PSL Grants Officer

The Rene Moawad Foundation (RMF) is seeking an “Grants Officer” for its USAID-funded “Promoting Sustainable Livelihoods- PSL” Activity. The PSL is implemented over the course of 5 years (from September 2020 until September 2025) and aims to improve the livelihoods of residents of target municipalities through training, technical assistance, infrastructure rehabilitation, and marketing and improve and upgrade existing assets in their municipalities. The PSL goal is to sustain the livelihoods of 31,500 households across 7 clusters joining 105 municipalities in the North, Bekaa, South and Mount Lebanon areas (first phase). 

Position summary

The Grants Officer will coordinate and support the administration (from the pre-award phase, to the award phase to the end of the life of the grant) of all grant awards under PSL Activity. The Grants Officer will report to the PSL Grants Manager in RMF and will ensure effective and efficient grant making processes. In coordination with the Grants Manager, s/he is responsible for ensuring the preparation, monitoring the implementation, and completion of community level grants and grants with PSL consortium partners, ensuring compliance with the financial management, reporting, and accountability requirements of USAID and RMF. The Grants Officer will implement the component based on the PSL Grants Manual in compliance with USAID regulations and RMF internal policies and procedures.  

Duties & Responsibilities

• As directed by Grants Manager, coordinate aspects of grant management in compliance with USAID regulations for the PSL partners’ sub-grants and Fixed Award Amounts (FAAs) and for the community grants during project lifecycle.
• Support the Grants Manager in monitoring the performance of grantees and review their progress and financial reports while ensuring their compliance with grant terms and obligations; and ensure all documentation are on file.
• Report the progress of grants (PSL partners’ sub-grants and FAAs and community grants) implementation in compliance with grant terms and obligations.
• Report sub-awards information on specific portals and databases as per USAID regulations.
• Maintain grant filing system, facilitate Grant Development and Review Meetings, and ensure proper documentation of minutes of meetings and action points.
• Support the Grants Manager in conducting the process of pre-award assessments, organizational capacity assessments and Due Diligence (DD) for partners and grantees, and drafting/reviewing of sub-award agreements, modifications, and other contractual documents.
• Ensure all required documents are included, complete, accurate and approved by the respective focal points and Managers.
• Coordinate and/or support all agreement reviews, revisions, amendments and budget realignments, including relevant internal approvals.
• Under the leadership from the Grants Manager, coordinate the proposal development process by creating proposal calendars, following up with all relevant technical team (Technical Consultants and Engineers, Livelihoods Manager, Operational Managers and Field Coordinators) to receive timely inputs, consolidating inputs, ensuring coherence with proposed budgets, and submitting to Grants Manager for review.
• Support the Grants Manager in the development of the grant packages for PSL interventions.
• Follow-up on grant packages pipelines with the technical Team (Technical Consultants and Engineers, Livelihoods Manager, Operational Managers and Field Coordinators).
• Ensure compliance with USAID regulations and RMF PSL Grants Manual during grant making process and implementation phase.
• Generate reports of status of grant activities, such as forecasting payments, amendments, close outs; for the local community level grant and for the partners’ sub-grants and FAAs (i.e. milestones completion, monthly, and bi-yearly reporting).
• Coordinate with the Technical team to ensure on-time deliverables and payments by monitoring milestones and payment schedules.
• Conduct field visits when needed and gather information and data.
• Assist in keeping all grants trackers up-to-date.
• Review grants payments.
• Assist in grants close-out.
• Other tasks as directed by Grants Manager.

Qualifications:

• A Bachelor’s degree and 5 years of directly relevant experience required.

Skills and Experience

• At least 4 years of relevant work experience in a similar position including increasingly responsible grants experience 
• Familiarity with USAID regulations
• Strong writing and editing skills
• Proficiency in Excel and MS Word
• Experience in budget review and monitoring with development projects, desirable with USAID funds
• Demonstrated capacity to work effectively with teams
• Excellent people skills at all levels, cultural sensitivity, ability to work well under pressure, negotiate diplomatically, and the ability to work well in a multicultural and multi-disciplinary work environment 
• Ability to identify alternative solutions in solving complex problems.
• Excellent oral communication skills in Arabic and oral and written communication skills in English
• Ability to prepare presentations and reports
• Willingness to work and travel in all project areas