Southern Africa Regional Officer

SOUTHERN AFRICA REGIONAL FINANCE OFFICER

 

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare. We work in over 60 countries, offering assistance to people based on need, irrespective of origin, religion, creed or political affiliation.
MSF Operational Centre Brussels is looking for a: SOUTHERN AFRICA REGIONAL FINANCE OFFICER (RFO)

Operational Context
Mid-2019 OCB launched a reform in support of the projects aiming at providing more autonomy to the projects. Southern Africa (SnA) missions (Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South-Africa) have been chosen as first pilot. An innovative and transformational approach will be implemented in 2020 in the region. The model incorporates:

• A Regional Support Team (RST) will be established to be the first line contact for the projects for strategic matters. While being based in different offices in the region, the RST will report
  directly to the OCB Director of Operations.
• ‘National support team’: a transformation of what is currently known as the Coordination Team (often based in the capital of the country) into a mixed team of junior and senior
  profiles that provide country-specific support within the different technical domains (HR, fin, supply, log, med..) and keep a role of representation at country level.
• ‘Project teams’: based on unicity of every project reality, lifecycle, setup etc…, During 2020, a reinforcement and/or re-organization of punctual, temporary or more permanent positions/functions will accompany the transition towards a more final setup. Speed of transition is project-specific.

One Ops, one Med and one Leverage/Advocacy positions will make the core of the RST, with the Ops one being the regular contact of the DO. Other members of this Regional support team will be based or in other offices in the region with the possibility of sharing national and regional responsibilities or in the departments of the MSF SnA section in JHB.

Every member of this RST will have a specific area of expertise and focus while a main point of attention will be to create and to animate a network that is able to make decisions as collective as possible and to allow maximum cross-fertilization between the projects and the National Support
Teams. This unique set up will:

• promote more autonomy for the projects by increasing responsibility and competences at the project level, by reducing the responsibility of the today’s national coordination teams who
  will transition towards ad-hoc National Support Teams.
• aim to develop as many synergies as possible (with the section), primarily on Communication (Human Resources) and advocacy common interests.
• promote a holarchic managerial approach by including project staff in strategic decisions and by encouraging a distributed setup within the regional team.

The current cell will phase out of current responsibilities and will function as ‘safety net’ as long as a relevant hand-over hasn’t been completed. The speed of phasing out of the role of the cell will be adapted to the operational and context reality of the countries, with Mozambique being currently in
the most unstable situation.

• Main objectives
  By reporting to both regional support team and finance coordinator based in Brussels HQ , working in close collaboration with the regional accounting controller also based in Maputo and by being part
  of distributed support team RFO oversees, the RFO supports and coaches the finance managers of the projects and the capitals in his/her portfolio, promotes their autonomy and capacitates them in
  effective finance management.

  Purpose of the post:

• He/she ensures that Management Control, Budgeting & Forecasting, cash management, internal control and financial analysis functions are accurate and performed according to standard policies and processes.

• He/she ensures a rescue role for finance staff providing technical support for finance management.

  Responsibilities
  Budget & Forecast

  • In collaboration with the Regional Support team members, support and guide the project team with the budget.
  • Ensures consistency of project budgets with validated operational objectives.
  • Provide the overview of the regional envelope, supporting strategic operational decisionmaking
    & re-allocating budgets between projects.
  • Guides and challenges the projects in the preparation and analyses of the monthly follow up of budget and calculation of the forecast.
  • Coach and develop finance managers at project levels to increase their skills and capacity to produce relevant and accurate forecast.
  • Communicate the monthly forecast to the Operations Finance Coordinator.
  • Ensure that significant variances of forecast are validated by the correct level of decision (project, regional or DO).

  Cash Management

  • Ensures that the policies and guidelines concerning cash management are relevant and appropriate and that are well managed in the projects.
  • Coach finance staff at project and capital level on money security rules and cash management best practices.
  • Validates and ensures monthly cash-flow of the projects.
  • With the HQ Treasury department ensure the appropriate, timely and safe transfer of funds from HQ to the projects.
  • Support and advice the Finance managers at project and national level in terms of bank & cash management & signatures. Support them to define and implement the finance strategy in terms of means of payment (On line banking, phone banking, etc…)

  Finance policies

  • Coach and supervise the finance managers to ensure the proper implementation and respect of MSF policies and guidelines, ensuring they are aligned with legal requirements and within
    Page 3 of 4 the national legal framework (including expense validation table, advance table).
  • Support the project in the definition of the financial strategy adapted to the project and the context of the country.
    Risk resources
  • Support the finance managers to the proper follow up of audits recommendations (internal and external).
  • Coach, mirror, link and support the Finance Managers at project and capital level on the management, supervision, animation and communication of Internal Monitoring Tool.
  • Facilitate the link between the final users and the HQ specialist to allow the correct implementation of IMT and its efficient use.
  • Support the Finance Managers at the national level on the management, supervision,
    animation and communication of insurance contract management, reporting of incidents and follow up of cases.
  • Ensure that the Finance manager at national level are correctly linked with HQ specialist to run an efficient insurance coverage and incident management.
    Support, mirror and advice the finance managers in any cost analysis and proposals to improve the project resources management.
  • Support, mirror and advice the finance managers in the corruption incident management, reporting and training. Ensure that the final users are correctly linked with HQ specialist to
    ensure an efficient reporting and corruption incident management.

  Accounting

  • Ensure that the Regional Accounting Controller is aware of every operational decisions and events that may have an impact on accounting management and supervision.
  • In close collaboration with the Regional Accounting Controller oversee that the analytical accounting is coherent, appropriate and consistent in the projects.
    Coaching related tasks
  • Frequently visit projects and the capitals to provide support and coaching to finance staff Participate in HR briefing and debriefs of newly recruited managers with finance profiles
  • Participate in the recruitment of Finance Managers working in the projects and in the National Support Team
  • Organize and provide training on Finance and Risk Resources Management & tools
  • Participate in the HR evaluation process of finance staff

  Requirements

• Education – University degree in management, business administration or finance (bachelor’s degree level) desirable

• Experience – Minimum 5 years experience in similar positions with similar level of responsibilities (in which minimum 2 years of MSF experience)

• Minimum 1 year field MSF experience as FINCO

• Working experience in the region is an asset

• Knowledge of MS Office, Advanced Excel, Accounting software
  (Unifield knowledge is a plus) Awareness of the humanitarian world i.e MSF missionsCompetencies
• People Management and Development , coaching skills

• Service Orientation, teamwork and cooperatioon
  Languages – English proficiency is mandatory; Portuguese is an asset

  Conditions

• Expected starting date: ASAP/ Q2 2020
• 2 years (extendable) contract under local legislation, based in Maputo, proximity with the projects and hence travel within the SnA region is required
• Adhere to the MSF principles, Behavioral commitments and to
  our managerial values: Respect, Transparency, Integrity, Accountability, Trust and Empowerment
• To agree with the philosophy and principles behind the Field Recentralisation programme of OCB