Donor Relations and Contract Consultant

The consultant will work under the overall supervision of the concerned Head of Unit (European Partners Unit/Global Partners Unit) and the direct supervision of the relevant Team Leader. 

Technical Focus:

The consultant will provide support to partner liaison, resource mobilization, grant management, FAO and partner compliance of voluntary contributions within FAO’s Strategic Framework and in line with FAO’s Rules and Regulations. In doing this, the consultant will contribute to the achievement of the Unit’s goals in line with the Unit’s annual workplan.

Tasks and responsibilities:

The consultant will be responsible for negotiation of funding agreements, resource partnership liaison and resource mobilization with resource partners’ countries or entities within an assigned portfolio which will be defined depending on the background of the Consultant. In particular, the Consultant will: 

• Build, develop, and maintain strong relationships with key resource partners’ representatives from the assigned portfolio, ensuring that their contributions and concerns are valued and acknowledged.
• Provide insights from resource partners including but not limited to feedback that can inform future resource mobilization efforts strategic insights and initiatives.
• Seek new sources of funding and advocate for multi-year, unearmarked and flexible funding to appropriate FAO funding modalities, such as FVC, multidonor projects and umbrella programmes.
• Advocate for the establishment of framework agreements, standard template funding agreements or other tools with the aim of facilitating the contracting process and timeline.
• Prepare and negotiate funding agreements and related agreements in full compliance with the policies, procedures, rules and regulations of FAO, including FAO Financial Rules and Regulations and in consultation with relevant FAO units.
• Assure, in close coordination with relevant FAO services, the consistent interpretation of financial, contractual and administrative obligations towards partners in compliance with both FAO rules and procedures and donors’ rules and regulations.
• Take on the Funding Liaison Officer function and take part in the Project Task Force for the assigned resource partners, funding modalities and projects.
• Liaise or assisting in liaising with resource partners, technical units and decentralized offices to analyse concept notes for FAO and partner compliance, provide support for approval of project proposals, negotiation, clearance and signature of funding agreement as well as trouble-shooting advice related to voluntary contributions.
• Review and clear project progress reports before submission to resource partners.
• Organize, facilitate and participate in informal and formal meetings with resource partners.
• Analyse intelligence, funding data and trends and prepare briefs, presentations, biodata and speaking points on resource partners, working closely with the Marketing Unit (donor analytics team to support resource mobilization efforts).
• Maintain and update donor records, tracking interactions, feedback, and preferences.
• Contribute to the preparation of training materials and capacity development sessions.
• Provide advice concerning thematic and geographic resource partner priorities.
• Identify, map and share with relevant offices new funding opportunities with resource partners.
• The consultant may be requested to provide support and/or handle portfolio(s) of other colleagues in the Unit when such need arises.
• Perform any other related duties as required.

Candidates Will Be Assessed Against The Following:

Minimum Requirements:

• Master’s degree in law business and administration, political science, international development, development economics, or other relevant fields. A Bachelor’s degree and 2 years of relevant experience may be considered equivalent.
• At least one year for Consultants Category C, at least five years for Consultants Category B and at least 10 years for Consultants Category A of relevant experience in grant negotiation or partnership management.
• Working knowledge (level C) in written and spoken English, French or Spanish and limited knowledge (level B) of one of the other two or Arabic, Chinese, Russian.

Source: https://jobs.fao.org/careersection/fao_external/jobdetail.ftl?job=2500734