Positions in: Kenya, Nigeria or elsewhere in Africa
Are you organised, self-motivated and detail-orientated?
Code for Africa (CfA) has an immediate vacancy for a full-time Administrative Assistant to join our Secretariat team.
The position is based at one of our hubs in Kenya, Nigeria or Senegal. We’re also open to exceptional applicants from elsewhere in Africa.
Candidates must have demonstrable experience in accounting and administrative processes.
CfA is a pan-Africa network of digital democracy labs, registered as a public benefit non-profit organisation that currently operates in 18 countries. The headquarters are in South Africa. Our Secretariat team supports the entire organisation and all of its programmes, overseeing operations and governance, as well as handling all financial and HR matters.
The successful candidates will work as part of a multinational and multilingual team that works across a variety of programmes and projects.
Required: minimum requirements include:
- 3+ years relevant experience working as either a financial or administrative assistant
- High school diploma or equivalent
- Computer Literacy (MS Office Intermediate) and experience in or familiarity with digital collaboration tools, including Slack, Google Drive, and Trello
- Good working knowledge of accounting practices.
- Experience working in the technology or non-profit sector
- Fluency in written and spoken English
- Self-motivated and able to work independently
- An eye for detail and superb organisational skills
Preferred: candidates who are able to demonstrate the following will have an advantage:
- Tertiary qualifications in accounting or administrative studies advantageous
- Knowledge of CfA’s two other international languages, French and Arabic, as well as major African languages such as Amharic and Kiswahili would be an advantage
- Experience organising events
Language and Location Requirements:
- Location: Kenya, Nigeria or Senegal or anywhere else in Africa
- Languages: English
- Preferred but not required: French and Arabic, as well as major African languages such as Amharic and Kiswahili would be an advantage
About the Role:
The successful candidates will join CfA’s core Secretariat team. The Secretariat team is a small and agile team of experts who are responsible for all operational issues across CfA’s labs in 18 countries, including ensuring that we help our ~80 full-time staff achieve their best potential.
The administrative assistant works closely with the Bookkeeper, assisting with their daily workflow. You will be responsible for a variety of administrative and financial duties that help ensure the smooth running of the organisation and all of its programmes. These duties include assisting in the processing of claims and invoices, ensuring procurement processes are followed and reconciliations.
As part of a multinational team within a growing organisation, you must be agile and must thrive in a multicultural environment, and must work easily with people from different backgrounds who may speak different languages. You will be a digital native, who instinctively takes initiative, and is happy to juggle several tasks at a time while still being able to prioritise your own work.
Responsibilities: Your daily responsibilities will include:
- Financial Assistance
- Assist the CfA Bookkeeper in processing of the daily workflow.
- Assist with procurement, ensuring financial policy is met and sufficient supporting documentation is attached/shared.
- Assist with the payment process to ensure timeous payments, such as verification of invoices, preparation of payment requisitions and ensuring all requisitions are signed off by relevant senior staff
- Correspond with vendors, suppliers, fellows, and employees regarding invoices, reimbursements, supporting documentation, payments and payment remittances to vendors after payment.
- Following up on requests to secretariat finance and third parties to ensure payments or receipts are made timeously and correctly.
- Responsible for the control, reconciliation and reimbursement of staff advances, travel expenses, petty cash. This includes preparation of petty cash claims, internal charges, consultants’ payments, and request journals and transfers between running and investment accounts
- Champion the team’s organisational systems, from developing document templates to maintaining proper records and paperwork for all financial transactions and accounts
- Assist with financial reporting, from compiling supporting documents for financial reports to donors to helping the CFO and Bookkeeper with completion of the annual organisational financial audit
- Administrative Assistance
- Lead the financial administrative aspects of all CfA events, such as hackathons, conferences, HacksHackersAfrica meetups, strategy meetings, web seminars, etc.
- Administer organisational equipment, from managing the lending out and return of equipment to managing the organisational asset register and company insurance records
- Ensuring that all offices have the necessary supplies and making arrangements for anything needed
- Provide general support to CfA fellows, trainers, consultants and visitors as needed.
What We Offer:
- A competitive salary, subject to experience, with opportunities for performance-based growth, both in terms of career path and public stature.
- A dynamic workplace, with a transnational team, occasional international travel, and generous vacation benefits.
- Ongoing opportunities to learn new cutting-edge skills and techniques/technologies to future-proof yourself in a rapidly evolving industry.
- A chance to shine on a global stage, writing for international audiences and interacting with colleagues around the world.
How to apply:
Please fill in this form by 12 March 2021
About Us:
Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest network of indigenous African civic technology and investigative data journalism laboratories, with over 70 staff in 19 countries, who build digital democracy solutions that are intended to give citizens unfettered access to actionable information that empowers them to make informed decisions and that strengthen civic engagement for improved public governance and accountability.
This includes building infrastructure such as the continent’s largest open data portal, open.AFRICA, and largest open source civic software portal, commons.AFRICA, as well as the largest repository of investigative document-based evidence, source.AFRICA, as well as incubating initiatives as diverse as the africanDRONE network that gives citizens their own ‘eyes in the sky’, the PesaCheck fact-checking initiative in 12 African countries, and the sensors.AFRICA remote-sensing citizen science initiative to combat air/water pollution.
CfA also incubates the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), as an association of the continent’s best investigative newsrooms, ranging from large traditional mainstream media to smaller specialist units. ANCIR member newsrooms investigate crooked politicians, organised crime and big business. The iLAB is ANCIR’s in-house digital forensic unit, with teams in east, south and west Africa. ANCIR uses its resources to strengthen newsrooms’ own internal capacity, by providing access to the world’s best whistleblower encryption and investigative semantic analysis technologies, as well as skills development, and seed grants for cross-border collaboration.
At CfA, we don’t just accept differences – we celebrate it, we support it, and we thrive on it for the benefit of our employees, our products and our community. CfA is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.
To all recruitment agencies: CfA does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our employment application line, CfA employees or any other CfA contact. CfA is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.