Senior Programme Finance Specialist at The Science for Africa Foundation

PRINCIPAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Unit-Wide Functional Support

Reporting & Analytics 

• Consolidate programme finance data, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and timeliness of unit-wide reports and dashboards.
• Translate detailed financial data into insights that inform Manager decisions and support overall reporting.
• Maintain standard reporting methodologies, templates, and analytical tools across all portfolios.

Systems & Process Improvement

• Lead operationalisation of the unit’s automation and workflow efficiency projects, aligned to SFA Foundation’s enterprise systems.
• Develop, update, and enforce Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the grant’s lifecycle
• Champion continuous process improvement, benchmarking against international best practice in grant finance
• Provide technical leadership on dashboard design, burn-rate analysis, and cost recovery tracking.

Compliance & Quality Assurance 

• Conduct quality assurance reviews on a rotating sample of grant files, reports, and transactions across all portfolios. 
• Ensures adherence to funder rules and regulations.
• Supports fraud/risk investigations and complex compliance issues.

Capacity Building & Risk/Audit Coordination

• Coordinates internal, funder audit and helps coordinate unit inputs and ensures audit readiness.
• Maintain the unit’s risk register and track the implementation of audit recommendations. 
• Maintains the standard capacity building records for grantees done by the Programme Finance specialists.

Expert-Level Support

• Provide authoritative guidance to Programme Finance Specialists on complex funder requirements and financial structuring.
• Draft high-quality responses to funder queries and due diligence requests, escalating to the Manager as needed.
• Support the Manager in funder engagement by modelling financial implications of compliance scenarios and funding changes.
• Mentor and build the technical capacity of Programme Finance Specialists, promoting consistency and peer learning.

Portfolio Management

Directly manage a selected portfolio of grants, delivering the full grants finance lifecycle:

• Pre-award due diligence and budgeting.
• Awarding and contracting.
• Implementation monitoring, financial analysis, and compliance oversight.
• Reporting, audit, and close-out.
• Ensure strong business partnering with programme teams and grantees to align financial delivery with programme objectives.
• Support institutional efforts to strengthen African research ecosystems through sound financial stewardship and capacity building of grantees.

PERSON SPECIFICATIONS

Academic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, Accounting, or a related field.
• Master’s degree desirable.

Professional Qualifications

• Full professional qualification in CPA-K or ACCA.

Experience

• Minimum of 7 years relevant experience in financial management, with at least 5 years in programme finance/grants accounting or funded projects.
• Proven track record in science funding institutions, research consortia, or ecosystem-strengthening programmes.
• Proven experience in sub-grantee management, capacity building, and financial reporting.
• Strong working knowledge of financial management systems and grants accounting.
• Experience working with grant systems with a passion for exploring and optimising their functionality.
• Proven ability to manage compliance with major funders (e.g., Wellcome, Gates, FCDO, Mastercard Foundation).
• Advanced proficiency in Excel and financial analysis tools, dashboards.