Grants Officer

The Arab Foundation for Freedoms and Equality (AFE) is an officially registered non-governmental organization based in Beirut, Lebanon. AFE focuses its efforts exclusively on Arab states across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). AFE supports grassroots activist groups and organizations (Regional Partners) that are working on a wide range of initiatives including human rights , gender and sexual and sexual health.

AFE is looking for a grants officer based in the MENA region, to work across all program areas, including collaborating with finance and other support functions to ensure effective and efficient grantmaking processes. The grants officer is responsible for ensuring that grants awarded to AFE partners are designed and managed in a way that adheres to AFE policies, donor requirements, and program needs. In coordination with the Grants Unit, the grants officer will lead pre-award capacity assessments, draft grants agreements and amendments, manage grants from start-up to close-out, and coordinate capacity-building support for grantees.

 A/ Grants Management:

1. Conduct/support due diligence of potential grantees at the proposal development phase, including site visit (where possible), pre-award self-assessments, and review/filing of supporting documentation
2. Organize grant kick-off meetings and monthly review meetings with grantees to review progress, monitor implementation, field requests for support, and to ensure a clear understanding of expectations and deliverables
3. Manage timetable for and obtaining partner accountabilities
4. Implement a participatory grantmaking system that places the organization in a neutral position and ensures the fair and clear submission of the operations process
5. Coordinate/support in-depth capacity assessments of grantees and develop partner support plans 
6. Compile grants agreements and amendments for issue to grantsees, ensure proper translation when necessary 
7. Support and advise partners in submitting their reports and accountabilities as well as checking of accountabilities submitted by partners against budget and query any variances
8. Understand the donor rules and regulations and ensure partners comply
9. Coordinate conducting periodic audits of grantsees and follow-up to ensure recommendations/follow-up actions are completed.
10. Ensuring that expenditure by partners is in line with budgets and support partners with budget revision and change

Donor Reporting

1. Track and manage hard donor deadlines regularly and maintain communications with donors
2. Work with sector coordinators to receive progress updates on individual grants and projects
3. Draft and edit monthly, quarterly, and annual reports on projects
4. Send weekly updates to country office staff to coordinate timely reporting

Grant Tracking

1. Organize and maintain information on grants, sectors, programs, and individual projects
2. Keep documents up-to-date on country office portfolio, ending and beginning grants, etc

B/ Budget Tracking and Coordination

1. Hold Grant Opening, Closing, and Check-in meetings, bringing together all relevant staff, sometimes at field-levels, to go over financial, procurement, and reporting needs
2. Track budget vs. actual spending of grants monthly; coordinate with staff at field to resolve budgetary issues, track spending and budget allocations, hold field meetings and keep the field Managers and Coordinators updated on their operations spending
3. Hold meetings as necessary to ensure necessary spending and adherence to donor agreement

C/New Business Development:

1. Assist with drafting programmatic proposals, with support from sector coordinators
2. Coordinate with field staff to ensure clear lines of communication regarding programmatic design at the field level
3. Work with donor to understand any revisions to proposal/programs necessary; revise proposals accordingly, sometimes with support of sector coordinators

D/ Training and capacity building:

1. Provide support for training and capacity building to all staff and local partners staff on program reporting and program specific documents

E/Monitoring and Evaluation:

1. Identify potential problems during implementation of projects by the grantsees, make recommendations, and support follow-up
2. Support in monthly monitoring of expenditure against budgets and activities against work plans communicating any areas of variance to HoP/PM and FC with suggested corrective actions
3. Work with Finance Department to reconciling partner reports and Ensure financial reports and files are up to date

Qualifications 

• Demonstrable experience in partnership and grant management with Local Organizations and NGOs, with at a minimum of 2 years in grants management.
• Demonstrable experience with budget preparation/compilation.
• Good experience with financial report preparation.
• Past experience in Nonprofit grantmaking is highly desirable.
• Fluent in Arabic, English and French.
• Able to work well both within a team and independently, in a challenging and fast-moving multicultural environment.
• Excellent computer skills and competency in MS Excel and MS Word and in project management software such as Trello, Asana, Microsoft Project, etc. 
• Excellent organizational skills and ability to determine priorities and meet multiple deadlines.

Knowledge  

• Good knowledge of current global and regional health, LGBT, human rights and gender issues.  
• Good knowledge of project/grant management cycle, including grant design, selection, contract, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.  
• Demonstrable knowledge of grants management processes.  
• Deep knowledge of DFID, USAID, DRL, EU and other international agencies funding regulations.  
• Knowledge of grant and commercial bidding processes.  
• Understanding of Value for Money. 
• Strong knowledge of civil society contexts in the MENA region.
• Strong knowledge of methodologies, tools, and analysis for organizational development.
• Strong commitment to AFE’s cause and values.  

Equal opportunity declaration: AFE is strongly committed to social justice principles and holds its partners, suppliers, consultants, and staff accountable to these principles. We do not tolerate any form of prejudice, discrimination, intimidation, exploitation, or harassment.