Country

Panama

City

Panama City

Type

Full Time

Program (Division)

Country Programs - Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to our mission of saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries. We work at the invitation of governments to support them and the private sector to create and sustain high-quality health systems. 

CHAI was founded in 2002 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic with the goal of dramatically reducing the price of life-saving drugs and increasing access to these medicines in the countries with the highest burden of the disease. Over the following two decades, CHAI has expanded its focus. Today, along with HIV, we work in conjunction with our partners to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as COVID-19, malaria, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Our work has also expanded into cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and other non-communicable diseases, and we work to accelerate the rollout of lifesaving vaccines, reduce maternal and child mortality, combat chronic malnutrition, and increase access to assistive technology. We are investing in horizontal approaches to strengthen health systems through programs in human resources for health, digital health, and health financing. With each new and innovative program, our strategy is grounded in maximizing sustainable impact at scale, ensuring that governments lead the solutions, that programs are designed to scale nationally, and learnings are shared globally.  

At CHAI, our people are our greatest asset, and none of this work would be possible without their talent, time, dedication and passion for our mission and values. We are a highly diverse team of enthusiastic individuals across 40 countries with a broad range of skillsets and life experiences. CHAI is deeply grounded in the countries we work in, with majority of our staff based in program countries. Learn more about our exciting work: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

CHAI began working in Central America and Hispaniola in 2014 and is currently helping the governments of Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic advance malaria elimination goals. Since 2018, CHAI has been instrumental in mobilizing resources in the region, culminating in the development of the Regional Malaria Elimination Initiative (RMEI), a co-blended financing mechanism that combines funding from the endemic countries, and global funders.

More recently, CHAI started supporting the COVID-19 response in Latin America and the Caribbean. CHAI is also helping to gather key market information and share evidence and best practices about new diagnostic and therapeutic tools with the purpose of strengthening capacity at all levels of care in the region.

Job objective

CHAI Latin America and the Caribbean is looking for a highly motivated individual to work as part of the Regional Operations Team in Latin America, focused on providing support to the Covid19 Program during the development of projects, Finance & Accounting, Procurement & Contracting, Budget and Control, Administrative Tasks, following regional operations guidelines, in compliance with CHAI policies and procedures.

The ideal candidate for this role will have outstanding analytical, organizational, interpersonal and communication skills to support the operational, human resources, financial and administrative aspects of the program. The candidate must be able to function independently and flexibly and have the demonstrated ability to lead in a challenging professional environment. CHAI places great value on relevant personal qualities: resourcefulness, entrepreneurialism, tenacity, independence, humility, passion for the mission, and strong work ethic.

This position is based in Panama.

Under the supervision of the Administration and Finance Manager, the Finance Administrator will be responsible for the following functions:

Procurement & Contracting

• Support the drafting, validation, and processing of agreements in liaison with Contracts Department
• Support and overview the procurement process of goods and services
• Define procurement specifications y conditions
• Support drafting RFP and post Bids, if required
• Select vendors (through Bid committee, if required)
• Draft Pos
• Overview POs execution
• Support and overview Donation processing, including approvals
• Overview contracts executions
• Overview contracts/procurements payment requests through Boston AP
• Keep the contract list up to date

Finance and Accounting

• Prepare monthly cash flow forecast requests to Boston though regional finance
• Prepare monthly cash flow requests to Boston though regional finance
• Review cash advance requests from staff
• Review expense reports from staff
• Monitor staff cash flow statement and make monthly cash reconciliations
• Review and verify all Payment Request of its accuracy of account code, unit costs, expense description, PID, GID in line with LAC Finance Manual
• Review and submit documentation for payment transactions and ensure it has adequate supporting documents
• Follow up, support and monitoring of programmatic payment requests.
• Keep the payment list up to date

Budgeting and Budgeting Control

• Support Projects budget for global team finance manager
• Support annual budget and reforecast process, in respond to B&R Boston request
• Ensure an appropriate use of the available budget
• Review and correct monthly preliminary financials, in respond to Accounting Boston through the regional finance manager
• Sort out monthly expenses of according to donor categories (Reporting Categories)
• Prepare monthly budget control report
• Draft financial reports for global team finance managers, on demand

Administration

• Support teams to organize meetings and conferences, including coordination with external parties and organization on venues, food, transportation, etc. as needed
• Ensure that appropriate arrangements for visitors are made, including pickups, hotel and air bookings, and other travel arrangements if needed
• Administrative support to any other programmatic activity, if needed

Other Responsibilities:

• Any other finance/administrative support to any Covid programmatic activity, as needed
• Perform any other administrative duty related to the work area assigned by the supervisor.

• Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, or another relevant field
• Minimum 2-3 years of professional experience in accounting or finance support. Strong familiarity with financial systems, budgeting & management, and exposure to general ledger
• High level of proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel and Word
• Very strong quantitative skills, including significant experience working in excel on budgeting, financial analysis, and modeling
• Excellent organizational and problem-solving skills; detail oriented
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to prepare compelling presentations
• Ability to multi-task and to be effective in high-pressure situations
• Rigorous and detail-oriented that can deliver very high-quality work, notably financials and written reports
• Strong commitment to CHAI’s and the team’s mission and CHAI’s values, dedicated team player
• Ability and willingness to work with discretion in confidential matters
• Exceptional Spanish and English communications skills, both written and oral
• Experience living and working in PanamA
• Willingness and flexibility to travel the region 5%

Advantages

• Experience working in NGO and with government/public sector in resource-limited settings
• Knowledge of public health, including experience managing health programs in resource-limited countries