Budget Officer (P2), PG - Education, New York HQ (Temporary Appointment 6months)

Contract

This is a P-2 contract. This kind of contract is known as Professional and Director staff. It is normally internationally recruited only. It's a staff contract. It usually requires 2 years of experience, depending on education.

Salary

The salary for this job should be between 108,633 USD and 147,551 USD.

Please keep in mind that the salary displayed here is an estimation by UN Talent based on the location and the type of contract. It may vary depending on the organization. The recruiter should be able to inform you about the exact salary range. In case the job description contains another salary information, please refer to this one.

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

In support of UNICEF’s Strategic Plan, the Education Section works to advance access, participation and learning outcomes for marginalised children through policy leadership and support to countries for excellence in programming. Improving Learning is the overarching programme priority, particularly in light of UNICEF’s new Education strategy, which seeks to accelerate progress towards addressing the learning crisis.

For every child, a hope….

Under the supervision of Sr. Education Advisor (Management) and in close collaboration with the Resource Mobilization Manager, Planning Specialist, Internal Monitoring Officer and Programme Associate, the Budget Officer provides professional technical, operational, and administrative assistance throughout the programming process from development planning to delivery of results, preparing, executing, managing and implementing a variety of technical and administrative programme tasks to facilitate programme development, implementation, programme progress monitoring, evaluating and reporting. The Education Officer assists with the contributions management requirements of the education section and supports resource mobilization and global partnerships.

How can you make a difference?

Budget Planning and Management

• Support budget preparation and management in light of an upcoming period of transition, providing management with real time budget estimation and forecasting.
• Prepare analysis and presentations to highlight key items for action, ensuring appropriateness of presentation, format and accuracy of data.
• Support the development of the budget for programmatic components by providing information on available and foreseen funds, based on the overall resource planning level, funding proposals and ongoing funding negotiations, and available funds balances.
• Collect and analyze budget and financial data for programme planning, management, monitoring and evaluation purposes, including preparation and updating of cost distribution to ensure available and correct funding is used to meet payroll needs.
• Review and analyze reports and recommend actions to be taken to maximize the efficiency of the office’s fund utilization. Assist management and programme staff in allocation and reallocation of funds. Conduct regular review and reconciliation of grants.
• Support monitoring of commitments and expenditures to ensure errors and discrepancies are detected and corrected.

Partnerships & Contribution Management

• Support effective resource mobilization and partnerships by coordinating and providing timely required information and reports with a focus on budget and financial elements.
• Support the allocation of funds and provide oversight on key grants, monitoring donor budget vs. actual expenditures and ensure that expenditures meet donor requirements and conditionalities.
• Monitor and track donor proposal pipeline and donor reporting schedule, including updating document repositories and VISION trackers.
• Develop/introduce templates and guidance for budget preparation to ensure that all proposal budgets incorporate requisite staff costs, as well as cross-sectoral and operational support costs as a matter of practice.
• Produce monitoring reports (donor utilization reports, all routine management reports produced by VISION, non-routine reports, and presentations) and share with relevant staff.
• Provide quality assurance of all financial and budget related inputs given in reports before final submission to the donor.

Systems & Capacity Development (Budget and Contribution Management)

• Guide professional and support staff in budget preparation and financial reporting.
• Strengthen existing detailed SOPs for donor proposals and reporting, highlighting workflows, roles, and responsibilities. Support collective understanding, application and usage of SOPs and templates.
• Develop user-friendly processes and tools to identify, monitor and review gaps against planning figures.
• Review existing donor reporting assessments to identify weaknesses/ challenges to address.
• Develop capacity for use of internal corporate tools such as VISION and inSight for effective budget management and financial reporting, as necessary.
• Ensure smooth operation of the programme monitoring systems and institutional memory by tracking and filing all contribution related documents. Identify, synthesize, and share lessons learned and best practices on budget/grants management for integration into broader knowledge development planning and management efforts.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Accounting, Finance or Business Administration or other relevant degree is required.
• A minimum of 2 (two) years of progressively responsible professional experience in financial management with a strong basis in budgetary / financial control is required.
• Proficiency in VISION is desired.
• Demonstrated strong analytical, communication, writing and editing skills, an asset.
• Experience in planning and budget management in a similar role, an asset.
• Understanding the workings of the UN system and some years of employment within the UN system is preferable.

Other competencies required:

• Advanced skills in Microsoft Excel, Power BI and standard office applications are required.
• Proven experience with business intelligence tools will be a plus.
• Fluency in English (written and verbal) is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, or Spanish) is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships (2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness (3) Drive to achieve results for impact (4) Innovates and embraces change (5) Manages ambiguity and complexity (6) Thinks and acts strategically (7) Works collaboratively with others.

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic. We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements. UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.