Finance Officer for USAID

The Asia Foundation’s Lao PDR Office in Vientiane is seeking to recruit a qualified and motivated Lao national for the position of Finance Officer for USAID funded project. This position is full-time and will be based in Vientiane Capital.

Project Overview

The USAID Laos Legal Aid Support Activity is a seven-year cooperative agreement, with a commitment of $8.5 million in funds from USAID. It is being implemented by The Asia Foundation (TAF) in Laos. The Legal Aid Support Program builds on TAF’s existing and previous long-term access to justice programming in Laos. Since 2006, TAF has supported the MOJ (MOJ) and LBA (LBA) to pilot the first-ever legal aid offices in Laos. TAF also supported the development of an enabling policy and legal framework for access to justice and legal aid, including the Village Dispute Resolution (VDR) Decision (i.e., the Mediation Policy) and the Legal Aid Decree (LAD) and its accompanying Minister’s Orders, and helped increase the number of lawyers providing legal aid in the country.

The goal of the USAID Laos Legal Aid Support Program is to promote the rule of law in Laos through fairer, more consistent, and more transparent delivery of justice according to the law—inclusive of women, the poor, and traditionally underserved populations.

Duties and Responsibilities

Program Finance:

Spending projection and budget monitoring:

• Prepares and updates monthly spending projections and work with program staff to ensure that spending meets targets and approved workplans. Tracks and monitors individual project spending and performance and leads monthly spending projection meetings.
• Analyses time charges of staff updates, monitors, and gives timely reports on Level of Effort (LOE) charging for all staff.
• Contributes to financial monitoring and management discussions during program review meetings and planning sessions.

Reporting to donors and file maintenance:

• Responsible for ensuring quality and timely production of financial reports as required by the donors and the Foundation.
• Leads in the preparation of draft financial reports to donors as per the approved format and agreed timeframe with the program/unit, and coordinates with Program Finance Group (PFG) as needed.
• Coordinates with PFG for any award budget related queries and/or submissions, review of financial reports and invoices, update of program budgets, cost transfers and co-finding response, new award set-up and amendments, etc.
• Uploads award documents to Foundation’s Award Central 1, ensuring timeliness and completeness.
• Maintains comprehensive, complete, and effective filing system of donor-supported programs.

Subaward management

• Conduct to conduct pre-award assessment for potential partners.
• Implement sub-grant assessment, monitoring and reporting procedures according to TAF guideline and donor requirements.
• Verify sub-grantees financial report for completeness, identify accuracy and recommend investigation, change, or improvement in collaboration with program and finance unit staff.
• Ensure project expenditure report and subrecipient expenditure reports are accurate, timely and contributes to the quality of donor reporting.
• Provide orientation and training to partners on donor regulations relating to subaward compliance;
• Assist Finance Manager to ensure that timely and accurate financial management information and advice are provided to internal and external stakeholders.
• Ensure that all subgrants deadlines are observed and reporting schedules are met;
• Maintain appropriate program documentation for all projects including subawards, Individual Project Implementation Agreements, guidelines, master files, reporting etc.;
• Maintain effective finance filing system is in place according to TAF Lao processes.
• Other tasks as assigned

Proposal Budgets:

• In coordination with supervisor, prepares proposal budgets thru TAF225 and writes budget narrative as needed.
• Coordinates with PSDS for the review and approval of budget proposals

Compliance:

• Reviews donor award agreements and ensures compliance by the Foundation to the policies, procedures, and reporting requirements as well as monitoring of reporting deadlines.
• Assists in providing documents and information needed for internal and external audits
• In charge of coordinating project audits.