Senior Finance Officer

Contract

This is a LICA Specialist-9 contract. This kind of contract is known as Local Individual Contractor Agreements. It is normally only for nationals. It's an external contract. It usually requires 2 years of experience, depending on education. More about LICA Specialist-9 contracts.

Background Information - UNOPS

UNOPS – an operational arm of the United Nations – supports the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by successfully implementing its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian, and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve peace and sustainable development.

UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management, and human resources.

Working with us We are proud of our people. With a wealth of knowledge and skills in various disciplines – engineering, finance, human resources, ICT, leadership, project management, procurement, and more – they help tackle some of the biggest challenges of our time. Their work around the world supports progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

At UNOPS, we offer a range of short- and long-term opportunities in various environments and duty stations – from Denmark and Kenya to Mexico, Switzerland, Myanmar, Senegal, Uganda, and many more.

Diversity With over 5,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,400 personnel recruited on behalf of our partners, spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced and diverse labor force — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs. We continually strive to maintain our gender-balanced workplace. We encourage qualified underrepresented groups as per UNOPS Gender, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy to apply for our vacancies.

Work life harmonization UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.

Background Information - Job-specific

Project Information

Following the political turnaround in Afghanistan in August 2021, the subsequent economic collapse has led to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis putting over 24 million people in immediate need of aid. To provide immediate short-term livelihood opportunities and deliver urgent essential services in rural and urban areas, UNOPS is aspiring to implement a community resilience program to be funded through the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) and administered by the World Bank(WB).

It is estimated that 1.1 million households, or 7.5 million Afghans, will receive livelihoods and income

support through this project. In addition, 9 million Afghans in some 6,200 rural communities and 8 cities will benefit from improved access to essential social services through strengthening the capacity of community institutions in inclusive service delivery.

Job-Specific Information

Under the direct supervision of the Finance Advisor,, the Finance Officer provides advisory, management, and planning services to ensure compliant planning, administration, and management (including budget, treasury, compliance and cash management) of the Business Unit’s financial resources; and maintains oversight and control of Programme financial activities, providing value-added advisory services.

Functional Responsibilities

1. Implementation of operational strategies and procedures
2. Budget Preparation and Management
3. Cash Management and Treasury
4. Control of Accounts and Payments
5. Team Management
6. Knowledge Building and Sharing

1. Ensures administration and implementation of operational strategies, adapts processes and procedures focusing on achievement of the following results: - Full compliance with UN/UNOPS rules, regulations, and policies of financial activities, financial recording/reporting system and follow-up on audit recommendations; implementation of effective internal controls, proper functioning of a client-oriented financial resources management system. - Implementation of cost sharing and trust fund agreements, elaboration of conditions of contributions within the office’s resource mobilisation efforts. - Implementation of cost saving and reduction strategies in consultations with office management.

2. Budget preparation and management: Ensures and is accountable for the following:

- Coordination of the preparation of the field operating budget; review of budget submissions, regular analysis and reporting on the budget approvals and the delivery situation; monitoring of expenditures against budget allotments and reporting on variances. - Identification of administrative budgetary requirements; provision of guidance on guidelines for budget preparation. - Review and update of guidelines, procedures in light of changing circumstances or for the purpose of complying, streamlining and/or strengthening of existing financial and budgetary procedures

• Review, analysis and revision of data with respect to the finalization of cost estimates and budget proposals, in terms of staff and non-staff requirements submitted by project managers; review of budget proposals for reasonableness, consistency with the organizational goals and priorities.
• Monitoring of budget implementation, expenditure levels against allotments and determination/recommendation of reallocation of funds when necessary
• Status of budgetary allocations monitored on an ongoing basis; networking with clients to strengthen budget management and take corrective actions when required. Provision of information to supervisors and other UNOPS colleagues at HQ on the results of the investigation when satisfactory answers are not obtained.
• Collaboration in the improvement of the UNOPS Project Budget formulation system, with the cooperation of Information Technology, ensuring relevance of the system at all times by updating and proposing changes to facilitate financial management of projects and enhance financial reporting.
• Review and appropriate recommendations with respect to the finalization of budget performance reports, analyzing variances between approved budgets and actual expenditures.

3. Cash management and treasury: Ensures and is accountable for the following: - Organization and oversight of cash management processes, including liquidity management, recommendation of imprest level, risk assessment, bank relationship management, timely accounting and reconciliation of all transactions, security for cash assets on site. - Timely review of cash position for local accounts to ensure sufficient funds on hand for disbursements; identification and recording of receipts for income application. - Establishment of efficient local banking arrangements and compliance with local financial and banking regulations - Building of project capacity to effect payments using ERP/OneUNOPS and/or Imprest Accounts. - Monitoring of the delivery and income of the Fund - Discussion and communication with the project support colleagues on the savings or potential concerns that may require further review.

4. Accounts and payments: Ensures and is accountable for the following: - Analysis and elaboration of proposals for the internal expenditures’ control system which ensures that vouchers processed are matched and completed, transactions are correctly recorded and posted in ERP; payrolls are duly prepared; travel claims and other entitlements are duly processed. - Quality control of the account by performing ongoing review, analysis and reconciliation of accounts. Investigation of discrepancies and initiation of timely corrective actions on unposted vouchers, including the vouchers with budget check errors, match exceptions, unapproved vouchers. Timely response to HQ requests to resolve financial data issues. - Control of the Accounts Receivables for UNOPS projects and follow up with partners on contributions, maintenance of the General Ledger. - Ensuring proper maintenance of the field financial accounts; preparation of financial records, statements and reports as required or approval of the work of subordinates; coordination of field replies to internal and external audit queries; - Ensuring proper receipt, management, safeguarding and disbursement of payments handled by the field; review, modification, initiation and implementation of internal control procedures in coordination with Headquarters; - Proper control of the supporting documents for payments; preparation of all types of vouchers; Pay Cycle and payments execution; - Preparation of timely financial reports for submission to the funding agency in accordance with UNOPS rules, and in line with the established procedures; - Monitoring of financial exception reports for unusual activities, transactions and investigation of anomalies or unusual transactions; - Ensuring proper maintenance of the Accounts Receivables for UNOPS projects and follow-up with partners on contributions, deposits creation in ERP and their application to AR pending items.

5. Knowledge building and knowledge sharing. - Organize, facilitate and/or deliver training and learning initiatives for personnel on Finance related topics. - Contribute to Financial management knowledge networks and communities of practice by providing collaborative synthesis of lessons learnt and dissemination of best practices in financial management. - Collect feedback, ideas, and internal knowledge about processes and best practices and utilize productively.

6. Team Management - Facilitate the engagement and provision of high quality results and services of the team supervised through effective performance management, coaching, and promotion of learning and development. - Provide oversight, ensuring compliance by team members with existing policies and best practices

Impact of Results The effective and successful achievement of results by the Finance Senior Analyst directly impact on the availability of UNOPS’ financial resources to effectively develop and implement the organization’s programmes and projects. It enhances the organization’s financial and programme performance, demonstrating UNOPS’ effective stewardship of donor and partner funds. These promote the credibility of the organization as an effective service provider in project services and management.

Education/Experience/Language requirements

a. Education

• CPA or Advanced Degree or equivalent in Business Management, Finance, Business Administration or related fields is required.

b. Work Experience

• With advanced (master) degree, minimum of two years of professional-level experience in accounting with responsibility for project accounting and preparation of financial statements in an international organization in providing financial management services;

• With bachelors degree, minimum of four years of professional-level experience in accounting with responsibility for project accounting and preparation of financial statements in an international organization in providing financial management services;

• Knowledge of UNOPS financial rules and regulations; working knowledge of ERP (particularly Agresso), experience with MS Office and / or G-suit, and financial management, using electronic systems, environment and are desired.

c. Languages - Fluency (oral and written) in English is required. - Pashto and Dari languages are desired. - Knowledge of another official UNOPS language is an asset