Grants Management and Reporting Analyst

Official Job Title: Grants Manager and Reporting Analyst                 

Duty Station: Arab States Regional Office (Cairo, Egypt)

Grade (Classified): P-1/P-2 (IC)                          

Contract Type: IC 

Duration: 11 months

Organizational Location

UNFPA is the lead UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled. UNFPA expands the possibilities for women and young people to lead healthy and productive lives. Guided by the 1994 Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), UNFPA partners with Governments, civil society, and other agencies to advance its mission. Actions and recommendations rolled out within the framework of the UNFPA strategic Plan 2022-2025 are crucial for achieving the goals of the ICPD Programme of Action and its linkage with the 2030 development agenda. UNFPA is gearing towards convening ICPD30 and setting its record of accomplishment of achievements and priorities in 2024. The political and partnership positioning of UNFPA and ICPD during this phase at the global and regional levels is highly important.

UNFPA’s Arab States Regional Office, based in Cairo, supports the work of 15 UNFPA country offices, covering 20 countries (including GCC sub-region) and territories in the Arab region. UNFPA’s regional office ensures that the objectives, programs and messages of the organization across the region are coherent and in line with UNFPA’s global priorities of ensuring that every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled. Advisors and specialists at the regional office closely support country offices by providing advice and technical expertise, as well as helping draft policies in the fields of family planning, maternal health, child marriage, FGM, GBV, gender equality, census, and demographic dividend. Resource mobilization and strategic partnerships are cross-cutting areas of work and are a basic tenant within the functions of the office; and the support provided to Country Offices.

Organizational Setting

Under the overall supervision of the Regional Resource Mobilization and Partnership Adviser (RMPA), the IC – located in the regional office – will perform various tasks, ensuring that the regional office manages grants received, and relevant reporting quality assurance for its 15 UNFPA country offices. He/she shall support proposal writing, and grant making processes (including grant Agreement negotiations); in addition to conducting periodic targeted Country programme resource mobilization and grants analysis. To ensure detailed and diligent grant management and tracking of implementation; and all related reporting is timely and in place. The Grant manager shall cover in their work both public and private partnership grants, Agreements, and reporting. Donor intelligence and support to landscape analysis are within the scope of this function

Job Purpose

Within the framework of strengthening the resource mobilization and strategic partnership architecture at corporate level, and in tandem with enhancing UNFPA capacity and scope of work at regional level with the main goal of scaling up support for partnership building efforts with multiple partners and donors - the IC will lead on grant management activities, such as drafting and reviewing proposals and concept notes; reporting functions including quality assurance for country donor reporting; grant management and tracking of implementation; country programme resource mobilization analyses; and building an appropriate and sustainable donors’ and partners’ base for the Regional Office and relevant Country Offices. 

S/he will support Country Offices’ (COs) and (RO) donor engagement, under supervision of RMPA, including application for funding through the RO facilitated calls for proposals mechanism in place (e.g. for EU-ECHO, PBF, Global Fund, and Japan Supplementary Budget). The incumbent will support the management of partner and donor grant proposals; project tracking and reporting; and other programmatic documents in collaboration with relevant RO and CO teams, and Operations Manager(s). The quality assurance or reporting through acting as secretary of the internal ‘Peer Review Mechanism’ will be a priority task, including support to COs, Brussels Office, and the RMP RO team in the roll out and conducting of donor monitoring missions, and verification exercises (EU).

S/he will support, under RMPA supervision, the coordination of the relevant RO quality assurance for reporting (e.g. EU-ECHO donor reporting, Japan Supplementary budget reporting, KSRelief, major bilateral, multilateral, and private donors’ reports). Support to the review of donor and partnership legal Agreements and MoUs; donor/ strategic partnership landscape analysis and outreach, will be among the tasks performed. 

Major Activities/Expected Results

Under the overall supervision and guidance of the Regional Resource Mobilization and Partnership Adviser, the individual will perform the following activities/expected results:

Overall: 

• Manage and track RO/COs Grant implementation throughout its lifecycle, providing a monthly implementation and oversight update.
• Produce and provide guidance to all relevant UNFPA country offices/operations on grant management and reporting requirements 
• Support the Compilation and production of quarterly, bi-annual and annual donor reports and liaise in coordination with UNFPA country offices to finalize all reports for timely submission to donors
• Manage the RM pipeline in the CRM, and annual cofinancing target setting by COs;
• Support COs in accessing and conducting the corporate Due Diligence process required for new strategic partners
• Provide guidance, and build capacity and skills of staff in the region in areas of expertise 

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Under the supervision of the RMP Adviser, and within the framework of the quality assurance (QA) ‘Peer review mechanism’, review proposals, Concept Notes (CNs), and donor reports, coordinate donor submissions, and support Donor Agreement negotiations and Report Tracking System (DARTS) compliance for donor reporting.
• Support the review of donor agreements, and ensure compliance with UNFPA standard legal and policy frameworks, including financial rules and regulations. Provide support to the subsequent grant management through tracking and follow up on non-core resources implementation rates; requirements for funds extension; and or other relevant interventions to ensure timely delivery of results/projects unto donors.
• Ensure compliance with donor requirements outlined in grant agreements. Ensure program and finance teams are fully aware of donor requirements
• Work with the RMP team at RO, and COs to track and manage the co-financing ‘Other Resources/Grants’ across the region, including implementation rates, budget analytics, forecasting, budget proposal development, and donor report generation.
• Conduct regular budget analysis and tracking meetings with team and workstream programme leads at level of COs/RO to ensure resources are being deployed on time and on-budget to meet targets and drive accurate monthly finance forecasts, and grant implementation cycles.
• Maintain a centralized portfolio of all active grants, and provide portfolio updates to the RMP team (and management) on a monthly basis and as requested;
• Monitor project/Grant budget variance closely and ensure proactive communication regarding budget targets and potential adjustments (with COs/RO relevant teams).
• Track deadlines for all donor narrative and financial reporting and work with members of the team (at level of COs/RO) to ensure that reporting is submitted in a timely manner, including timely drafting/review of financial reports.
• Work to strengthen team capacity in developing and maintaining practices that align with donor and organizational policies and procedures; while ensuring UNFPA rules, policies and regulations are strictly adhered to
• Maintain a strong knowledge of UNFPA’s Salesforce database (CRM) and Donor Agreement and Reporting Tracking System (DARTS), to be able to process and track agreements, extract information and prepare reports and RM analyses.
• Provide support to the operational oversight of grants, including providing support to audit processes, development of work plans, periodic review of the workflow and the management of human, material, and financial resources; donor monitoring, and (EU) verifications.
• Support to the skills and capacity development of COs in RM; including in grant management; project cycle implementation; proposal writing and reporting; donor verifications and monitoring (EU). 
• Act as a member of the joint Regional Office (RO) and Brussels Office (BO) peer review committee for all EU/ECHO proposals and reports; and contribute to ensuring the compliance with review mechanism for all applications, proposals, and reports sourced from the region.
• Support the Resource Mobilization and Partnerships Analyst in production and sharing of progress and analytical reports, briefing notes, RM gap analysis and infographics as/when required to ensure that important donor/partner engagements and developments are communicated on an expedient and efficient basis by/with relevant senior management, technical and emergencies personnel in the Regional and Country Offices and with external partners.
• Support to the quality assurance and review of strategic partnership MoUs, Agreements (ensuring compliance with UNFPA guidelines, rules and regulations); Concept Notes, proposals and reporting.
• Build and maintain UNFPA Arab States Regional Office (ASRO) and COs strategic partnerships, by supporting the development and implementation of Corporate standards and guidance for strategic partnerships; support the formulation and review of Integrated Resource Mobilization and Partnership plans as part of new Country Programmes’ development.
• Perform other duties as needed and assigned.

Work Relations

External partners include staff of sister UN agencies, both at the regional and country levels; strategic partners at the regional and sub-regional levels; and Governments and donors to exchange information, and initiate cooperation.

Internal partners include Regional programme and technical staff; UNFPA country offices (COs), programme and technical staff at HQ level; Strategic partnership branch (SPB) and Resource Mobilization Branch (RMB) focal points; relevant headquarters Divisions and staff, Liaison and Representation offices.

In all activities, s/he fosters collaboration within the RO, with COs, and relevant Corporate divisions and units; providing integrated strategic partnership and resource mobilization support and results.

Job Requirements

Qualifications and Experience:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in development, social sciences, international relations, Business administration or a related fields
• Three years professional and substantive experience in grant making and management, project/programme management,resource mobilization and partnership, proposal and report writing or relevant areas required. 
• At least one year of experience at the international level is required
• knowledge of the UN System and in particular UNFPA mandate, policies and procedures is preferable
• Fluency in English is required, knowledge of a second UN language is an asset
• Excellent writing skills in English is essential
• Experience in grant management and  donor reporting systems (i.e. EU) is a strong advantage
• Knowledge of Gender based violence and sexual and reproductive health programming an advantage
• Proven capacity to work with diverse partners including donors, strategic and private sector partners, governments, and civil society
• Excellent interpersonal and diplomatic skills
• Proficiency in current office software applications and corporate IT systems

Required Competencies

Core Competencies:

• Ethics and Values
• Achieving Results
• Being accountable
• Working in Teams/Managing ourselves and relationships
• Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing
• Communicating and Information Sharing

Functional competencies:

• Grant and programme management
• Resource Mobilization and partnership
• Internal and external communication and advocacy for results mobilization
• Providing conceptual innovation to enhance/strengthen grant management and programme effectiveness
• Generating, managing and promoting the use of knowledge and information