In-Country Grants Officer – Mali

Location: Bamako, Mali
Job Reference: GO/PD/ML/03/2024

AGRA and its Work

AGRA is an African-led institution that actively supports the drive towards inclusive agricultural transformation and sustainable food systems. We do this by empowering the continent’s 33 million smallholder farming households to transform their agriculture from a struggle to survive to profitable businesses. The continent’s farmers regularly face challenges, and we aspire to provide uniquely African solutions that respond to their agricultural and environmental challenges, leading to increased harvests for reduced hunger and more income.

Working in alignment with the development priorities of our focus countries, we enable farmers to access improved and high-yielding seeds, gain knowledge on sustainable farming, and linkages to profitable markets.

In our work, we aspire to build the alliances, partnerships, and networks required to drive an inclusive agricultural transformation. We work with our partners to create an equitable youth-friendly environment that harnesses the youth dividend on the continent to drive growth and facilitate open employment opportunities for young women and men. We achieve our key objectives through a focus on the following four areas of intervention:
1. Policy and state capability – We support governments in creating an enabling environment for private sector involvement in agricultural transformation.
2. Seed systems – We trigger higher productivity by increasing the availability and access to improved seeds by farmers allowing them to increase their harvests for food security and better incomes.
3. Sustainable farming – We support farmers in building resilient farming systems for sustained high yields through interventions such as mechanization and irrigation.
4. Inclusive markets and trade – We work to increase the linkages between farmers, and other market actors for a positive, sustained cycle of commercialization and reinvestment.

Implementing Our New Strategy Through People

People are the heart of our organization and remain the true drivers of our delivery and our impact.

We work with incredible people and partners who have roots in farming communities across the continent combined with an inclusive and diverse workforce from over 24 nationalities. Our commitment to a call to action goes beyond ourselves as we arise to catalyze African Food Systems transformation by being Deeply collaborative, Executing Excellently, Sincerely Constructive and Increasingly Entrepreneurial aligned with our values of (I-RISE; Integrity, Respect, Innovation, Stewardship and Equity).

We are looking for people who are passionate about Africa to join our innovative, growing, and multidisciplinary team. Together, we can grow Africa’s food systems improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. Want to join us?

The Position

In-Country Grants Officer – Mali Job Reference: GO/PD/ML/03/2024
The In-Country Grants Officer is responsible for working flexibly and collegially in offering support to the Country Director, grants and programs staff as well as in processing grants and maintaining a grants database.
S/he will oversee the grants monitoring and evaluation processes in the assigned Country, and efficiently manages the flow of grants as per donor rules and regulations and in compliance with AGRA’s internal policies and processes and uses technology to achieve the set turnaround times.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Manage day to day project and grants management of grantees within their portfolio.
• Creates and maintains a grant tracking database through AMIS and other tools to monitor the flow of project proposals from the time full grant documentation is received in the grants unit to the time a grant award is issued, and the first payment is made.
• Identifies grantees requiring technical assistance and provides relevant training on AGRA grants compliance and reporting requirements.
• Conduct pre-award due diligence for potential grantees including organization capacity assessments.
• Ensure adherence to donor compliance requirements by grantees during the life of the grant post grants issuance. Provide advice to the country leadership on grants compliance requirements.
• Provide grants portfolio performance reports to country leadership and provide corrective actions on parameters that include commitment budget uptake, disbursement, and burn-rate, closures, and implementation of audit recommendations etc.
• Collaborates with country leadership, and HQ regional grants officers in implementing systems, policies, and procedures related to grants administration in the designated country.
• Collaborates with the program staff to analyze, revise and formalize any necessary modifications and/or amendments to grants and contracts.
• Builds capability of the AGRA grantees within priority countries through providing trainings and technical backstopping on M&E systems and tools as required.
• Advocates for compliance with donor and AGRA-specific regulations for grant making and all applicable delegation of authority policies, as they relate to signatory powers and thresholds.
• Track grant-making pipeline, RFCN processing and GAL issuance.
• Ensure complete and accurate expenditure support documentation is uploaded by grantees and AGRA to AMIS in compliance with MCF and other donors as appropriate.
• Organize grants charter reviews and compiles grant materials for GC review.
• Delivers training to grantees and other In-Country users of grants tools and e-platforms e.g. AMIS and maintains a log of problems and gathers information to contribute to continuous enhancement of the database.
• Conduct grantee monitoring and portfolio performance health checks.
• Prepare and conduct start-up orientation workshops for new awards and coordinate monthly / quarterly meetings with project staff to ensure grant contract clauses and all project-related requirements are complied with.

Key Qualifications and Experience required:

• Bachelor’s degree in a commercial domain or equivalent experience in a related field.
• Computer proficiency in: Word, Excel, Outlook, Internet search skills, PowerPoint, and ability to learn new applications quickly.
• Working knowledge of key donor agencies including MCF, USAID, Rockefeller Foundation and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Fluency in English and French and experience in a grant making environment

If you believe you are the right candidate for this position, kindly submit your application with a detailed CV in English & French (including your e-mail and telephone contacts) to recruit@agra.org. Please quote the job reference number in the subject line of the application e-mail.

Applications must be received on or before 22nd March 2024. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

For more information on the AGRA, visit www.agra.org.

AGRA is an Equal Opportunity Employer