Save the Children Colombia · 1 week ago
Head of Awards, Localisation and Partnerships
Palestine, IA
Full-time
Onsite
Director/Executive
8+ years expSave the Children Colombia is seeking a Head of Awards, Localisation and Partnerships to manage development and humanitarian programme awards, ensuring donor compliance and accountability. The role involves building staff capacity, coordinating proposal processes, and overseeing award management systems across the country office.
Civic & Social Organization
Responsibilities
Ensure that award management systems and processes are successfully implemented across the life of an award and key controls are in place to support effective management of the funding portfolio and compliance with the donor requirements
Provide coordination to proposal development and review processes when necessary, ensuring all staff inputs happen in timely and effective manner and advise on donor compliance requirements to ensure high quality and one time proposals
Play a leading role in Award Kick-Off meetings to ensure that all award information is shared effectively with relevant staff across the field office and country office including partners
Establish required systems for regular monitoring of relevant awards across the country office and respective implementing states and facilitate regular meetings with key stakeholders to support the Program Implementation Managers to ensure that performance on individual awards is tracked effectively, risks and issues are flagged and action taken as appropriate
Monitor the amendments required on current awards; ensure this is communicated to members and donors in a timely fashion and clear completion plans are in place for revised budget and activities
Support the finance team on master budget development, cost allocation, monitoring of award budgets, phasing and forecasting, in particular ensuring alignment between the master budget and funding tracker
Co-ordinate with respective budget holders to ensure budgets are correctly phased
Regularly analyse financial issues i.e. variances and resolve by collaborating with Program teams
Exhibit strong financial skills including budget development, and monitoring of spend across award portfolio
Handle issues of concern on portfolio (sustainability, compliance etc)
Coordinate the processes for donor reporting to ensure that reports are high quality, delivered on time and supported by auditable records. This includes assessing and making recommendations to improve the reconciliation process (reporting assurance mechanism) between Finance, Supply Chain, Distribution, MEAL that will ensure accountable reporting to donors
Maintain a reporting tracker, awards tracker and share regularly with stakeholders within Save the Children in oPT
Responsible and accountable for award closeout planning and processes and work with FO, CO, Regional Office and Members to ensure awards are closed out on time
Maintain effective communications with Save the Children members, providing them with timely updates on their awards and flagging potential issue promptly
Provide regular management information to the Director of Programme Operations on the performance of the country office portfolio
Support all functions to ensure donor requirements are understood and complied with
Ensure that all appropriate donor formats are available in-country and that key contributing staff have a clear understanding of donor requirements and expectations at the proposal, kick off, amendment, reporting, close out and audit stage of awards
Ensure potential issues and amendment requests are flagged promptly to Director of Programme Operations and follow up to ensure that this is flagged up via the relevant Save the Children member and then the donor. This may include developing business cases where donor waiver/derogation requests need to be more thoroughly articulated or negotiated with donors
Work with internal and external auditors as necessary
Advance the localisation strategy and promote a locally led response, ensuring national partners play a central role in assessment, design, implementation, and decision-making, with capacity-sharing and equitable partnership principles embedded across all programs
Work with relevant program staff to ensure all implementing partners undergo legal vetting and capacity assessment prior to commencing work with Save the Children, are engaged with appropriate agreements and effective monitoring systems are in place so that partner delivery meets donor expectations and requirements
Work with program staff to ensure relevant donor requirements are effectively communicated and understood by implementing partners
Work with the CSG, PSEA focal person to ensure partners comply with these policies
Ensure that all opportunities, proposals, contracts and amendments with donors are processed and approved through AMS and the system is an accurate reflection of current award status at all times
Ensure all partners and sub-award agreements are input into AMS
Ensure that all adequate attachments appear on AMS and are retained as part of the award audit trail
Regularly update and share the active and closed award detailed information with the Director of Programme Operations
Build a high performing award management team to support good practice and high quality delivery of all award related processes across the Country Programme
Line manage CO AMU staff and lead the function, ensuring that all staff fulfil their responsibilities according to their job description and work plans, ensuring team members develop and deliver against clearly defined annual objectives, with oversight and technical support to the Awards team in the field/area offices
Hold regular monthly awards team meetings with Area and field office, undertaking regular quality checks, ensuring all concerns received are addressed in timely fashion and reported back to area and field office leadership, as well as he Director of Programme Operations
Actively develop and implement individual staff development plans, ensuring the growth and progress of all team members
Ensure individual and departmental work plans are developed and regularly updated
Fairly assign tasks across Awards Officers, balancing work loads and staff wellness
Establish a team culture of learning, creativity and innovation, ensuring staff remain valued, supported and motivated
Organise and deliver regular on-the-job trainings, coaching and mentoring for staff and partners
Regularly travel to feild and area offices to ensure compliance with Awards policy and proceedures and support Awards staff located outside the Country Office
Ensure that all award team members are aware of and complaint with all SCI safeguarding, fraud and code of conduct policies
Qualification
Required
Professional qualification relating to business, finance, accounting or international development
University degree (i.e. BA, BS) in International Development, Business Administration or Finance/Accounting
8+ years proven track record of in-country award portfolio management and knowledge of major donors' compliance requirements
Experience communicating with impact (mobilizing teams across departments) in a complex stakeholder environment
Proven team leadership in a matrix structure, or similar
Experience of supervision and capacity building in Award Management
Proven track record of supporting a senior management team
Problem solving skills to identify and lead the resolution of issues
Good attention to detail and analytical skills
Computer literate (i.e. Word, advanced Excel, Outlook, financial systems)
Demonstrated commitment to locally led response and equitable partnerships, with experience supporting local organisations to lead program implementation, decision-making, and capacity-strengthening initiatives
Cultural awareness and ability to build relationships quickly with a wide variety of people
Patient, flexible, able to improvise and communicate clearly and effectively under pressure
Experience providing strategic oversight of an awards portfolio, ensuring compliance, quality delivery, and that RFT indicators and organisational standards are consistently met
Excellent planning, management and coordination skills, with the ability to organize a workload comprised of varying and changing tasks and responsibilities
Basic understanding of operational programming, including the realities of the context
Strong communication (written and spoken), and interpersonal skills in English, with experience in managing multicultural teams
Preferred
Experience with Save the Children Award Management System (AMS)
Demonstrable experience with NGOs in an international environment
Benefits
Competitive package in the context of the sector
National terms and conditions
Company
Save the Children Colombia
Impulsamos avances significativos en la forma en que el mundo trata a los niños y niñas, con el fin de generar cambios inmediatos y duraderos en sus vidas.
201-500 employees
Funding
Current Stage
Growth StageCompany data provided by crunchbase