​Public Finance Officer​

Volunteering Finance & Economy

Overview

Support UNICEF’s mission for child rights through public finance.

You have:

• Understanding of government budgeting cycles, processes, and frameworks.
• Ability to analyze national and subnational budgets.
• Skills in budget analysis of allocation and execution data for health, education, social protection, etc.
• Strong ability to work with quantitative data sets and proficiency in Excel and Stata/R/SPSS.
• Ability to analyze public policies and drafting of policy briefs, technical notes, and reports.
• Partnership building and evidence-based advocacy skills.
• Experience in collaborating with governments, NGOs and multilateral development banks.

Contract

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This assignment is part of UNICEF’s mission to uphold the rights of every child, everywhere, across programmes, advocacy, partnerships, and operations. Guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), UNICEF places equity at the heart of its work, recognising that the most disadvantaged and excluded children must be prioritised to achieve sustainable development for all. Public Finance for Children (PF4C) is central to this mission. Governments’ fiscal choices determine whether health, education, protection, social protection, and climate investments are adequate, equitable, and sustainable. UNICEF works to ensure that public budgets and financial systems are transparent, inclusive, and child-sensitive, so that all children—especially the most marginalised—can survive, develop, and thrive. Within UNICEF, the Global Programme Division (GPD) drives programme excellence by setting standards, building coherence across sectors, and linking global policy with country-level action. Through its Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in Nairobi, Panama, Amman, and Bangkok, UNICEF provides high-quality, demand-driven technical assistance to Country and Regional Offices and their partners. The Child Poverty Centre of Excellence (CoE) focuses on reducing multidimensional child poverty through social protection, livelihoods, and PF4C.

PF4C priorities include: • Reviewing national budgets and expenditure frameworks to strengthen policy action, improve fiscal equity, and promote sustainable financing for children. • Supporting ministries of finance, planning, line ministries and subnational agencies in applying a child lens to the development, prioritisation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of budgets. • Influencing domestic resource mobilisation, SDG financing, debt and tax reform, and climate and humanitarian financing, in line with Article 4 of the CRC, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Seville Commitment. • Building political commitment and accountability for children’s rights through stronger evidence, and more transparent and inclusive fiscal governance. In Asia-Pacific, UNICEF is increasingly engaged, thanks to the EU-UNICEF Public Finance Facility, in providing analytical and technical support to public financial management to leverage domestic public resources for greater, more sustainable, and more equitable results for children. This work includes ensuring social services are prioritised in government budgets and promoting financing solutions that support human capital investments. This work contributes directly to UNICEF’s Strategic Plan 2026–2029, Impact Result #3 (reducing child poverty), and to the achievement of SDGs 1 and 10, while also linking to wider UN and IFI financing agendas. This assignment sits within the Economic and Social Policy Section’s Child Poverty CoE Satellite in Bangkok, as part of the PF4C team, and reports to the Social Policy Specialist, Public Finance for Children. It contributes directly to Impact Result 3 of the UNICEF Strategic Plan 2026–2029, focused on reducing child poverty.

1. Technical Assistance and programme support to deliver EU-UNICEF’s Public Finance Facility (PFF) for Children work (40%)

• Provide support to country offices for the roll-out of the EU-UNICEF PFF agenda, including through assistance to the design, delivery and documentation of country-level technical analysis and evidence-based advocacy to make budgets and fiscal frameworks work for children
• Assist EU-UNICEF PFF country offices in the design, implementation and documents of public finance system strengthening, including in the areas of local governance, subnational financing, and improved transparency and participation
• Provide support to country-office public finance requests for technical assistance on issues and topics complimentary to the UNICEF’s EU-UNICEF PFF goals, in line with the UNICEF PF4C Framework, and reflecting the contribution of the public finance and sector financing perspectives • Assist COs in identifying and compiling budget data for health, education, social protection and other relevant social sectors, and support analysis to link budget data to children’s outcomes.
• Coordinate program activities, monitor progress, and ensure timely reporting on key initiatives related to child-focused public finance, including through donor updates and donor reporting. • Support the EU-UNICEF PFF Programme Manager in day-to-day operations and programme implementation tasks.

2. Policy Analysis and support to policy dialogue processes on Financing for children (30%) • Support research and analysis on key trends and challenges related to Public Finance for Children agenda that contributes to the EU-UNICEF-PFF priorities.
   • Collaborate with different UNICEF teams to provide quality assurance on key tools and processes of the Public finance for Children agenda, including through budget briefs, expenditure reviews, cost-effectiveness analysis, tax incidence analysis, financing options papers, etc. • Facilitate programme country participation in regional policy dialogue on Financing for Development, with the particular focus on UNICEF’s contribution from the Public Finance for Children agenda, including through the promotion of South-South and Triangular cooperation knowledge exchanges.
   • Provide strategic policy analysis support in the assessment of key regional and sub-regional trends and challenges in the different areas impacting children’s wellbeing.

3. Positioning and representation (20%)

• Collaborate with key stakeholders, including governments, academia, NGOs, the EU, the OECD, multi-lateral development banks, and bilateral and multilateral agencies working on public finance to support UNICEF's positioning as a vital partner in child-focused public finance initiatives, building and maintaining strategic partnerships to advance children's rights and well-being through effective public finance. • Contribute to advocacy efforts by preparing presentations, case studies, short accessible policy briefs, advocacy materials and messages, and by representing UNICEF at relevant events.
• Support communication initiatives to disseminate research findings, policy recommendations and key messages related to social sector spending, children's rights, child poverty and human capital investment.

4. Knowledge management (10%)

• Collect and organize country data, technical reports, advocacy materials and other documents related to the EU-UNICEF PFF, support the maintenance of a structured knowledge repository for easy access by colleagues across teams, regions and COs, as well as key external partners and stakeholders. • Support the development and management of a centralized repository for project documents, research, and publications of COs and CoE to support the scaling up of good practices, the dos and the donts of our work, ensuring accurate documentation of lessons learned and the overall Public Finance for Children related milestones. • Support knowledge sharing through the development and delivery of webinars and brownbag sessions, and create and distribute updates and resources to keep COs and the PF4C network informed (including through the development of thematic briefs, summaries and communication materials).

UNICEF Core competencies skills :

• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (2) • Works Collaboratively with others (2) • Builds and Maintains Partnerships (2) • Innovates and Embraces Change (2) • Thinks and Acts Strategically (2) • Drives to achieve impactful results (2) • Manages ambiguity and complexity (2)

Functional Competencies :

• Persuading and influencing (1)
• Applying technical expertise (1)
• Learning and researching (2)
• Planning and organizing (2)

Technical skills :

Mandatory requirements,

1. Public Financial Management (PFM)

• Understanding of government budgeting cycles, processes, and frameworks. • Ability to analyze national and subnational budgets. • Knowledge of Medium-Term Expenditure Frameworks (MTEF). • Familiarity with public expenditure tracking and financial accountability systems.

2. Budget Analysis for Social Sectors

• Skills in budget analysis of allocation and execution data (including at least some sector specific analysis for health, education, social protection, WASH, nutrition, or early childhood development). • Ability to assess equity, efficiency, and adequacy of public spending. • Familiarity with common public expenditure analysis tools, such as costing, cost effectiveness/cost benefit analysis, public expenditure reviews, benefit incidence analysis, budget analysis.

3. Data Analysis & Statistical Skills

• Strong ability to work with quantitative data sets (household surveys, administrative data). • Proficiency in tools: Excel (advanced), Stata / R / SPSS (or similar). • Ability to translate data into policy-relevant insights. • Skills in data visualisation.

4. Policy Analysis & Advisory

• Ability to analyze public policies and reforms. • Drafting of policy briefs, technical notes, and reports. • Translating technical findings into clear recommendations for a variety of audiences, including government counterparts and non-technical audiences.

5. Strategic stakeholder engagement

• Partnership building and relationship management . • Evidence-based advocacy and influencing. • Clear and persuasive communication. • Collaborative working across teams, sectors, and partners.

Desirable assets.

1. Fiscal Space & Financing Analysis

• Understanding of fiscal space analysis (revenue, borrowing, reprioritization). • Ability to identify financing options for social services. • Familiarity with domestic resource mobilization strategies.

2. Intergovernmental Fiscal Systems

• Knowledge of fiscal decentralization. • Understanding of mechanisms and systems for transfers to local governments. • Experience undertaking analysis of efficiency and equity of investments across regions.

3. Financial Modelling & Costing

• Ability to develop costing models for policies and programmes. • Scenario analysis (e.g., scaling up social benefits). • Basic macro-fiscal projections (desirable).

4. Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E)

• Designing indicators to assess budget performance and service delivery results. • Linking financial inputs to outputs and outcomes for children. • Supporting development and use of results-based management frameworks.

Thailand is located in Southeast Asia. The climate is tropical, with the monsoon season running from May/June through October/November. Bangkok is the capital of Thailand, and it is also the most populated city in the country. It is located in the Chao Phraya River delta in the central part of the country. Bangkok has an estimated population of 8.75 million as of 2017 (13% of Thailand’s total population), based on data from the 2010 census. Over the past decades, Bangkok has grown rapidly with little urban planning or regulation. This has led to traffic congestion and air pollution, and there is frequent flooding of streets during the rainy season in the City’s low-lying areas. The cost of living in Thailand is relatively low, as compared to many other capitals in Southeast Asia. Housing is widely available in various sizes and at various price points. Private healthcare in Thailand is of excellent standard, and there are numerous top hospitals in Bangkok, which fall far below countries like the US in terms of price. There are numerous high-quality international schools available in Bangkok, with English as the language of instruction. Bangkok has different public transportation options, including the BTS Skytrain and MRT Underground, metered taxis, mobile-based ride-hailing services (Grab, All Thai Taxi, etc.), tuk tuks, motorbike taxis, buses and boats.

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Potential interview questions

Added 23 hours ago - Updated 3 hours ago - Source: unv.org