Senior Officer, Grant Management - Anticipatory action

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization,
with a network of 192-member National Societies. The overall aim of the IFRC is “to inspire, encourage, facilitate, and promote at all times all forms of humanitarian activities by National Societies with a view to preventing and alleviating human suffering and thereby contributing to the maintenance and promotion of human dignity and peace in the world.” The IFRC works to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people before, during and after disasters, health emergencies and other crises.
IFRC is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (Movement), together with its member National
Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The work of the IFRC is guided by the following
fundamental principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality.
IFRC is led by its Secretary General, and has its Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. IFRC has five regional Delegations in
Africa, Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and the Americas. IFRC also has country cluster and country delegations throughout the world. Together, the Geneva Headquarters and the field structure (regional, cluster and country)
comprise the IFRC Secretariat. This position is based under the Africa Regional Delegation
Addressing climate and environmental crises is the first strategic priority of the IFRC’s Strategy 2030, which stresses the urgent need to massively scale-up climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, in view of increasing disasters and climate-related impacts on vulnerable people. Early warning and early/anticipatory action are acknowledged as a critical component of this work. Anticipatory action is increasingly recognized as a key solution to reduce the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events, these actions help organizations and people build resilience to future shocks by better understanding trends and highlighting the need to embed risk information for short-term shocks that informs long-term adaptation. In 2021 the Operational Framework for scaling up anticipatory action was launched to guide the work of the Red Cross Red Crescent Network on until 2025.
In 2022 the Italian Government awarded the IFRC a 5.2M Euro grant to advance anticipatory action in the Africa region.

This is a 2 ½ year project that will be implemented jointly by the IFRC, Italian Red Cross and the Red Cross Red Crescent National
Societies.

The Grant Management Senior Officer will be responsible for leading and coordinating the overall implementation of the Anticipatory Action Italian Government grant, including planning and reporting (financial and narrative). The Grant Management Senior Officer will work closely with the two project Delegates to ensure the successful implementation of the agreed activities. The Grant Management Senior Officer will be responsible for all aspects of the grant process, keeping the grant plan and process up to date and will ensure team members clearly understand roles and responsibilities during the development, management, and close out of the project.

Be responsible and accountable for the overall planning, management and reporting of the grant
- Lead the initial set up of the project structure, including staff recruitment, staff induction and establishing
communication lines.
- Lead on the development of annual workplans (plan and budget), jointly with the project Delegates, the Country Cluster Delegations, the Operations team, Finance, PMER and the anticipatory action technical staff in the Regional
Delegation and in Geneva. - Ensure all relevant staff at Delegation, Regional and Geneva level are familiar with the project, its conditions and deliverables.
- Manage the grant implementation to achieve the overall outcomes agreed with the donor in line with the approved plan and budget workplan.
- Develop a system to share information between the project stakeholders, monitor progress and disseminate good practices.
- Ensure effective coordination of grant activities and effective information flows with relevant stakeholders (internal technical departments in Geneva and the regions, and HNSs) covered by relevant grants
- Assist project delegates to formulate terms of reference and country specific contracts with National Societies and other partners.

- Prepare relevant grant reports (financial and narrative) by consolidating inputs from all relevant colleagues/parties and presenting the reports to Project Management Team for endorsement and submission to the donor
- Manage all financial and narrative reporting and ensure quality control of reports, coordinating reviews at all levels and approvals before submission to the donor. Ensure that reports to donors are submitted on time; those reports
are coherent and accurate.
- In coordination with finance, monitor burn rates and implementation progress and flag grant underperformance and compliance issues to the Project Management Team. Support follow-up actions to resolve challenges.
- Send out monthly information to relevant stakeholders on project progress and delays. - Advise the Project Management Team on strategic decisions/actions to be taken, including work plan modifications, budget modifications/reallocations and changes in target countries
- Support negotiation of any modifications or re-negotiations of agreements with donor.
- Ensure effective coordination with the Partnership and Resource Development and Finance departments
- Coordinate the project final evaluation.
- Perform other grant management/coordination related tasks as assigned by the Project Management Team.

Required

• Master’s degree in organizational development, business administration, project
  management or related fields

Preferred

• University degree in climate change, disaster risk reduction, international relations or related field

Required

• 5-7 years of experience in grant management, programme/project management,
  organizational development or related field
• Experience working in humanitarian or development sector, with developing countries and/or with an international organisation
• Experience managing partner and resource development relations in a context of humanitarian and/or development programmes
• Experience working in an international or cross-cultural environment

Preferred

• Experience working in a RC/RC National Society and/or Federation/ICRC/Climate Centre

Required

• Knowledge of climate change adaptation and climate-smart disaster risk reduction and ability to support such programmes
• Results oriented and demand driven individual, entrepreneurial, ability to lead in unprecedented and/or ambiguous situations.
• Demonstrated leadership and management skills, including the ability to lead within a matrix management structure and utilise talent and experience of team members in a productive way
• Outstanding networking, representational, communication and negotiation skills. An ability to be proactive and persuasive.
• Demonstrated track record in innovating, contributing to a learning culture, sharing
  knowledge and new approaches to engaging partners.
• Energetic and enthusiastic individual, engaging, brokering and facilitating learning and dialogue among diverse groups.
• Professional credibility, able to work effectively at all levels across the organisation
• Proven good judgment and ability to work with complete integrity and confidentiality
• High degree of discretion, tact and sensitivity in dealing with internal and external clients and stakeholders at all levels.
• Fluently spoken and written English and French

Preferred

• Ability to work within a multi-cultural, multilingual, multidisciplinary environment.
• Good command of another IFRC official language ( Spanish or Arabic)

• Collaboration and Teamwork
• Communication
• Creativity and Innovation
• Judgement and Decision Making
• National Society and Customer Relations
• Building Trust
• Empowering Others