

If you have any questions, also on the topic of inclusion, please do not hesitate to contact Domtillah Herbrand ([email protected]).

Please submit your application by 04.03.2024.