876 views8 applications

Finance & Grants Officer

About SPARK:

SPARK develops higher education and entrepreneurship, so that young ambitious people are empowered to lead their conflict-affected society into prosperity. SPARK is a dynamic and growing not-for-profit development organization with 100+ staff members, which supports young entrepreneurs to start or grow their own businesses. SPARK provides displaced youth and women with access to higher education in fragile areas. SPARK specifically focuses its intervention on localization through building the capacities of local partners and stakeholders, green entrepreneurship, digitalization, and women entrepreneurship.

Job Overview:

Position: Finance & Grants Officer

Location: Benghazi, Libya

Application Deadline: 20th Nov 2023

Duration: 12 months

Starting date: 15th Dec 2023

SPARK is implementing programmes to support entrepreneurship development and MSME growth. Under the supervision and guidance of the Finance Manager, the Finance and Grants Officer will have overall responsibility for managing finance, accountancy, and sub-grants under an EU project. S/he will work with the Finance Manager and Team Leader to evaluate grant submissions and ensure all grants are executed according to the EU and SPARK regulations.

Main tasks and responsibilities:

Under the responsibility of the Finance Manager, the Finance & Grant Officer will be responsible for the following:

• Responsible for month-end accounting process, for example, booking all entries to the financial system, Bank and Cash Rec, B.S Rec, and Reconciliation of Intercompany accounts between HQ and all countries in the region.
• Prepare payments for the SPARK office and process all payments in the bookkeeping system.
• Responsible for the preparation of the office instalments.
• Review financial reports and supporting documents of local partners monthly.
• Balance Confirmation with Local Implementing Partners on a quarterly basis.
• Review Libya staff payroll and related taxes and social security monthly and ensure that calculation and all costs are charged on the correct budget lines.
• Review all invoices that are legally accurate and within our budgets and ensure that all payments are properly charged to the projects in the accounting system.
• Track all advances monthly.
• General office management and administration support.
• Work in compliance with SPARK policies and procedures.
• Responsible for the organization of all the supporting documents in hard and soft copies.
• Ensure that documentation is in place for project audits.

Grants Management:

• Support in launching and administration of Financial Support to Third Parties that would be in compliance with the donor’s requirement, including developing general guidelines, and selection procedures, revising contracts with grantees, ensuring timely disbursement of instalments, ensuring adequate and timely receipts of financial reports.
• Train partner staff members in the financial management of EU grants and other donors.
• Support the projects team with the financial management of the EU-funded project and other donors.
• Prepare for internal or external audits.
• Assist in the synthesis of reports and in drafting narrative documents and reports for donors.
• Carry out monitoring visits to grant holder institutions in-country.
• Build positive and trusting relationships with grant holders and other key stakeholders.
• Assist in developing new or updated resources and toolkits for health partnerships, and the delivery of coaching sessions and workshops.
• With other members of the Project Management Team, identify grant holders with specific performance issues that need to be addressed and agree on appropriate action to help resolve them.
• Review and contribute to the strengthening of Grants Management systems and tools.

Requirements and Skills

• In-depth knowledge of funding and procurement rules and requirements of the European Union.
• Minimum 2 years of experience in accountancy and administering Financial Support to Third Parties, preferably in fragile contexts.
• Experience in budget management, and project management and experience or knowledge of monitoring, evaluation and learning approaches.
• English and Arabic written and spoken fluently.
• Minimum undergraduate degree in Business, finance, or another related field
• Ability to travel.

How to apply?

If you are interested, please apply by sending your motivation letter and your CV (both in English) to HR_Libya@spark-online.org no later than November 20, 2023, with the title of the email as “Finance & Grants Officer”.

All applications will be assessed on a rolling basis; interviews can, therefore, take place before the application deadline. However, due to the large volume of applications we receive, we cannot respond to every applicant. There may be a delay between the deadline and the moment we contact selected applicants.

If you have not received a reply, we regret to inform you that we have continued with other candidates.

At SPARK, we embrace diversity in thoughts, opinions, and backgrounds. We’re open-minded and committed to creating a work environment of mutual respect. That’s why your gender, age, religious beliefs, race, sexual orientation, skin color, or any other difference in your background doesn’t influence our hiring decision.