Job title: Regional Grants Acquisition Specialist

Contact type : Local 1
Contract duration: 1- 2 years

PURPOSE OF POSITION:
Support grant acquisition in the West Africa region aligned to WV global, regional, and national business development plans and strategic objectives. The role works in close partnership with West Africa Field Offices to ensure strategy realization for accelerating growth in grants revenue, with specific focus given to:

• Working proactively with FO grants teams for effective prepositioning and funding acquisition with and donors, partners, and SOs;
• Tracking and analyzing trends in the institutional funding landscape, effectively communicating key information to National Offices and other key stakeholders to inform strategic decision making;
• Managing a coordinated strategy process for grant acquisition across priority donors.

• Support the development, writing and submission of quality grant proposals.
• Developing and embedding efficient business processes for grants acquisition, including support troubleshootingduring implementation grant funded projects.
• Contributing to best practice learning and sharing to accelerate growth in grants.

The Regional Grants Acquisition Specialist proactively targets prioritized funding opportunities that will advance partnering National Office and West Africa Growth Strategy. The position will focus on providing support to priority National Offices (NO): Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad and Mauritania.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES
Strategic Resource Development:
• Support the delivery of regional level initiatives for technical branding and evidence, such as development of key messaging guides, capacity statements, and donor briefs.
• Utilize donor insights, knowledge of broader development trends, or otherwise leveraging partnership best practices and learning to offer recommendations on win strategies to increase competitiveness for new opportunities.
• Provide analysis and insights of donor strategies, priorities, and relationship history to inform donor engagement plans at FO and RO level.

Grants Acquisition:
• Provide strong analysis of donor Calls for Proposals.
• Lead and ensure proposal are developed based on evidence, at timely manner and with donor alignment; apply timely best practices to the bid preparation process, ensure efficient teamwork, and a quality output.

In special circumstances, provide hands-on support/ surge capacity (or identify viable alternative) for grant proposal development, including proposal writing and editing (to be agreed with Regional Grants Acquisition Director on a case-by-case basis).

Apply best standards for advancing local partnerships and consortia building; including facilitation of the partner assessment processes

As required, document intelligence related to the donor competitive landscape and potential funding opportunities at regional and national level, updating appropriate FO staff to support the resource acquisition efforts.

Donor Engagement
• Advise on donor relationship, and elevate WV’s profile. Support to foster donor relationships at Regional Level
• Map and manage donor landscape analysis, plans and meetings; especially with EU, ECHO, 4UN and Bilateral Donors
• Support networking and participation in relevant meetings at regional and national level
• Draw upon intelligence and analysis of the funding landscape to recommend opportunities for prepositioning concepts

Knowledge Management
• Support the Grants Acquisition Director to establish and embed effective tracking and reporting processes, marrying the needs of GC, RO, and FO stakeholders.
• Track and analyse trends in the institutional funding landscape, effectively communicating key information to FOs and other key stakeholders to inform strategic decision-making.
• Identify, document and effectively share best practices, critical success factors of strategic breakthroughs, and lessons learned; including guidelines, tools and standards.

Grants Management:
• Ensure that GAM systems are in place using adequate tracking tools to support effective grant compliance and support the grant teams and NO staff to understand systems and support compliance
• Support grants Start-Ups and Closeouts with grant staff and relevant NO staff
• Support selected staff to maintain the overall “health” of the grant including for instance bi-monthly or monthly basis actual expenditures and compare them with the implementation model, budget requirements and support overall donor regulation compliance requirements (reporting, procurement, hiring, budget monitoring, etc.)

Carry out additional responsibilities as assigned by the Regional Director RDU

Qualifications:
• Essential: Relevant undergraduate degree (e.g. international or development studies; economics; social science disciplines; etc); Desirable: Postgraduate qualifications or relevant technical/vocational studies;

• Language:French & English Language Proficiency required

Experience
• Minimum five years’ experience with government and multilateral organisation’s procedures and regulations;
• Minimum five years’ experience in successful proposal writing and management of proposal development teams, preferred European and German government donors;
• Experienced networker with an ability to maintain a good up to date knowledge of the grant opportunities and trends in the humanitarian sector; demonstrable prior successes in grant submissions/tendering
• Excellent English written and spoken communication skills are essential; German highly desirable. German citizen preferred.

Other Competencies/Attributes:
• Very strong interpersonal/intercultural skills;
• Track record of success grant design and win rate, in partner and donor relations;
• High performance and quality standards;
• Ability to motivate teams and inspire teamwork; Creativity and logic;
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail;

Commitment to WVs’ Core Values and Mission Statement and agreement with World Vision’s Christian ethos

Knowledge/Technical Skills

The following may be acquired through a combination of formal or self-education, prior experience or on-the-job training:

Excellent knowledge and experience of project management with government and multilateral agencies grant funded projects and experience of grant compliance procedures for major bilateral (EU, ECHO, FCDO, USAID, GAC, etc.) and multilateral donors.

Experienced in leading development of complex Health (WASH, Maternal Child Health), Child Rights & Protection and or Income generation and Livelihoods grant project proposals

High performance and quality standards; negotiation skills; ability to motivate teams and inspire teamwork;

Relationship building and networking, with experience in working with donors or other business development expertise

Strong financial awareness, with the ability to build and interpret complex budgets and financial reporting

Working Environment / Conditions:

Work environment: Experience living and working within a humanitarian emergency, response and recovery context and/or working with partners in consortia.

Reporting to WARO RDU

Not a family post

Travel: minimum of 30% International travel as required

Closing :31/12/21