OVERVIEW OF THE FUNCTIONS OF THE POST

Under the overall authority of the Assistant Director General for Priority Africa and External Relations (ADG/PAX), the Director of the Division for External Relations (DIR/PAX/DRX), the Chief of the Relations with Member States Section (PAX/DRX/RMS) and the direct supervision of Chief of the Participation Programme and Emergency Assistance Unit (PAX/DRX/RMS/PPU), the Senior Administrative Assistant is responsible for the financial implementation and monitoring of the Participation Programme funded under the Regular Budget.

The Senior Administrative Assistant provides guidance and advice to the Unit team on administrative and financial issues of their assigned programme and regions. In particular, the Senior Administrative Assistant will focus on administering requests received within the Participation Programme (PP) for the Africa Region.

Long Description

In particular, the Senior Administrative Assistant will perform the following main functions:

GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES

• Ensure timely and complete processing of the Participation Programme (PP) requests for African countries in conformity with UNESCO’s General Conference resolutions, UNESCO’s Executive Board decisions, the UNESCO’s approved programme and budget (C/5) and UNESCO’s Medium-Term Strategy (C/4), priority areas of UNESCO programmes and various priority groups, for onward submission to the Intersectoral Committee on the PP.
• Maintain regular contacts with National Commissions for UNESCO and other official partners of UNESCO throughout the cycle of the PP for information and supporting documents required by project evaluators.
• Ensure proper follow-up and monitoring of the work of the Intersectoral Committee on the PP and prepare the outcome report of the Committee.
• Follow-up on payment authorization of approved funds, submission of financial and evaluation reports.

FINANCE RESPONSIBILITIES 

• Ensure financial administration of PP files. Provide guidance and advice to support team members on the administrative and financial-related issues and assist them drafting related correspondence. Identify difficult/contentious cases and propose solutions for the supervisor’s approval.
• In coordination with Bureau of Financial management Management (BFM)  and Administrative Officers (AOs), ensure timely payments by obligating payments and monitoring posting of payments in the system of the Organization. Link the release of payments to submission of progress and final reports, ensuring that these are complete and validated by all parties concerned.
• Review and validate financial reports for completeness and accuracy.
• Undertake a complete review of all supporting documents about the reported expenses of a limited number of financial reports.

COMPETENCIES (Core / Managerial)

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

Education

• Completed secondary, technical and/or vocational education.

Work Experience

• At least eight (8) years of relevant work experience in financial and administrative services, preferably in an international professional environment, or in related fields.

Skills & Competencies

• Excellent organizational and coordination skills.
• Excellent interpersonal communication skills, including drafting skills.
• Capacity to handle information objectively, precisely and confidentially.
• Ability to perform tasks in an autonomous manner.
• Flexibility in adjusting to work schedules and setting priorities, and to manage multiple tasks.
• Discretion, good sense of judgement and capacity to deal efficiently and tactfully with a variety of stakeholders in a multicultural environment.
• Excellent IT skills with proficiency in the use MS Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, etc.)

Languages

• Excellent knowledge (oral and written) of English or French and good knowledge of the other language.

DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS

Education

• Specialized training/certification in administration, finance, accounting, project management, international relations, or related fields.

Work Experience

• Experience within an UN agency or other international organization.

Skills & Competencies

• Familiarity with the work and general functioning of international organizations and/or of the UN system.
• Geopolitical knowledge of the Africa region.

Languages

• Knowledge of another official language of UNESCO (Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish).