Graduate Project Administrators at the Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA)

The Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA) is an international medical organization, founded in 2009. ALIMA’s aim is to provide a high standard of healthcare in situations of emergency or medical disaster and to improve the practice of humanitarian medicine by developing innovative projects associated with medical research. The specific feature of the association is to base its operating methods mainly on partnership with national medical players. By pooling and capitalizing on their skills, ALIMA and its partners give as many people as possible access to a high standard of treatment.

Since its creation, the association and its partners have successfully developed in line with the increase in humanitarian medical needs, especially in Western and Central Africa: 580,000 patients treated in 2014 including over 25,000 hospitalizations, new governance between the partners of the medical NGO platform in the Sahel, new innovative approaches and operational research projects. ALIMA also responded to the Ebola emergency by opening a 40-bed Ebola treatment centre in Guinea. With operations in eight countries, 15 projects, over 1,200 employees and a budget of €19.5 million, ALIMA is a dynamic NGO, effectively deploying medical aid for the most vulnerable.

We are recruiting to fill the position of:

Job Title: Project Administrator M/F

Location: Nigeria, Maiduguri
Contract term: contract under French law, contract length: 6 weeks

Context
Since 2009, Boko Haram led violent raids and suicide bombings against civilians and officials throughout Nigeria, especially in Borno State and the 3 northeastern states of Adamawa, Gombe and Yobe. According to the HRP 2016, Boko Haram was the most deadly terrorist group in the world in terms of terrorist related-deaths at the end of 2015. From 2009 to May 2016, 20,450 fatalities have been imputed to Boko Haram, including 1,344 from January 2016

This ongoing violence in Northeast Nigeria had a serious impact on the health and livelihoods of the population. The Borno State population is the most affected. While the entire population of Borno State is little over 4 million people, around 1.8 million persons are currently IDPs in Borno State, primarily located in the State capital Maiduguri. In addition, as of 19 May 2016, 186,000 Nigerians have fled to neighboring country and 68,000 returned from Cameroon into Borno State. These displacements have not only created immense humanitarian needs within the IDP population, they have also created a strain and economic pressure on the host communities, as 91% of IDPs are living with, family, friends or in informal accommodations. 12 formal IDPs camp have been settled in Borno, while 26 camps spontaneously created.

Base on that critical situation, ALIMA is conducting an exploratory mission in Borno state since May 2016. The outcome of this mission highlighting the necessity of an urgent medical intervention, ALIMA has decided to send an experienced team in this zone and is now looking for an Administrator for the project opening.

Mission and Main Activities

• The main function of the Project Administrator is to put in place the component parts of the resource management system.
• He/she is responsible for managing the staff administration (contracts, employees’ files, work attendance, payroll), controlling spending commitments against the procedures of the association, monitoring the financial means raised for the project (expenditure monitoring, accounting, budget monitoring and review, follow-up of tables of allocations per donor), as well as implementing financial and HR management tools.
• The project Administrator reports directly to the Emergency Coordinator in the project, and to the administrative team in the Headquarters (technical referents). He/She supervises an administrative assistant.
• Under his/her various areas of responsibility, the Project Administrator will be in charge of ensuring:
  • Compliance with the ALIMA rules and procedures applicable to the country,
  • Smooth functional organization of the project resources,
  • Monitoring of the use of the resources (expenditure and spending commitments),
  • Adequacy in terms of number, skills and allocation of human and administrative resources.

Main Responsibilities

• Advise the Project Coordinator on set up (org chart) and together with the COFIRH, update the project’s organizational chart and job descriptions
• In close coordination with the Project Coordinator and the COFIRH, calculate the HR operational needs and the associated budget in order to efficiently ensure the required sizing and capabilities of the mission and to facilitate budget following-up.
• Ensure hiring, carry out amendments and contract termination formalities for employees at project level, according to labour local laws, archiving and updating individual employee files, informing them on their rights and preparing all mandatory tax declarations, in order to ensure legal compliance.
• Assist the Project Coordinator, and/or team leaders and supervisors to draw up annual holiday planning and staff shifts in order to forecast HR needs and to ensure HR availability for the project activities.
• Supervise/perform payroll procedures, ensuring that all data related to monthly salary calculation of national employees of the project are correctly entered in Homere (days off, unpaid leaves, sick leaves, overtime, salary advance, etc.), in order to ensure on time and accurate salary payments.
• Under supervision of the COFIRH, ensure indexation process of national staff salary grids in order to ensure internal equity, cost-of-living adjustments and the correct application of employment conditions in the project sites.
• Support, in close coordination with the COFIRH, the project line managers in detecting training needs, in properly evaluating people performance and in potential identification, in order to improve people capabilities, and their end results contribution to mission goals.
• Plan and supervise, in close coordination with the COFIRH, the associated processes (recruitment, training/induction, evaluation, potential detection, development and communication) of the staff under his/her responsibility in order to ensure both the sizing and the amount of knowledge required
• Together with the Project Coordinator, support the line managers in implementing the internal communication policies in order to boost staff active participation and ALIMA commitment.
• In close collaboration with the Project Coordinator and the COFIRH, applies the administrative procedures part of any Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in force between local partners (eg. Ministry of Health, etc.) and ALIMA.
• In close collaboration with the Project Coordinator and COFIRH, looks for the best options to avoid and/or solve possible labour conflicts in the project.
• Follow up all movements and/or accommodation of staff in the Project.
• Implement circuits and workflows (management of cash boxes, transfers, advances, purchase procedures, payment validations, follow up of regular payments, bank conciliation) in order to anticipate expenses at project level and to optimize cash needs and its security.
• Implement and supervise transactional procedures and systems in order to ensure transparent accounting practices and full documentary traceability (invoices, receipts, bank statements, etc.), following ALIMA guidelines and rules, and using the respective software in place.
• Ensures that monthly accountancy closure is taking place and controlled, with due quality and on due time.
• In close collaboration with the Project Coordinator and the COFIRH, analyze and follow up the project budget, in order to ensure that funds are used according to funding contracts and to proposing corrective action.
• Ensures all HR, Administrative and Financial reporting of the Project (Homère and SAGA monthly closure, sitreps, etc.

Experience and Skills

• University degree in Finance, Administration, and Human Resources
• Experience in a similar position for at least 1 year
• Team management and supervision
• Perfect knowledge of MS Office package, especially Excel, and good knowledge of Saga software
• Rigorous, stress resistant and good adaptation capacity
• Language: English is mandatory (written, read, spoken), French is an asset.

Salary
Depending on experience + per diem

ALIMA pays for:

• Travel costs between the expatriate’s country of origin and the mission location
• Accommodation costs
• Medical cover from the first day of the contract to a month after the date of departure from the mission country for the employee
• Evacuation of the employee

Application Closing Date
30th July, 2016.

How To Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should send their CV’s and covering letter to: [email protected] with the reference “Nigeria- Project Administrator” in the subject line.