Senior Finance and Budget Assistant at United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Responsibilities

• Budget: Acts as Certifying Officers under Financial Rule 110.4 to ensure that proposed obligations and expenditures are in accordance with approved budgets and established regulations and rules.
• Undertakes reviews, analyses and preparation of the medium-term plan and its revisions.
• Reviews, analyses and assists in the finalization of cost estimates and budget proposals, in terms of staff and non-staff requirements, including programmatic aspects; ensures compliance with Global Environment Facility (GEF) and UNEP's regulations, rules and policies.
• Assists managers in the elaboration of resource requirements for project documents.
• Undertakes research and provides support to higher level Finance & Budget Officers with respect to project portfolio management, evaluation, audit and other reviews.
• Monitor receipt of contributions for relevant projects to ensure timely application of funds.
• Prepares allotments, including redeployment of funds when necessary, ensuring appropriate expenditures and availability of cash.
• Monitors budget implementation/expenditures and recommends reallocation of funds as necessary.
• Reviews requisitions for goods and services to ensure (a) correct objects of expenditure have been charged, and (b) availability of funds and cash.
• Reviews donor and implementing agreements and cost plans, ensuring compliance with regulations and rules and established policies and procedures.
• Reviews periodically open items (including outstanding obligations and receivable documents) and recommends actions for liquidation and clearance.
• Assists in the preparation of budget performance submissions.
• Assists in finalization of budget performance reports, analyzing variances between approved budgets and actual expenditures.
• Monitors integrity of various financial databases.
• Verifies accuracy of input data, ensuring consistency of data in previous allotments to new allotments issued
• Undertakes research and analysis of budgetary policies and procedures and makes recommendations for changes and/or modifications.
• Payments and accounting: Reviews, analyses and processes expenditure reports from partners, vendor invoices and other related documents and initiates payments (including cash advances) to third-parties, commercial entities, and individuals.
• Prepares financial statements for projects to donors when requested.
• Assists in the year-end closing activities.
• General: Keeps up-to-date on documents/reports/guidelines that have a bearing on matters related to programme budgets, ensuring compliance with intergovernmental recommendations and decisions as well as with United Nations policies and procedures.
• Drafts or prepares correspondence to respond to inquiries in respect to relevant financial and budget matters.
• Provides guidance, training and daily supervision to other general service staff in the area of responsibility.
• Drafts reports for intergovernmental bodies and for management on budgetary issues, and correspondence.
• Assists with the collection and analysis of data as well as preparation of data presentations and reports for information sharing, responding to queries, knowledge management, planning and decision making.
• Assists with visualizations and updating information material such as web pages or brochures.
• Performs other related duties, as assigned.

Education

• High school diploma or equivalent is required.

Work Experience

• A minimum of ten (10) years of progressively responsible work experience in finance, budget, accounting, administrative services or related area is required.
• The minimum years of relevant experience is reduced to eight (8) for candidates who possess a first-level university degree or higher.
• Working experience with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system such as Oracle or SAP is required.
• Experience with data analysis, reconciliations and reporting is desirable.
• Experience in an international organization such as the United Nations is desirable.
• Experience with GEF financial management is desirable.
• One (1) year experience in data analytics or related area is desirable.