Finance Delegate 64 views0 applications

We help to strengthen resilience of vulnerable people exposed to hazards and crisis situations and we respond to disasters and conflicts to save lives and alleviate suffering. In the Netherlands with more than thirty thousand volunteers and internationally through technical assistance, supplies and money. Together we act before, during and after disasters to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people.

We do this without regards to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinion. Our seven principles guide our humanitarian work: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality.

The International Assistance department is responsible for all Netherlands Red Cross international support for victims of disasters and conflicts and for vulnerable people exposed to hazards.

The International Assistance department has opened a vacancy for an Finance Delegate.

Position title: Finance Delegate

Duty station: Bangui, Central African Republic

Time period: 12 months

Starting Date: July 1, 2020

Status: Single posting

Purpose of the position

The main purpose of the position is to monitor, support and check financial processes for NLRC supported projects in Central African Republic.

Background

The Central African Republic (CAR) is a landlocked nation of 4.6 million people as of 2014, at 622,984 square kilometres, bordered by Cameroon to the west, Chad to the north, Sudan and South Sudan to the east, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of the Congo to the south. CAR is administratively divided into 16 districts (French: préfectures, and the capital city of Bangui, which is an autonomous commune. Each prefecture is governed by a local assembly called General Council (Conseil Général), presided by a Prefect (Préfet). The prefectures are further subdivided into 71 sub-prefectures. Since independence in 1960, CAR has three tumultuous decades of misrule – mostly by military governments. Civilian rule was established in 1993 but lasted only a decade.

Central African Republic (CAR), is ranked 188 of 189 countries in Human Development Index[1] and has struggled with violence and political instability for decades. Since 2013, a spiral political crisis emerged, rapidly taking on ethnic and religious dimensions and of which civilians in general and young people in particular are the first victims as the country is mostly. Population’s vulnerabilities have increased in all sectors: one person out of five is displaced, 2.9 million Central Africans need multifaceted assistance to survive and protection, representing 63 per cent of the population. One child out of three suffers from severe malnutrition, 13 per cent of the population is at level 4 of food insecurity in a country where agriculture should feed the entire population. Livelihoods are destroyed, consumed and knowledge is outdated or forgotten. So youth, that are the majority of the total population of the country, have limited means to start a normal life.

The country crisis has transitioned from a protracted forgotten crisis characterized by chronic underdevelopment and localized emergency situations, into more recently (2013), an acute humanitarian emergency affecting the entire population. Following a transitional government period, CAR held presidential elections in December 2015 and February 2016.

Despite the recent peace deal signed between about 14 rebel factions with the central government, most of these groups continue to control a large part of the country, if not strengthened, their positions and influence in their respective strongholds and continue to benefit from illicit taxation and illegal exploitation of natural resources. The government, led by President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, is restructuring the army and with the support of the international community through UN mission (MUNISCA) struggling to establish state authority, thus undermining its legitimacy in the eyes of the population. The crisis in CAR has taken a religious form – its matrix is a combination of unresolved socio-economic problems (socio – economic rivalries, long term antagonism, conflict between farmers and herders, youth crisis, xenophobic reflex towards Muslim communities) and deeply entrenched governance issues.

Conflict and instability in the Central African Republic have had devastating impact on children and youth according to United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF). Approximately 25% of youth have no formal education and 42% of youth have attained at most incomplete primary education, meaning that in total 68% of 15-24-year old have not completed primary education in CAR, with girls having even a much lower enrolment at various levels[2].

In CAR, diverse ethnic and religious communities had lived together for decades without major conflict arising from their faiths. Although Muslims, who comprise 15% of the population, dealt with day-to-day issues related to marginalization and racial prejudice, most considered themselves integrated members of their communities. Inter-marriage between Muslims and Christians was common, and Muslims played crucial roles in trade and commerce. However, in the past years the country has been swept up in a surge of religious and ethnic violence led by majority Christian militia known as anti-balaka in response to atrocities committed by majority Muslim Seleka rebels when they took power in early 2013. Since December 2013, virtually all of the original Muslim population of Bangui has fled the capital, and the few who remain are sheltering in what has effectively become a ghetto[3]. The Muslim population have mostly moved to the 3^rd district where the majority of this community has found refuge among their community members.

CAR is still facing both natural and manmade disasters. The first type of disasters is geophysical (landslides), hydrological (floods), climatological (bush-fires), meteorological (violent winds) or biological (epidemic outbreaks – cholera, measles, rabies meningitis – and insect/animal plagues – monkey pox). The second type of disasters in CAR is caused by humans: displaced populations, and road transport accidents. The humanitarian situation remain dire. As of 2018 October, 636,489 Central Africans were internally displaced and 576,884 were refugees (mostly in neighbouring countries). The security situation in the Central African Republic (CAR) has affected the economic situation to a point that its comes to a slow-down of self-reproduction, which means a high dependency on importation even for stable food. The spontaneous return of a small number of internally displaced persons due to an improved security situation caused renewed intercommunal tension in some areas, especially in the south-western part of the country. Humanitarian access to affected people remained constrained by logistical and security challenges, with recurrent attacks on humanitarian actors. Attacks by and hostilities between armed groups, in addition to conflicts, caused new displacements.

The Netherlands Red Cross in Central African Republic

The Netherlands Red Cross (NLRCS) supports the Central African Red Cross (CRCA) through a collaborative programmatic partnership with long-term development assistance through two streams of projects: Institutional Response Preparedness (RP2), funded by The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Youth projects (3 FM & Youth Resilient) since 2016 in at least 10 local branches. The first project focuses on enhancing preparedness of the National Society CAR RC to respond to future disasters with an aim of having by the end of April 2020 the impact of disasters on 37, 500 vulnerable people in CAR reduced. This project has enabled the CRCA to improve its relationship with the Government in the areas of DRR especially with the office of the Prime Minister and improve coordination and collaboration between the various actors and throughout the regions of the countries. It has also helped launch the development of the DRR National Strategy which should run to the establishment of the National DRR Platform thereby improve the disaster early warning system in country. More than 5,000 youth have been empowered with the 3FM project (ended in Dec 2019) through vocational trainings, first-aid, income generating activities, SGBV campaigns and social cohesion sensitization campaigns. Therefore in the second project, efforts are continuing within the Youth Resilient project (on-going) mainly consolidating the peace and reconciliation among the youth. The project is also supported by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs focusing on livelihoods and basic needs for the youth. By 2021, 5000 vulnerable youth are economically and socially integrated through economic empowerment, first aid trainings promoting peace due to trainings in 7 principles, Conflict management, social cohesion and SRH (including SGBV awareness). Additional to these projects are two projects including the Covid-19 response in CAR and the Hunger Campaigns which are going to be implemented in the same geographical areas as the other mentioned projects to enable the consolidation of different efforts of the NLRC support to the CRCA.

The NLRC supports the implementation of these projects in resourcing with quality staff. Hence, the NLRC aims to recruit a Financial Delegate for these projects who could support as well, for building the CRCA financial and administrative capacity. The aim is to ensure quality financial management for this mission in CAR. CRCA has limited experience with external donor reporting, and lack of qualified personnel to ensure compliance with procedures and identify irregularities. A key role of the Financial Delegate will be to provide capacity building to NLRC and local staff based in-country as well as supporting the National Society in setting up financial procedures, capacity building and financial knowledge empowerment.

Position in the organization

The Finance Delegate reports to the Country Representative in CAR, with continuous alignment with the Financial Controller based in the Netherlands. The Finance Control unit sits within the International Department of the NLRC. For matters relating to security and other issues relating to deployment in CAR, the Finance Delegate reports to the Country Representative in CAR. The Finance Delegate works together in day-to-day operations with CRCA, NLRC Project Delegates, Country Representative and local staff. Close cooperation & frequent communication with Project Administration, Desk, Financial Control at HQ is also essential.

Summary statement and responsibilities

• Monitor and ensure that the financial management at field level is carried out in accordance with NLRC guidelines, the agreed contractual conditions, MoUs, applicable local laws and other regulatory requirements.
• Capacity building: Assist CAR RC in their financial administration, suggest improvements in procedures and practices (improving the financial procedures/collaboration between NLRC and CAR RC cash advances, signatures, delays to close advances, etc… Supporting CAR RC in revising their Admin/finance/purchase procedures and supporting the local financial assistant in her daily tasks/capacity building) including on job training and quarterly meetings
• Work with the local financial and administrative officer and train on the execution of the project administration at field level.
• Support the monthly financial reporting to NLRC for the project(s), in coordination with the country representative/project manager, to steer and manage the project funding.
• Review the reported project expenditures including balance report and procurement table, provide feedback to country and NLRC HQ teams.
• Verify the project administration assuring this is audit proof, including reconciliation with the financial administration of the sister NS and that payments can be made according to plans.
• Ensure that the annual financial report to the partner organisations is correct & complete and verify that supporting documents are complete and in compliance with NLRC procedures and donor requirements, and ensure coherence with the narrative reports.
• Train the NLRC Project Delegates & local finance staff in the NLRC procedures for: internal control, financial planning, budgeting, budget revisions. Winpaccs Cost Control: encoding of vouchers and variance analysis; forecasting, cash request and reporting requirements.
• Monitor the budget of the delegation and the project(s), and ensure accurate accounting, authorisation and internal control procedures. Investigate and address significant variances.
• Provide an end-of-mission report with findings, recommendations and action plans to the Project Managers/budget holders to follow up by Country Representative and desk.
• Any additional assignment upon request.

Requirements/Qualifications

Key qualifications

• Master’s Degree in Finance Administration, or other relevant degree
• Seven years of experience in financial management, accounting and control also managing and empowering finance teams
• At least five year experience in working for a humanitarian aid organisation outside of Europe
• Knowledge of Winpaccs Accounting and Cost Control preferable, or willingness to complete the relevant training
• Experience in preparing budgets, cash flow statements and financial plans
• Experience in developing financial reports, and provide support to ensure consistency with narrative reporting
• Experience with donor formats and requirements
• Strong communication and training / coaching skills
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, including experience and proven competence in preparing financial reports and explanatory notes on deviations
• Experience in problem identification and solution analysis
• Excellent practical computer skills (including excellent command of Excel spreadsheets and accounting software, as well as strong competence in Windows, Word processing, internet and email)
• Fluency in French and English is required. **
• Preferably experience in working for the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement.

Key competences

• Able to work in a team
• High degree of integrity, discretion, and personal conduct
• Flexible and adaptable to changing working conditions
• Self-motivated, with good judgment and initiative
• Ability to manage broad responsibilities with attention to detail
• Good interpersonal skills
• Stress resistant
• Ability to prioritize and meet deadlines
• Hands on mentality

We offer

• A full time appointment (based on 40-hour work week) for 12 months.
• A flexible and human centred working environment in an international environment with a variety of international organizations.
• Well balanced employment conditions with space for initiative and development.

[1] http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/HDI

[2] https://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/car_statistics.html

[3] https://odihpn.org/magazine/supporting-social-cohesion-in-the-central-af…