MADAGASCAR | Volunteer Accountant

A youth- founded and youth- led organization, our partner, located in south-central Madagascar, have the goal of providing health and leadership education to increase school attendance, decrease early pregnancy and improve health outcomes.

Our partner’s programmes focus on youth aged 10-15-year-old as this group is often neglected in favour of younger children or older adolescents.

The organisation trains Malagasy young adults (all aged 18-25 years) in health and education curriculum to then continue to work as educators, counsellor and mentors in middle schools in the area, providing participatory reproductive- sexual health and leadership classes, implementing after-school activities and providing individual counselling. In addition to the middle school programmes, our partner has ongoing programmes in parent-adolescent communication; research and publication of girl’s puberty book and a re-usable sanitary pad project.

They have been growing rapidly over the past two years. More schools are requesting their services; donor interest is increasing; partnership with multi-national agencies such as UNICEF and UNFPA is being implemented and staff is rapidly increasing. As the organisation grows, additional support is needed to reinforce their financial and accounting procedures.

The Director reached out to looking for support to make accounting processes straightforward yet still transparent. You will be the first AfID volunteer on assignment and typically, your role would be akin to undertaking an internal audit of their accounting processes and systems, and financial controls, and making & implementing recommendations as you deem appropriate.

You will also review the financial manual and identify inaccuracies in preparation for an external audit in 2017. The organisation receives funding from a number of donors and would like to standardise reporting system bearing in mind they receive funding in different currencies. They would also like to develop a better system to track incoming funds to produce quick monthly financial statements upon request. The project’s accountant would also benefit from further training on reporting.

As a first volunteer, the assignment will require some flexibility and sensitivity on your part as it will introduce AfID’s programme to the partner and will provide us with accurate financial information about them. Your feedback and reports will determine if and how we continue supporting them.

The organisation can cover the costs of accommodation in a homestay option. Our partner is based in the third largest city in Madagascar with many NGO’s led by local staff. The city has all necessary amenities and services.

For more information, please call +44(0)208 7417000 or email info@afid.org.uk.