Fund and Grant Management Advisor – 6 months maternity cover

Job Description

About the role

The Fund and Grant Management Advisor will primarily focus on the oversight and utilisation of the Accelerating the Sustainable Control and Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases (ASCEND) Fund through the procurement and contracting of Government entities and Implementing Partners. ASCEND is funded by FCDO to achieve progress towards global targets for the control and elimination of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). ASCEND will focus on five NTDs: lymphatic filariasis; onchocerciasis; schistosomiasis; visceral leishmaniasis and trachoma.

The post will also contribute to Crown Agents’ Fund and Grant Management offering, giving focus to improving internal systems and processes and building the portfolio by identifying and supporting new opportunities.

Responsibilities:

Fund Management Lead on the Accelerating the Sustainable Control and Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases (ASCEND) Programme.

• Provide overall Fund and Programme Management expertise, ensuring contractual commitments and arrangements while minimising risk exposure. This includes Advising on Fund Management standards for FCDO contracting, particularly relating to due diligence, fiduciary risk and contracts management.
• Liaise with departments across the organization to troubleshoot issues, find solutions, and provide effective support for grant and contract management in a manner that supports program teams.
• Ensure a continuous improvement and quality assurance approach to managing grants and funds. This includes:
• Regularly implementing improvements on the programme, including those recognised through external experts (including Fiduciary Risk Assessments) and findings from third party monitoring organisations.
• Work closely with the finance team to monitor and analyse financial data and variances, highlight and provide insights into any delays or concerns, identify VfM opportunities and deliver a cost-effective programme.
• Work with the relevant teams to forecast and plan resource requirements and RFP pipeline.
• Oversight of the Contracts and Compliance Team, which will include:
• Management of the team’s performance, establishing clear targets to measure against. A Senior Contracts Manager will report directly to the Fund Manager Lead for all work related to ASCEND
• Supporting and guiding Managers on contract negotiations and contracting, legal clauses, payment terms, pre-financing contracting of Government entities.
• Approve and sign off all contracts before issuing;
• Monitoring IP performance including:
• fiduciary, statutory and contractual compliance for implementing partners, keeping the Programme Management Unit and FCDO updated on any issues / concerns
• Procurement and asset management
• Monitoring, recording and Sign off spend forms and invoices, attaining approval from the appropriate levels within the programme team and ensuring alignment with the milestone payments for programme activities.
• Regularly report on Programme progress internally and to the Client:
• Provide aggregated contracts data, and risks and progress reports to Programme Management Unit and FCDO
• Provide updates on contracting and fund management status to technical working groups
• Contribute to the Quarterly, biannual and annual reports – providing insights into Maintain positive and productive working relationships with key project delivery teams (Regional Managers, Country Leads), Procurement Team, PMU, Technical leads.

About you

Qualification:

A relevant post-graduate degree desirable, or equivalent working experience.

Experience:

• Extensive experience implementing Fund Management Programmes and ensuring compliance of downstream partners with contractual arrangements and designated mandates.
• Strong track record of managing programmes including developing scopes of work, timelines, and budgets; articulating roles and responsibilities; managing change; and mitigating risk and working with external advisory panels. Experience managing grant awarding processes.
• Contract management experience (including managing the performance of downstream partners) with FCDO.
• Financially intelligent; Strong budget management and forecasting skills as well as the ability to understand and analyse financial statements.
• Strong experience in forecasting resource needs to align with programme activities.
• The ability to work with a range of partners and stakeholders including government, academia and private sector.
• Line management experience. Experience of managing teams remotely would be desirable.
• Be a highly motivated and proactive individual, interested in international development.

About us

You’ll be working with Crown Agents which is a high impact social enterprise passionate about transforming the future for millions of people. Since our creation in 1833 we have worked across the globe to improve public services and drive economic growth. Our expertise is finding new solutions to difficult problems for clients in the areas of health, governance, economic growth, humanitarian action and supply chain services. We work with and train leaders at local, national and international level to achieve lasting change drawing on our insight and experience.

About what’s on offer

Crown Agents offers a competitive benefits package.

About the Organization

Crown Agents is a not-for-profit international development company that works in partnership with our clients to design and implement practical solutions to their needs. We work with ministries, governments, institutions, donors, foundations, philanthropists, and the private sector to tackle the complex challenges they face, whether that is seeking to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), improving the quality of life and opportunities for their citizens, or responding to the needs of a global pandemic.

Our values are courage and authenticity: courage to work in the most challenging contexts and be a disrupter in the face of corruption and complexity; authenticity to ensure that the solutions we help develop are grounded in a solid understanding of our client’s needs and will last the test of time. Whether they are ensuring that local humanitarian organisations across Myanmar are set up to respond to the additional challenges of the Covid-19 outbreak or negotiating the best possible price for cancer drugs for the Government of Ukraine, our people around the globe are committed to achieving a lasting impact in the work that they do.

Often, we work behind the scenes, patiently addressing the ‘nuts and bolts’ core matters, supporting governments and other clients to resolve practically challenging and politically difficult issues that hold back faster and greater progress. What defines Crown Agents’ approach is the way we combine technical expertise and decades of delivery experience with deeply rooted insight that comes from our global footprint and the strong relationships with governments and other stakeholders in the places where we work. We believe there is something unique that comes from our longstanding approach of combining private sector agility with a public service ethos.

We have three broad areas of expertise: supply chain delivery; government system strengthening; and project and fund management. In practice, the services we provide to our clients often draw from across these three, depending on the specific challenges to be addressed: responding to Covid-19; accelerating progress on the most off-track SDGs; or shifting to low carbon development strategies.

About what's on offer

Crown Agents offers a competitive benefits package.