SAVE THE CHILDREN

ROLE PROFILE

Awards officer – Kenya Country Office

TEAM/PROGRAMME: Awards Management LOCATION: Nairobi
GRADE: 5 POST TYPE: National (1
year contract with
possibility of renewal)
Child Safeguarding:
Level 1 - The role holder will not have contact with children and/or young people, or
access to personal data about children or young people, as part of their work.
ROLE PURPOSE:
This role will support the Awards unit in the planning, securing and managing of both
development and humanitarian awards. This role will work collaboratively with Save
the Children members and all departments of the Country Office program and support
to ensure smooth management of development and humanitarian program awards,
sub awards and contracts, focusing on donor compliance and accountability.
SCOPE OF ROLE:
Reports to: Awards Coordinator

Key contacts: Budget Holders and Area Programme Managers, Director of

Programme Development and Quality, Budgeting and Reporting Coordinator/Officers,
Finance Director, SC Sub grantees, SC Members.

Dimensions:
Save the Children has been operational in Kenya since the 1950s, providing support to
children through developmental and humanitarian relief programmes delivered both
directly and through local partners. Current programming focuses on child protection,
child rights governance, education, health, HIV/AIDS, livelihoods, nutrition and WASH.
In 2012, as part of a global reorganization process, Save the Children combined the
programmes of SC UK, SC Canada and SC Finland to create a single operation in
Kenya. In February 2014, we completed a second transition, which saw us join forces
with the British INGO, Merlin, and merge their health and nutrition programmes with
our own. Save the Children now has an operational presence in Bungoma, Dadaab
Refugee Camp, Garissa, Mandera, Nairobi, Turkana and Wajir. We work through
partners in many other parts of the country. We have a staff complement of around
300 staff and an operating annual budget of approximately US$20 million in 2015.

Staff directly reporting to this post:

AMS Assistant
KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

Proposal development

 Work with the Awards coordinator in the development of proposal budgets in

consultation with the relevant teams such as finance, logistics, HR ,
procurement and PDQ
 Work with the Awards Coordinator to ensure alignment between master budgets
and proposal budgets submitted to donors.
 Work closely with the PDQ team to ensure that proposals are updated on the
funding tracker and in the Awards Management System (AMS).
 Advise the proposal development team on the donor compliance requirements.

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Awards Management

 Support the Awards coordinator in developing PAL budgets awaiting FS

approvals
 Support the Awards Coordinator in ensuring dissemination of award information
during kick-off meetings including donor compliance requirements, budget
management so that all relevant staff have a clear understanding of the donor
and Save the Children processes throughout the lifecycle of an award
(opportunity to close-out).
 Follow through on the Award progress review meeting action points, work
closely with budget holders to develop and implement remedial plans based on
agreed action points and closely review achievements in the following month.
 Support the Awards Coordinator to provide detailed analysis of the Award
progress review reports received from the field offices and provide feedback to
the field teams.
 Take a lead in award close-out meetings,
 Take a lead in ensuring awards are closed out within 3 months after their end
date. On a monthly basis provide a status report of closed awards. Support
budget holders to ensure all tasks are completed as per the close out checklist.
 Ensure that all awards that are fully or partly Gifts in Kind (GIK) follow the same
award management processes, including on AMS.
 Support the completion of audits and evaluation of projects.
 Ensure AMS has upto date and accurate information at all time.
 Build capacity of staff on AMS use.

Partnerships and Capacity Building

 Support the Awards Coordinator to ensure all the partner agreements are in line
with donor and SCI requirements and are uploaded onto AMS.
 Work closely with the Award Coordinator to ensure that partner-reporting visits,
capacity building on financial management, procurement, reporting
requirement, award management and donor compliance issues are undertaken.
 Support the Awards Coordinator to build the capacity of budget holders on BVA
analysis, budget management, donor compliance, reports and all aspects of
awards management to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the Award
progress review process.
 Work with the Awards Coordinator to build budget holders capacity on award
management by conducting trainings on budget management, procurement
procedures, donor compliance, reporting and all other award management
aspects.
 Support field offices through regular field visits to identify any challenges faced
and come up with remedial actions/support.

Donor Reporting
 Ensure the reporting schedule is updated in AMS for all awards.
 Circulate the monthly reporting tracker to the field teams on a monthly basis.
 Follow-up on the reports from the field offices and ensure all reports, including
partner reports, are submitted on time to the member as well as donors and
updated on AMS as well as in the hard copy award files.
 Support the Awards Coordinator in responding to member/donor queries on
financial reports submitted.
 Working with the Awards Coordinator support the budgeting and reporting team

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in responding to member/donor queries on financial reports submitted.

 During closeout meetings, document “lessons” or best practices learned in
managing small, large/complex awards to inform go-no-go decisions for future
funding opportunities. These lessons should be shared with the Head of MEAL.

DESIRED COMPETENCIES
Delivering Results
 Translates complex contextual information into planning and achieving
results effectively
 Ability to take a range of potentially complex and conficting information and
make decisions
 Designs and reviews large and complex operations to ensure maximum
impact
 Ensures measures and metrics are in place to track performance in large and
complex programmes
 Establishes clear and compelling objectives with teams and individuals and
monitors progress and performance
 Holds others accountable for achieving results and challenges
underperformance

Working effectively with others

 Puts mechanisms in place to ensure effective collaborative working across
boundaries
 Enables people from a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives to
contribute to positive outcomes
 Breaks down silo working and challenges behaviours that are not
collaborative
 Knows when to follow and lend leadership to strengthen other leaders

APPLYING TECHNICAL AND PROFESSIONAL EXPERTISE

 Applies the required technical and professional expertise to the highest
standards; promotes and shares best practice within and outside the
organisation.
 Delivers work that refects a good knowledge and application of technical and
professional standards
 Keeps up to date with trends in their work area
 Maintains ethical and professional behaviour in accordance with relevant codes
of conducts
QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE
Essential
 Graduate qualification in Finance management, Grants management or
equivalent.
 At least 3 years’ experience in a similar position.
 Excellent planning, management and coordination skills, with the ability to
organise a demanding workload comprised of diverse and challenging tasks
and responsibilities.
 Proven record of accomplishment of active contribution to a senior
management team, and providing strategic support across multiple sectors
and/or regions.
 Very strong capacity for attention to detail, problem solving, and analysis of
trends.

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 Computer literate (i.e. WORD, advanced Excel, Outlook,

Internet Explorer, financial systems).
 Cultural awareness and ability to build relationships quickly with a wide variety
of people.
 Patient, adaptable, fexible, able to improvise and remain responsive and
communicate clearly and effectively under pressure.
 Strong communication (written and spoken), and interpersonal skills in
English, with experience in managing multicultural teams.
Desirable
 Experience with Save the Children award management policies, procedures,
systems, and Save the Children’s award management system (AMS).

Revised: 15/05/2017 Author : Joyce Kiplimo

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