Financial & Budget management Consultant

CALL for Financial & Budget management Consultant

1. Background

CARE is an international humanitarian and development organization without religious, political or government affiliation. CARE is committed to protecting and promoting the rights of vulnerable girls and boys, women and men and improving the lives of refugees and host communities alike.

CARE International in Lebanon (CiL) works at national, municipality and at community levels to develop customized solutions and ensure long-term sustainability as well as respond to basic needs. We design projects that fall into alignment with national priorities and can be owned by communities. Our interventions range across clean water, affordable sanitation and community healthcare and sexual and reproductive health rights programs, economic opportunities, and protection.  Across program areas, CIL’s activities are guided by a rights-based, holistic, gender-sensitive/transformative, and inclusive approach.

CIL has been operational in Lebanon since 2013 and works nationwide.

The Project focuses on building emotional, psychological and psycho-social well-being to increase resiliency for youth and women mitigating against key drivers of social and economic instability and violent conflict. By engaging youth and women in activities, it has far-reaching benefits for participants: strengthens beneficiaries’ sense of belonging; social cohesion; sense of hope; improve inter and intra personal skills; increase their readiness to work; build career paths; and encourage social interaction with others. The Project is also designed to help beneficiaries learn new skills to handle boredom, failure, rejection, fear of success and other situations. Secondary activities aim to increase pathways for community and entrepreneurship engagement to boost mental strength and resilience.

The Project consists of three interlinked components, which will collectively contribute to enhancing the economic resilience of marginalized communities and individuals. The Project will address barriers related to individual employability and labour market links, small business development and job creation, community relations and self-organization.

Core components:

1. Engaging communities and enhancing social, psychosocial and economic skills and knowledge. This component will mainly tackle the human capital of the local communities, as well as the theory of change that stipulates the engagement of the local communities.

2. Stakeholder buy-in. Engaging businesses and entrepreneurs in the process of neighbourhood development through the consolidation and empowerment of the local businesses, as well as the provision of a better entrepreneurship environment. This component also tackles the LED dynamics to alleviate poverty and create jobs and incomes.

3. Promoting positive institutional and organizational change. To sustain and consolidate the local communities and revitalize their own potentials and dynamics, CIL will support and help local NGO to increase awareness, participation, advocacy and local social and economic initiatives.

To stimulate enhance the livelihood and social conditions of the local communities (Lebanese and Syrians) in Tripoli, through the three main strategic axis CIL and partners engage three main target groups:

• Vulnerable women and youth that do not have qualifications and skills and who do not have access to work or that have low-paying and unstable sources of income;
• Vulnerable youth and women that have some skills or partial qualifications but lack the resources, know-how or completed qualifications to access stable employment that allows them to sustain themselves; and
• Community members with completed education and a certain skills level that are motivated to support other groups through SME start-ups or social enterprises or already own businesses with growth potential

2. Terms of Reference

CARE is seeking a senior-level Budgeting expert to design and conduct training for Three local partner agencies on budgeting for development projects. The training would ideally include:

• Forecasting yearly budgets for projects
• Performing comparisons between forecasted budgets and actual expenditures
• Report writing related to budget preparation and submission
• Accounting for shared programme costs in cases of multiple projects
• Tracking expenditures and revenues

In collaboration with CARE Project Manager, the expert will design and implement a workshop and a coaching plan to meet the developmental needs of the three local partners.

For consideration, the consultant will have expertise in the following areas:

• Technical understanding of Lebanon’s livelihoods and economic development context (Experience with MSME support, entrepreneurship and vocational training is a plus)
• Designing effective budgets for international NGOs and institutional donors
• Experience with managing financial resources at a non-profit organization
• Ability to analyze financial information to ensure all operations are within budget
• Workshop design and implementation

3. Qualifications:

• 5-10 years of proven work experience in a senior programmatic role with an INGO, preferably in livelihoods and economic development programmes
• Proven experience in handling project budgets from institutional donors
• Familiarity with forecasting methods and data analysis
• Ability to explain budgeting and financial information in plain terms
• Strong analytical skills
• Strong knowledge of MS Excel
• BSc/MSc degree in Accounting, Finance or relevant field

4. Deliverables

• Financial workshop with partner
• A financial assessment
• Coaching plan
• A final report that illustrates the workshop, articulates the observed change based on activities, and includes further suggestions for trainees’ development.

5. Timeframe

The training will take place in late March or early April 2018 with continuous coaching starting from 15th of March after coordination with the Project managers and the partners.

Interested and eligible individuals should submit their statement of interest, CV (no longer than 3 pages) and 3 references to the CIL – Lebanon Country Office email to recruitment@careliban.org indicating CALL FOR Organizational Development Consultant in your email subject line.