ILRI Vacancy: Program Management Officer

Vacancy Number: PMO/ABP/01/14
Animal Biosciences
Duration: 2 years renewable contract

ILRI seeks to recruit a Program Management Officer for the Animal Bioscience Program. Under the supervision of the Program Leader and supervising all administrative staff within the assigned program, the Program management Officer is responsible for overall administrative, financial, human resource and grants/program management within the Program.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works to enhance the roles livestock play in pathways out of poverty in developing countries. ILRI is a member of the CGIAR Consortium, a global research partnership of 15 centres working with many partners for a food-secure future. ILRI has two main campuses in East Africa and other hubs in East, West and Southern Africa and South, Southeast and East Asia.

CGIAR is a global agricultural research partnership for a food-secure future. Its science is carried out by 15 research centres that are members of the CGIAR Consortium in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. 

Key responsibilities:

1. Program Reporting Administration and Human Resource:

• Oversees all the Program Administrative functions and directly supervise program Support Staff including performance management, work planning and reviewing of job descriptions.
• As part of the Program, support the Program leader and team leaders in the preparation of Program institutional reports such as Annual Program performance indicators reports, Board of Directors reports and other adhoc reporting needs.
• Participate in Program management meetings, serving as management group Secretary and ensuring follow up on action points.
• Provide leadership and management of all aspects of the Program Administrative Unit ensuring the office systems run efficiently and in a coordinated manner.
• Reviews Program admin functions, structures and procedure and makes recommendations to the TD for changes, and overseas their implementation.
• Act as the main link between Integrated Program and Human Resource units and also provide support the Program Leader with staff planning issues.
• Support the Program Leader, Team Leaders and scientists with national and international staff and international consultants’ recruitment contracts.
• Maintain updated staff/supervisor list and organization chart.

2. Proposal Development/Resource Mobilization:

• Support project leaders in proposal development including participating in proposal development meetings, reviewing of technical proposals to ensure compliance with donor proposal development guidelines, overall responsibility of reviewing proposal budgets to ensure compliance with ILRI and donor financial guidelines and collating all supporting documents required (project team curriculum vitae, responding to donor institutional evaluation queries etc).
• As part of the management team, participate in proposal development meetings internally and with donors during proposal development.
• Working closely with Team Leader and Program Leader, maintain a database of all proposals being developed and/or submitted to donors including preparing Management committee (MC) and Board of Trustees (BoT) resource mobilization reports.

3. Grant / Partnership Management:

• On approval of proposals and before submission to finance and legal offices, review of all Program related restricted projects grant agreements to ensure that the donor agreement provisions and/or clauses do not conflict with any ILRI legal and financial policies and that reporting requirements for interim and final financial and technical reports are achievable.
• Drafting of all project partner sub grant agreements ensuring compliance with specific donor regulations. This includes but not limited to working with different project partners in development of sub grantee budgets, project financial and technical reporting requirement etc.
• Provide guidance and/or trainings to project partners/sub grantees and ILRI project team on donor and ILRI administrative, legal and financial requirements.
• Review and confirmation of all consultancy contract requests and staff recruitment position requests prior to approval by Team Leaders and Program Leader and submission to Human Resources office to ensure compliance to ILRI and donor requirements.
• Review and confirmation of project partners/sub grantees and consultants payment requests before approval by project leaders and submission of payment to finance for processing.
• Provide support to different project leaders in the implementation of different Program donor funded projects including following up with sub-grantees and project consultants to ensure achievement of contract deliverables.
• Review of all donor financial reports once prepared by the budget and grants department to ensure that all costs are included and that all donor requirements are adhered to.
• Work with different ILRI departments including Legal, budgets and grants, resource mobilization to ensure that all Program projects are implemented in line with ILRI and donors legal and financial requirements.

4. Budget development and Management:

• Preparing of Program annual budgets and subsequent periodic budget revisions in consultation with team leaders, project managers and Program Leader.
• Working with the Program’s team leaders and in consultation with different project managers in the updating of monthly staff time in line with budget provisions and work plans before submitting to finance for processing of monthly payroll.
• Review of activity project budgets including workshop, training and/or field activity budgets, prior to approval by project leaders and implementation of the project activities. This is to ensure that the all projects are implemented within the approved budgets and also in line with donor and ILRI financial requirements.
• Follow up with related project staff and ILRI corporative services team to ensure that all projects are properly closed on completion.

Requirements:

• Master’s in Business Administration (MBA), Program Management or equivalent Masters Level degree in a related field.
• At least five (5) years working experience in Project management environment in an international or development organization
• Professional training in project management
• Knowledge of administrative and financial management of development programs and/or donor funded projects/programs.
• Good managerial skills with a high-level of problem solving.
• Ability to work under minimal supervision.

Terms of appointment:

This is a Nationally Recruited Staff (NRS) positions based at ILRI’s Nairobi campus and is for a two year contract period; renewable subject to availability of funds and individual performance. Salary and benefits will be in line with those provided by ILRI.

Job level and salary:

This position is job level 3A with a minimum start salary of KES 181,317 per month. This is exclusive of other benefits provided within ILRI’s National Recruited Staff Scheme.

How to apply:

Applicants should send a cover letter and CV explaining their interest in the position, what they can bring to the job and the names and addresses (including telephone and email) of three referees who are knowledgeable about the candidate’s professional qualifications and work experience to the Human Resources Director through our recruitment portal http://ilri.simplicant.com/ before 7 February 2013. The position title and reference number REF: PMO/ABP/01/14 should be clearly marked on the subject line of the online application.