COVID-19 Relief Grants Assistant - Palladium Group

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Project Overview and Role:

The Feed the Future Ghana Mobilizing Finance in Agriculture (MFA) Activity is a $19 million, USAID-supported project that aims to improve access to finance for agribusinesses in Ghana. To accomplish this, MFA will engage business advisory service providers to improve their capacity to support agribusinesses, as well as deploy incentives to financial institutions that expand their lending to agriculture.

The finance facilitated will enable farmers to purchase agricultural inputs, boost production, invest in processing, or undertake other activities to expand their businesses. From 2020 to 2024, MFA will unlock $261 million in finance, driving sustainable agricultural lending and promoting inclusive growth.

COVID-19 has brought significant hardship to agricultural stakeholders and those in Ghana’s export industries of cacao, cashew, mango, and shea including, but not limited to, purchase contracts being cancelled overnight; closure of processing facilities, lack of cash to pay for new costs of safety equipment, challenges accessing working capital or training, and volatile commodity prices and limited supply of commodities to processing.

The MFA activity aims to mitigate COVID-19 impacts by providing financial institutions with grants to support their ability to assist SMEs and other firms. The COVID relief grants will strive to save jobs, and keep SMEs, processors aggregators in business to maintain the supply change for farmers.

The COVID-19 Relief Grants Assistant position is to supports the COVID-Relief team in all duties related to managing COVID-Relief resources, compliance and reporting activities. The assistant focuses principally on administrative tasks related to GUCs, such as maintaining files on each grant and its status, funding level, expenditure, and reporting, conducting due diligence and spot-checks of sub-awardees and final beneficiary firms and reviewing and recommending approval of invoices. The Assistant reports to the COVID-19 Relief Manager.

 Primary Duties and Responsibilities: 

The COVID-19 Relief Grants Assistant’s primary tasks include the following:  

• In accordance with Palladium’s USAID-approved Grants Under Contract (GUC) manual, support all aspects of the COVID-19 relief GUC process
• Coordinate with the COVID-19 Relief Manager and Relief Deputy to ensure process standardization and compliance with Palladium policies and procedures 
• Support in the development of the COVID-19 Relief Grants Manual
• Support the evaluation of grant proposals by organizing the evaluation committee, preparing the necessary scoring sheets and negotiation memo and ensuring that required grant documentation is maintained and completed for each grant activity 
• Work directly with grantees and potential grantees to perform due diligence checks and support budgeting
• Support the Deputy Manager to finalize cost analyses with all associated documentation.
• Review all grantee milestone submissions and invoicing for compliance with the agreement. If approved, submit the payment request to the home office.
• Review all grant invoices for completeness and, if incomplete, work with the partner to revise the invoice and deliverable submission accordingly
• Any other tasks as required by the COVID-19 Relief Manager or COVID-19 Relief Deputy

Required Qualifications:

• Demonstrated contracting and procurement experience especially with USAID-funded projects, preferably with OTI/SWIFT co-design processes
• Experience supporting Grant Under Contract (GUC) awards under USAID policies
• Knowledge of USAID policies and procedures, specifically in grants, procurement, accounting, and financial compliance.
• Microsoft office suite proficiency and the ability to operate spreadsheet and word-processing programs at a highly proficient level
• Proactive problem-solving, decision-making, and good judgment skills
• Demonstrated ability and commitment to manage confidential information
• Attention to detail and ability to perform multiple tasks and balance competing priorities effectively and efficiently
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English.
• Ability to communicate effectively with managers, colleagues, service providers and clients
• Professional and mature demeanour and conduct
• Ghanaian nationals preferred.

Experience/Education

• A degree or equivalent in finance, management, international development
• At least three years of experience in Grant's role, preferably with USAID

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