Programme Budget Officer, NO-A, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Contract

This is a NO-1 contract. This kind of contract is known as National Professional Officers. It is normally only for nationals. It's a staff contract. More about NO-1 contracts.

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.

For every child, results.

UNICEF Dominican Republic Country Programme (2023-2027) contributes with the national priorities laid out in the 2030 National Development Strategy, the Multi-year Plan for the Public Sector 2021-2024 and the Sustainable Development Goals. The program strongly aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2023-2027 (UNSDCF) in three cooperation areas: Equality and Social Inclusion; Climate Change, Risk and Environmental Sustainability; Human Rights, Citizen Security and Institutionality. Aligned with UNICEF Strategic Plan 2022-2025, the program will contribute to compliance with the recommendations issued to the country by the Committee of the Rights of the Child (2015), the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (2022) and the Committee of the Rights of People with Disabilities (2015), including those of the Universal Periodic Review (third cycle, 2019).

How can you make a difference?

Programme Budgeting

• Monitors budgets and financial expenditures of the Country Programme, ensuring compliance with UNICEF rules and regulations, keeping supervisor informed and advised on actions for decision/follow up.
• Property management review, analysis and preparation of the budget plans.
• Preparing supporting documents (narrative and supporting tables) with respect to finalization of cost estimates and budget proposals.
• Makes specific recommendations to managers in the elaboration of resource requirements for budget submissions.
• Monitoring expenditures and comparing with approved budget; preparing adjustments as necessary.
• Provide assistant in preparation of budget performance submissions and finalization of budget performance reports, analyzing variances between approved budgets and actual expenditures.
• Monitoring integrity of various financial databases.
• Verifying accuracy of financial data, ensuring consistency of data in previous allotments to new allotments issued.
• Prepares detailed cost estimates, and participates in budget analysis and projects, as required.

Programe Planning

• The Programme Budget Officer ensures the availability of timely, complete and accurate information and data for preparing anual work plans and project management plans.
• Undertakes basic research and performs comparative analysis of project/programme related data.
• Monitors project implementation against established milestones and makes recommendations to improve performance.
• Helps ensure timely compliance with agreed deadlines.
• Acts as focal point in the review of the completeness of data reports with key monitoring and evaluation information.

HACT

• Support Office wide to HACT Programme Assurance/Implementing Partnerships Processes.
• Act as the secretariat of the Partnership Review Committee (PRC) and ensure effective coordination and documentation of meetings.
• Guides managers in the process of PCA/SSAs in line with the policies and guidance issued by FRG, supply division and DHR.
• Use eTools partnership data to provide analytical reports to inform partnership management decision making and track partnerships development and implementation timelines against global benchmarks.
• Perform quality assurance reviews of documents uploaded in eTools and provide technical assistance to inputs and amendments to PDs eTools.
• Extends support in planning and execution of HACT assurance activities, supports end user monitoring activities.
• Participation on financial spotchecks as per the HACT framework, as well as following on programmatic visits recommendations (eTools action points to close).

Grant Monitoring

• The Programme Budget Officer performs grant administration and monitoring for the Country Programme. This includes diligently reviewing expenditures against donor conditions; proactively alerting supervisors to expiring grants and preparing financial utilization reports for donor reporting.
• Carries out transactions in VISION pertaining to grants for his/her section such as registering grant allotments and tracking expiring programme grants.
• Prepare quarterly cash forecasts and monitor monthly expenditures against plans to ensure financial compliance, accuracy and completeness of data. Advise units of discrepancies and assist to resolve differences in their records.
• Prepare and review funds utilization reports and proactively highlight areas for action (eg expiring grants).
• Prepare weekly/monthly grants utilization reports and note areas for action.
• Brief supervisor on whether donor conditions are met on grants expenditure and funds are fully utilized before grant expiry.

Financial Reporting

• S/he will be responsible for providing a variety of specialized tasks in finance functions, ensuring accurate and timely delivery that is in compliance with UNICEF financial rules and regulations, whilst demonstrating the capacity to research, adapt and evaluate irregular cases, and also to recommend improvements to process delivery and design.
• Advise and assist on all aspects related to preparation of reports, compilation of data and answering queries on pledges recorded, funds received, adjustments made to ensure financial compliance, accuracy and completeness of data for its inclusion into statement of accounts and adjustment of budgets. Advise units of discrepancies and assist to resolve differences in their records.
• Maintains financial records and monitoring systems to record and reconcile expenditures, balances, payments, statements and other data for day-to-day transactions and reports.
• Selects and enters data from a wide variety of documents, verifying and ensuring accuracy by checking sources, making necessary calculations and assuring inclusion of all relevant data.
• Prepares recurring reports as required for budget preparation, audits or other reasons.
• Initiates correspondence to verify financial data. Answers queries and obtains additional information on accounts and financial transactions, as required.

Capacity Building

• Supports capacity development activities related to programme development by preparing training materials and participating in exercises.

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

• An university degree in one of the following fields is required: Business Management, Finance, Administration, or any other related field of discipline relevant to the job
• A minimum of one (1) year of professional work experience in budget and / or financial management is required.
• Experience working in a developing country is considered as an asset. Practical experience in HACT, metric analysis and information dashboards implementation is desirable.
• Fluency in Spanish and English is required.

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’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable are encouraged to apply.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. 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.