Job Title: Compliance Manager
Organisation: Self Help Africa (SHA)
Location: Dublin, Ireland (Hybrid working arrangements)
Contract type: Full time / Permanent
Hours: 37.5 hours per week, Monday to Friday
Reports to: Director of Business Services
About Self Help Africa
Self Help Africa is an international development organisation that works through agriculture and Agri-enterprise development to end hunger and extreme poverty. In 2021, Self Help Africa merged with United Purpose, doubling our size.
The organisation now works in 17 programme countries, 15 of these are in sub-Saharan Africa. Subsidiary organisations, ‘Self Help Brazil’ and ‘Self Help Bangladesh’ have been created for our programmes in the two countries where we are working outside of Africa.
In early 2023 we launched a new five-year organisation strategy, which defines shared mission as the alleviation of hunger, poverty, social inequality and the impact of climate change through community-led, market-based and enterprise-focused approaches, so that people can have access to nutritious food, clean water, decent employment and incomes, while sustaining natural resources.
Our wider organisation also includes social enterprise subsidiaries Partner Africa, which provides ethical auditing and consultancy services, and CUMO, Malawi’s largest micro-finance provider.
Our three core values are:
- Impact: We are accountable, ambitious and committed to systemic change.
- Innovation: We are agile, creative and enterprising in an ever-changing world.
- Community: We are inclusive, honest and have integrity in our relationships.
Job Purpose:
The key purpose of this role is to ensure that a strong compliance culture exists and is maintained within SHA to both SHA’s donors’ rules and regulations and SHA’s own internal policies and procedures This person will also be responsible for the management of the investigations into allegations of fraud, corruption, and other forms of misconduct within the charity by leading the Compliance Officer on this function.
The person will also be involved in knowledge sharing throughout the organisation through trainings and workshops, be a trusted advisor and add value that will assist in key decision making. Critical to success is detail orientation as well as an ability to clearly communicate your message and deliver information in a timely and user-friendly manner. The role will involve regular presentations to the Audit Finance and Risk Committee (AFRC) and the Group board and subsidiary boards.
Key Responsibilities:
Compliance – Policy and advisory
- Ensure that policies and procedures are up to date, fit for purpose and easy to access for all staff and relevant partners including the maintenance of an up-to-date accurate policies and procedures database
- Ensure internal policies and procedures reflect all relevant donor policies that SHA is subject to
- Perform the donor contract reviews and support teams in the donor contract negotiations, support in assessing risks and liaise with legal external or internal resource on specific amendments / advice outside of compliance team competences
- Ensure that SHA staff and partners are conversant with donor guidelines relevant to their programmes and that compliance is a focus of their work
- Work with the Programme Funding team providing advice and support on new donor programmes and potential new country programmes
- Monitor the capacity of the SHA and partner finance/administration/logistics staff and disseminate policies and procedures
- Develop content for training workshops on compliance with internal and donor policies and procedures and deliver such training in-person or online to meet needs of various teams and partners
- Support country management teams and the Finance function in building the capacity of compliance staff by facilitating delivery of training workshops and provision of advice in a mentoring role as required
- Advise on Partner due diligence processes and support programme teams on request in carrying out the relevant checks and mitigation clauses in partnership agreements to address relevant risks and mitigation measures before contracting them
- Review on request external audit reports (donor or statutory audits) and advise on management feed-back as appropriate
- Visit country programmes where possible – Trip reports specific to each country office visit will be prepared and submitted to the AFRC as well as senior management
Investigations
- Lead on and provide support to the Compliance Officer in the management of conducting investigations into fraud, corruption, and any other forms of misconduct within the organisation.
- Procure the services of external forensic services and manage them ensuring contracts are in place and maintained up to date where necessary
- Manage and lead the complaints handling responses, report to external statutory auditors on all complaints, oversee Donor and regulatory reporting of serious complaints, assist the management teams at various levels in the follow up actions on request
- Manage and lead in coordination of the safeguarding incident responses, oversee donor and regulatory reporting of serious safeguarding incidents, assist the management teams at various levels in the follow up actions on request
- Maintain a database of online correspondence and database for each Complaints/Safeguarding Incident to ensure the data is readily accessible for audit/regulatory purposes
Risk Management
- Ensure that risk management processes are in place for the compliance team and link in with the Director of Business Services to provide the department risk register
General Data Protection Regulation
- Ensure the organisation processes all data in compliance with data protection rules as set out in GDPR.
- Give advice and guidance to the business about the application of data protection rules and regulations.
- Act as the main point of contact within SHA regarding anything related to GDPR and data privacy.
- Coordinate / arrange / deliver internal training sessions and raise awareness within SHA for data protection regulations.
- Meticulously maintain incident and breach logs and take necessary follow-up actions.
- Stay up to date with any changes to regulations to continuously ensure GDPR compliance.
Management
Compliance comprises an element of a broad range of staff members’ job descriptions.
- Ensure all relevant staff members are aware of their responsibilities re compliance
- Maintain regular contact with relevant staff at country level and ensure they are providing sufficient compliance advice and assurance in their offices
- Liaise with country management teams to ensure that country programmes are receiving the appropriate support from relevant HQ staff
- Provide regular updates to senior management on compliance issues and escalate any issues of concern
- Manage Compliance Officer
Experience/ Qualifications/ Other Requirements:
Essential
- Minimum 10 years practical experience of at which 5 years is at a senior level, preferably in a mid to large international NGO
- Internationally recognised Accounting Qualification (ACA, ACCA, CIMA, CPA)
- Experience of working with institutional donor funding and an understanding of the compliance environment in which institutional donors operate
- Understanding of the key principles of sound financial management and the standard policies and procedures that apply in the INGO sector
Desirable / Advantageous
- Genuine interest in the not-for-profit sector
- Experience of working in the overseas development sector
- Knowledge of Salesforce
- Willingness to travel to programme countries
Role Competencies:
- Excellent verbal, analytical, organisational and written skills
- Proactive and motivated with a strong commitment to Self Help Africa’s vision, mission and values
- Excellent ICT skills including a good knowledge of MS Office.
Key Relationships:
Internal
- Director of Business Services (Line Manager)
- CEO & Senior Leaders Team
- Head of Finance
- Programme Finance Accountants
- Chief Information Officer
- Country Management Teams, Logistics, Procurement and admin officers
External
- Institutional donors
- Statutory auditors
- Contractors
Line Reports
How to apply:
To apply for this role, please upload your completed application form (available to download from our website), CV and cover letter via the careers page on our website.
Only applications submitted via our website will be considered for this role.
Any candidate offered a job with Self Help Africa will be expected to sign Self Help Africa’s Safeguarding Policies and Code of Conduct as an appendix to their contract of employment and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these documents.
Specific roles may require Police/DBS/Garda vetting.
Self Help Africa strives to be an Equal Opportunities Employer.
