Job Description
Under the authority of the Regional Representative and Director of the UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa, the guidance of the Head of the Education Unit and the direct supervision of the Finance and Administration Officer, the incumbent provides specialized administrative and support services to the Education Unit in a range of areas and shall ensure application and compliance with the rules, regulations, policies, and practices in place.
The Senior Finance Assistant will provide technical and operational support to the Education unit on administration and financial matters with particular emphasis on expenditure tracking and reporting under the FACE-NDC project in Zambia, GPE project in Zimbabwe and GPE Smart project in Zimbabwe and Malawi as well as supporting the ROSA Education Team on other ongoing programmes within the sector. His/her work will directly be supervised by the Finance and Administration Officer.
The appointee is expected to contribute to the effective planning, implementation, monitoring and financial reporting of UNESCO’s work in compliance with the project specific objectives, activities and expected outputs.
Duties and Responsibilities
The Senior Finance Assistant shall perform the following tasks:
Long Description
GENERAL ACCOUNTABILITIES
• Provide guidance and interpretation to the Education unit on administration, budget, financial and human resources matters.
• Provide advice on approaches and best practices, ensure that these are well disseminated, understood and implemented.
• Provide guidance and interpretation on administrative rules, regulations and procedures.
• Advise on operational and technical routine transactions.
• Recommend process and system related modifications and improvements to support successful administration and financial monitoring and control.
• Interpret provisions and provide guidance on complex and non-recurring issues.
FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITIES
• Act as certifying officer up to an authorized level delegated by the Chief Financial Officer and ensure that the financial transactions are in compliance with the rules, regulations, policies, and procedures.
• Ensure that the financial resources and expenditures of the assigned unit are fully and properly accounted for and that internal control systems are adequate and functioning, schedule payments and disbursement of funds.
• Ensure accurate and timely processing of assigned accounts, developing budget estimates and monitoring expenditures, participating, and advising in the preparation of financial statements and budgets.
• Assist in the preparation and coordination of financial activities.
• Compile and consolidate data from various sources into financial statements; prepare worksheets.
• Monitor expenditures, review payments, and reconcile accounts.
• Investigate anomalies and erroneous charges and take corrective action.
• Provide assistance and guidance to undertake coding and data entry task and to extract information, to run reports from IRIS/ SISTER or other online financial systems.
• Processing funds disbursements, funds Reservations, Invoices, workflow process monitoring and providing updates.
• Monitoring and managing liquidity of the designated bank account for FACE-NDC project in Zambia and, GPE project in Zimbabwe and GPE Smart project in Zimbabwe and Malawi and preparing bank reconciliation.
• Assisting in the IPA engagements by reviewing the budgets and financial justifications before disbursements.
Long Description
BUDGETARY ACCOUNTABILITIES
• Prepare RP and EXB budget reports and provide updates on them.
• Assist and advise on planning and budgeting and recommend modifications.
• Prepare budget proposals and cost estimates and ensure that data is correct.
• Identify irregularities and undertake transactions to correct errors/omissions.
• Assist with budgeting requirements for resource mobilization purposes.
Execute any other tasks as may be assigned, within the framework of the functions of the position.
Qualifications and Experience
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
EDUCATION
Secondary, technical or vocational school.
WORK EXPERIENCE
Minimum eight (8) years relevant experience in the field of finance and/or general administrative Services.
Experience working with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems or similar financial platforms posting/processing payments.
Experience in analyzing financial data and monitoring budgets.
Experience in using Microsoft Excel and Word.
SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES
Strong communication skills.
Good organizational and coordination skills, ability to take initiatives; establish priorities and capacity to work efficiently under pressure.
Capacity for accuracy and attention to detail.
Strong analytical skills and ability to analyze complex issues.
Excellent IT skills.
Ability to interpret rules and administrative guidelines in the field of Finance, Budget and Human Resources
LANGUAGES
Excellent knowledge of English and local language.
DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS
EDUCATION
Bachelors degree in finance, budget, business administration, procurement, operations or related fields.
WORK EXPERIENCE
Experience with ERP systems (such as SAP).
SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES
Knowledge of UNESCO’s rules, regulations, and procedures as well as financial/administrative practices, and other similar systems (IRIS, DUO, SISTER, CRM).
Understanding of UNESCO’s structure, Governing Bodies, Institutes, Commissions, etc.
LANGUAGES
Fluency in Shona and or Ndebele language.
How to Apply
