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As a Financial Controller/Administrator working for Médecins Sans Frontières you will be required to undertake one of the most important and challenging roles in the management of both national and international human resources. Your skills in cross cultural human resource management and communication will help you to ensure that the teams and the programs run efficiently. Financial controllers and administrators are also responsible for program bookkeeping, budget control and financial reporting. Positions for Financial Controllers/Administrators tend to be based in the capital city of the country where programs are based, although they go regularly to the program sites to ensure all is running well. STORIES FROM THE FIELD: Ellie Ford I was working for Médecins Sans Frontières in Freetown, Sierra Leone during a crucial juncture in the civil war. For a brief time, life returned to normal with supplies filtering in and people slowly emerging from hiding in the bush. After 10 months, the children had even begun to go back to school. But this fragile peace didn’t last. Fighting resumed between the rebels and Ecomog (the government-backed forces) and, although Ecomog supposedly won this round, their "victory" was at the expense of the civilians. The rebels retreated to the bush and resumed killing, mutilating and terrorising the innocent villagers. Médecins Sans Frontières swung into action. We took statements from the amputees to determine possible locations for collecting the wounded, and then we began the bureaucratic nightmare of obtaining helicopter clearance to reach these locations. We got press releases out to the international community and mobilised journalists to get the message moving. We lobbied the UN and visiting dignitaries, trying to ensure that they saw the real picture and not the rosy one Ecomog was painting. We finally received copter clearance, three weeks after our request. Five of our team went out the first day and six went on the second. I was the only one left to monitor the phone and the radio and to watch the clock which moved at an excruciatingly slow pace. At one point, I could have sworn the batteries were dead and the clock had stopped altogether. When I finally saw the helicopter back on the ground, I felt like I drew breath for the first time all day. We had delivered the wounded to our surgical team at Connaught hospital, monitored the displaced, checked on food supplies and provided medical supplies to the clinics. It had been a very successful trip. Some days being a Finance/Admin controller with Médecins Sans Frontières is just like any other office job. Other days (like this one) you feel as if you’ve really made a difference. ESSENTIAL CRITERIA
ALSO DESIRABLE
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Commitment
to the aims and values of Médecins Sans Frontières