Project Description

The COVID-19 Africa Response & Rebuild facility is a 10 million Euro grant facility funded by the Federal Republic of Germany, represented by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. The facility supports economically and environmentally sustainable businesses with the aim of protecting at-risk value chains and safeguarding the forest-dependent communities who rely upon them for income. The facility leverages networks of partner businesses across Africa, providing working capital in the form of returnable grants to aggregators, off-takers and other buyers of speciality cocoa and coffee.

Palladium is hiring a Grant Analyst into the project team. The Grant Analyst is an entry-level role working with the Grants Manager on all aspects of managing the portfolio of Grantees and other emerging platforms within Palladium’s nature-based solutions work area.

Outline of Position

The Grant Analyst is a valued member of the team completing a variety of substantive and administrative tasks that are critical to high-quality project management. You will be responsible for the oversight, relationship, management, and monitoring of a portfolio of Grantees. This role encompasses project management, financial management, monitoring and evaluation, and relationship management. Initially focused on learning the basics of grant management, this role works closely with the Grant Manager to be trained in these duties and best practices in project delivery. Over time, the Grant Analyst should apply that learning to complete tasks independently and build competencies and skills in preparation to take on higher level roles in project delivery or other functional areas of Palladium’s business.

Key Responsibilities, Duties and Tasks

The Grant Analyst is an early career role supporting the management of Grants at project and programme level, with particular responsibility for driving innovation in grant delivery, client reporting, and financial management.

Grant Management Process

• Coordinate the submissions of grant proposals
• Review of grantee applications and supporting compliance documentation
• Oversee due diligence process and support selection process
• Review proposed budgets and project activities during proposal stage
• Issue grant agreements

Portfolio and Grant Management

• Act as the Relationship Manager for your portfolio of Grantees
• Manage a grant portfolio and ensure activities are on track to meet targets and impact metrics
• Train all grantees on the grant reporting requirements
• Prepare the grant allocation, disbursements, and forecast schedules, as required
• Review grantees’ financial reports and request any additional supporting documentation for release of grant funds.
• Track all financial disbursements to grantees
• Ensure that grantees are meeting grant reporting requirements in a timely and accurate fashion, including quarterly narrative and financial reporting; review and provide feedback to the grantees and feed into Project Management’s Reporting Requirements.
• Ongoing identification and management of relevant operational risks.  Maintain a risk dashboard highlighting potential risks and issues (operational, fiduciary, and reputational) and mitigation plans (e.g. additional reporting, audits, etc.) for each grant
• Conduct site visits to grantees
• Review of grant reports to ensure accuracy and completion of activities and KPIs against proposals, timelines and project plans, and request additional information if necessary.  Obtain and review evidence submitted by grantees as proof of outcomes
• Conduct, with support from the MEL manager, ongoing monitoring and evaluation of project results and outcomes for Grantees.
• With support from the Grant Manager, issue amendments to Grant Agreements
• Ensure that goods and services are purchased by each grantee according to Palladium Procurement policy and guidelines.
• Collect end of grant reports (project and financial)

Reporting

• Coordinate project expenditure verification and audit
• Inputs to regular reporting to Client and internally within Palladium
• Work with the Project Management team in preparation of quarterly and annual reports and work-plans.
• Maintain a comprehensive information management and filing system that ensures all client contractual documents, reports, key correspondences, etc. are appropriately filed in up-to-date and consistent soft and hard libraries available as needed
• Produce Case Studies for the client documenting the success of The Grants Awarding process

Relationship Management

• Develop and manage strong working relationships with client, project partners and other stakeholders.
• Develop strong working relationships and a regular dialogue on project progress and challenges with the Palladium team working on the project

Training, Supervision and Leadership

• Provide necessary training, capacity building and information to grantees to enable compliance with the financial accounting, reporting and procurement requirements of their funding agreements

Selection Criteria

• Experience of setting up, creating and maintaining financial systems and working knowledge of financial practices, for e.g. budgets, forecast, invoice payments preferably in multicounty set up
• Commitment to fighting climate change and deforestation with the ability to convincingly articulate this commitment.
• Passion for environmental issues, international development, private sector-led development, forestry / nature-based solutions, sustainability or supply chain management
• Experience of designing and implementing administrative systems and processes to ensure operational efficiency.
• Able to work with limited supervision, be flexible and comfortable in a multi-cultural work force.
• Good communication skills: ability to build good working relationship with project team and partners at a range of levels and in different locations
• Fluency in spoken and written English (required) and French (desired)
• Advanced computer skills in Word and Excel. Experience with Outlook
• Excellent attention to detail
• Ability to work under pressure to meet specific deadlines
• This position is based in Ethiopia and requires travel within Ethiopia and in the region.
• This is a one year, fixed-term contract with potential for extension.