AGRA is an alliance led by Africans with roots in farming communities across the continent. We understand that African farmers need uniquely African solutions designed to meet their specific environmental and agricultural needs so they can sustainably boost production and gain access to rapidly growing agriculture markets.

Senior Finance Officer – Financial Verification & Donor Assurance

The Senior Finance Officer – Financial Verification& Donor Assurance is a critical assurance role established to address a strategic gap in donor expenditure verification and audit readiness. The role will also provide upstream advisory to ensure financial components of work plans, budgets, and submissions are compliant before donor engagement, working closely with the YEFFA PMU. The role is responsible for end-to-end verification of donor-funded expenditures, ensuring that all financial transactions are supported by complete, accurate, and compliant documentation, aligned with donor requirements, internal policies, and applicable accounting standards.

This position operates as a second-line control function, providing independent review and validation of financial submissions prepared by finance and grants teams, before donor verification or audit.

Beyond transactional assurance, the role is expected to:

• Strengthen internal controls and documentation standards.
• Improve financial data integrity across systems (ERP, grants platforms).
• Drive continuous improvement in compliance culture and audit readiness.

This role focuses on financial verification and audit readiness and works in close coordination with the YEFFA Program Management Unit, which is responsible for programmatic compliance, private benefit analysis, and workplan quality assurance. The role reports directly to the CFO, with matric reporting to the YEFFA PMU, and provides regular assurance reporting to the Program and AGRA executive management.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Lead the end-to-end verification of donor-funded expenditures, ensuring all transactions are accurate, complete, properly approved, fully supported, and compliant with donor agreements, internal policies, and audit standards.
• Conduct independent secondary reviews of financial and procurement documentation (invoices, contracts, receipts, approvals, payment support, and authorization trails) to ensure completeness and integrity.
• Coordinate the preparation, quality assurance, and timely submission of verification packages, ensuring full audit trails and adherence to donor timelines, including priority programs such as YEFFA.
• Reconcile verified transactions against the General Ledger, sub-ledgers, grants systems, and donor reports, investigating and resolving discrepancies, misclassifications, and inconsistencies.
• Establish and maintain robust documentation protocols and document management systems, including indexing, storage, retrieval, and compliance with retention and donor requirements.
• Prepare audit-ready files and support external audits, donor verification missions, and internal reviews, ensuring timely responses and closure of findings.
• Develop and maintain verification frameworks, including SOPs, checklists, review protocols, service-level timelines, and quality assurance mechanisms.
• Identify control weaknesses, documentation gaps, data quality issues, and process inefficiencies, and work with Finance, Grants, IT, and Program teams to strengthen controls, systems, and workflows.
• Monitor verification progress, risks, and bottlenecks, providing regular assurance reporting and evidence-based recommendations to the CFO, YEFFA PMU, and senior management, and escalating critical risks as needed.
• Serve as a central liaison across internal teams and external stakeholders (donors, auditors), while building organizational capacity through training and promoting a culture of accountability, audit readiness, and strong internal controls.

Key Qualifications and Experience Required:

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field; a master’s degree is a strong added advantage.
• Full professional accounting qualification, such as CPA, ACCA, or equivalent.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in external audit, financial compliance, assurance, or donor-funded financial environments.
• Proven experience in audit engagements, financial verification, high-volume transaction review, and donor-funded programs.
• Strong knowledge of accounting procedures, financial statements, IFRS, US GAAP, donor compliance frameworks, and audit methodologies, including substantive and controls testing.
• Strong understanding of internal controls, COSO framework, and risk management practices.
• Advanced reconciliation, analytical, problem-solving, and documentation skills, with strong attention to detail.
• Ability to independently challenge, validate, and communicate financial findings clearly to senior leadership.
• Highly organized, results-oriented, self-motivated, and able to work independently in a diverse environment.
• Experience in large organizations and strong leadership ability to develop, support, and empower teams is an added advantage.

• Lead the end-to-end verification of donor-funded expenditures, ensuring all transactions are accurate, complete, properly approved, fully supported, and compliant with donor agreements, internal policies, and audit standards.
• Conduct independent secondary reviews of financial and procurement documentation (invoices, contracts, receipts, approvals, payment support, and authorization trails) to ensure completeness and integrity.
• Coordinate the preparation, quality assurance, and timely submission of verification packages, ensuring full audit trails and adherence to donor timelines, including priority programs such as YEFFA.
• Reconcile verified transactions against the General Ledger, sub-ledgers, grants systems, and donor reports, investigating and resolving discrepancies, misclassifications, and inconsistencies.
• Establish and maintain robust documentation protocols and document management systems, including indexing, storage, retrieval, and compliance with retention and donor requirements.
• Prepare audit-ready files and support external audits, donor verification missions, and internal reviews, ensuring timely responses and closure of findings.
• Develop and maintain verification frameworks, including SOPs, checklists, review protocols, service-level timelines, and quality assurance mechanisms.
• Identify control weaknesses, documentation gaps, data quality issues, and process inefficiencies, and work with Finance, Grants, IT, and Program teams to strengthen controls, systems, and workflows.
• Monitor verification progress, risks, and bottlenecks, providing regular assurance reporting and evidence-based recommendations to the CFO, YEFFA PMU, and senior management, and escalating critical risks as needed.
• Serve as a central liaison across internal teams and external stakeholders (donors, auditors), while building organizational capacity through training and promoting a culture of accountability, audit readiness, and strong internal controls.

• Strong knowledge of accounting procedures, financial statements, IFRS, US GAAP, donor compliance frameworks, and audit methodologies, including substantive and controls testing.
• Strong understanding of internal controls, COSO framework, and risk management practices.
• Advanced reconciliation, analytical, problem-solving, and documentation skills, with strong attention to detail.
• Ability to independently challenge, validate, and communicate financial findings clearly to senior leadership.
• Highly organized, results-oriented, self-motivated, and able to work independently in a diverse environment.
• Strong leadership ability to develop, support, and empower teams is an added advantage.

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field; a master’s degree is a strong added advantage.
• Full professional accounting qualification, such as CPA, ACCA, or equivalent.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in external audit, financial compliance, assurance, or donor-funded financial environments.
• Proven experience in audit engagements, financial verification, high-volume transaction review, and donor-funded programs.
• Experience in large organizations is an added advantage.