Ref.
2025/AOFTFTIS/13134
Job offer type
Experts
Type of contract
Service contract
Activity sectors
Sustainable development ; Administration ; Système d'information
Deadline date
2025/05/28 12:00
Duration of the assignment
Short term
Contract
Wage portage
Duration
15 working days (2 calendar months)
Automation of Financial Tools for the IORA Secretariat (M/W)
Département Développement durable - DD > Développement Urbain et Economie circulaire
Published on : 2025/05/07
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
MAURITIUS
EBÈNE
Mission description
1. Objectives
The consultant shall work closely with the Corporate Services Directorate to conduct a thorough analysis. Based on this analysis, the consultant will help define and develop the detailed, specific and automated templates and tools, ensuring alignment with the Secretariat's needs. The templates should meet the Secretariat’s needs for efficiency, compliance, and functionality across all specified areas.
Specifically, the proposed tools must offer :
- Process Efficiency: Automate data imports, reconciliations and calculations to reduce manual effort by at least 50 %
- Data Reliability: Enforce uniform mapping and validation rules to eliminate classification errors
- Timely Reporting: Enable one‑click generation of monthly financial reports, dashboards and export to PDF
- Governance and Traceability: Embed audit trails (e.g., unique request IDs, logs of refreshes) across all tools
- Scope of Work
The consultant will work closely with the IORA 2 project manager based in Ebène, and with the IORA's Director of Corporate Services. The Corporate Services team will be involved in the needs identification phase and in the implementation of the tools.
2. Scope of Work
The consultant will work closely with the IORA 2 project manager based in Ebène, and with the IORA's Director of Corporate Services. The Corporate Services team will be involved in the needs identification phase and in the implementation of the tools. Validation of deliverables will be a joint process.
The Consultant shall design, develop, test and deploy the following Excel‑based modules, each delivered as a standalone workbook unless noted otherwise:
- Budget Monitoring.xlsx (central workbook):
- Budget forecasting & actuals (QuickBooks import)
- Monthly financial report generation – PDF export
- Quaterly cash-flow requirements generation – PDF export
- Bank reconciliation
- Procurement plan tracking
- General assumptions for budgetization
- Asset register
- Risk dashboard
- EAF.xlsx
- Request entry (account, amount, attachments)
- Automated unique tracking number (date + sequence)
- Budget availability check (link to BudgetMonitoring).
- Workflow for electronic approval
- PDF export of approved vouchers for signatories.
- MSContributions.xlsx:
- MSContribution tracking – link to Budget Monitoring
- Member States billing & Note Verbale generation - PDF export
- TravelExpenses.xlsx:
- Travel advance & per diem calculation by country
- Expense entry & reconciliation
- PDF export of claims.
- AuditMonitoring.xlsx:
- Register of external audit observations
- Assignment of responsibilities & deadlines
- Automated alerts for overdue actions.
- Procurement Plan & Tracking
- Import planned procurements from budget template
- Purchase Order Automation:
- Generate PO document with auto-numbering (prefix + year + sequence)
- Pre-fill supplier, item descriptions, quantities, unit prices from budget lines
- Approval workflow embedded in Excel (sign-off macros)
- PDF export of PO ready for dispatch
- Tracking of each procurement step: request, approval, tender, award, order
- Automated alerts for upcoming deadlines and milestones
- Dashboard summarizing status by Directorate and method of procurement
3. Deliverables & Proposed TIMELINE
- Inception Report: validated specifications & workplan : Milestone M1/ Due Date (from start): Day 10
- Prototype BudgetMonitoring.xlsx & Power Query templates: Milestone M2/ Due Date (from start): Day 25
- Prototype EAF.xlsx with tracking ID, Procurement Plan & Trancking: Milestone M2/ Due Date (from start): Day 30
- MSContributions.xlsx, TravelExpenses.xlsx, Development, AuditMonitoring.xlsx : Milestone M3/ Due Date (from start): Day 40
- User acceptance testing & corrections : Milestone M5/ Due Date (from start): Day 55
- Final deployment, training sessions & user manuals: Milestone M6/ Due Date (from start): Day 60
Project or context description
The IORA Secretariat as a regional inter-governmental organisation created in 1997, to promote development and economic cooperation in the Indian Ocean region. For the past twenty-five years, the region has been working for the benefit for its 23 member states and 12 dialogue partners. Through its actions, it contributes to facilitating exchanges of technical expertise to address the region's major common challenges. Since 2012, under the impetus of ambitious Chairs, the Association has established itself on the international stage in key sectors, such as the blue economy, maritime safety, and climate change. The IORA has clearly expressed its desire to strengthen its organisational and sector-specific capabilities.
It is in this context that AFD support the IORA Secretariat in its objective of strengthening its organizational and operational capacities, with the implementation of an “IORA” project. The second phase of which focuses an entire component on supporting the implementation of the recommendations to strengthen the operational and project-management capabilities of the IORA Secretariat. In addition, the 2nd phase aims at resolving the structural shortcomings identified during Phase 1 and IORA's ambitions, while supporting IORA's action in the fields of marine debris and disaster risk reduction. To achieve the targets, dialogue will be established with IORA and its Member States to structure the reinforcement of capacities at regional level.
The project is further reinforcing the organisational and operational governance within IORA in order to consolidate its position as a key regional player in terms of cooperation and sustainable development in the Indian Ocean region focusing on the following objectives.
The specific objectives (SO), as presented in the terms of reference, are the following :
- SO 1: The IORA Secretariat has a more sustainable and robust governance system/software/software vis-a-vis its Member States (MS);
- SO 2: The IORA Marine Debris Action Plan is implemented by the MSs;
- SO 3: The MS are encouraged to create a cooperation mechanism concerning DRR.
The IORA Secretariat based in Ebene is responsible for coordinating all the organization's activities, to achieve the vision set out in its strategic framework. Comprising a Secretary General, 6 Directors and experts and 16 employees, is currently facing challenges in managing its financial and human resources as the Secretariat is currently paper based
During the first phase, and following a co-identification of the difficulties encountered by the IORA teams, it was determined that the financial and accounting processes needed to be overhauled, as did the supporting template.
The current renewal of the financial and HR procedure manuals is a first step, to be followed for their operationalization (including the resolution of weaknesses identified by the gap-analysis) and the design of new automated templates adapted to the organization's needs.
Required profile
We are seeking the services of consultant(s) with at least 5 (five) years’ experience automating financiel processes in Excel ( Power Query, Power Pivot, VBA). Proven track record with IPSAS- aligned reporting and budget control tools will be a plus.
The consultant must demonstates strong skills in stakeholder facilitation and familiarity with procurement, asset management, travel policy and audit workflows.
The consultant must be able to demonstrate a mastery of the Mauritian context, whether this is of own or that of associate(s).
Additional information
The applicant submission should be inclusive of but not limited to the following:
· Consultant CV(s)
· Daily rate in EUR (all taxes included).
· References for similar projects.
· Company registration certificate (if relevant).
For any further clarification, please contact Mr. Jean-Baptiste Tobie, via email on jean-baptiste.tobie@expertisefrance.fr
Contractual terms and conditions
An advance of 30% is possible.
Payment is subject to validation of the content and receipt of a duly completed invoice addressed to the project. On receipt of this invoice, Expertise France will ensure that the funds are received by the service provider within 30 days.
The contract is subject to French regulations and its format is not adaptable.
These terms and conditions are not negotiable.
Selection criteria for applications
The selection process for candidates will be based on the following criteria :
- Candidate’s training/skills/experience
- Candidate’s training/diplomas related to the expert assignment
- Candidate’s skills linked with the expert mission
- Candidate’s experiences linked with the expert mission
Deadline for application : 2025/05/28 12:00
Expertise France is the public agency for designing and implementing international technical cooperation projects. The agency operates around four key priorities :
- democratic, economic, and financial governance ;
- peace, stability, and security ;
- climate, agriculture, and sustainable development ;
- health and human development ;
In these areas, Expertise France conducts capacity-building initiatives and manages project implementation, leveraging technical expertise and acting as a project coordinator. This involves combining public sector expertise with private sector skills to drive impactful results.