Purpose

MWA seeks an experienced Finance Officer for the USAID funded STAWI Mashinani Activity. The overall purpose of STAWIMashinani(meaning, “STAWI at the Grassroots Level” in Swahili), is to strengthen long-term resilience and capacity of county-level institutions and communities in Kenya to better manage their water resources for domestic and productive use in an efficient, equitable and sustainable manner. The program will contribute to the goal of improving water security in areas of recurrent crisis by strengthening water service, delivery, and management systems across nine arid and semi-arid counties in Northern and Eastern Kenya (namely Garissa, Isiolo, Kitui, Makueni, Marsabit, Samburu, Taita Taveta, Turkana, and Wajir).

Job Summary

MWA seeks an experienced Finance Officer who will support, and capacity build the nine county-based consortium members on finance reporting and donor compliance. Reporting to the Finance and Grants Compliance Coordinator, the Finance Officer will make frequent visits to the nine counties to ensure compliance with USAID’s finance and grants guidelines. The position will be based in Nairobi, Kenya with frequent travel to the field.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Carry out sub-recipient monitoring and prepare monitoring reports highlighting capacity building needs or other areas that require management’s attention.
• Review and validate supporting documentation before processing of financial transactions to ensure all required documents are accurate and complete and authorizations are in place.
• Review the monthly financial reports from the sub-recipients, confirming proper alignment with the provided ledgers and budget, ensuring accuracy, and identifying and rectifying any errors in liaison with the sub recipients.
• Timely preparation of standard and uniform finance and accrual reporting templates for the sub recipients.
• Provide technical assistance and capacity building to the sub-recipient, including interpretation of policies, setting up of systems, trouble shooting and resolution of outstanding issues.
• Evaluate and monitor subrecipient financial management processes in accordance with policy and strengthen capacity of the subrecipients in financial accounting and transactions.
• Prepare various, periodic, and ad hoc financial reports, as needed, and perform variance analysis to assist with decision-making and proper management of financial resources.
• Provide information to subrecipients on financial accounting policies and procedural compliance issues and contribute to capacity strengthening.
• Analyse and prepare sub recipient payments/reimbursement, maintain tracking schedules of sub recipients’ payments and reconciliations to facilitate timeliness of financial resource management.
• Support other finance team members and offer cover whenever called upon, on project and operation-based finance tasks.
• Undertake any other duties as assigned.

Requirements

Required Qualifications and Experience

• B.A. degree in Accounting, Finance, Economics or Business Administration.
• Qualification in accounting – CPA/ACCA part 2 or equivalent is mandatory.
• Minimum of Four years’ experience in a position with similar responsibilities, preferably with an international or local NGO.
• Experience in USAID funded programs is an added advantage.
• Proficient in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Preferred.

Personal Skills and Abilities

• Excellent analytical skills with ability to detect and report inconsistencies.
• Conscientious, accurate and thorough with great attention to detail.
• Ethical conduct in accordance with recognized professional and organizational codes of ethics.
• Proactive, resourceful, solutions oriented and results oriented.
• Teamwork and ability to work collaboratively.