Finance And Budget Officer

Org. Setting and Reporting

This position is located in Dakar, Senegal. This position involves a variety of tasks which include the complete and homogeneous management of the Mission’s financial system, including planning, preparation, monitoring and reporting on all programme submissions, fund redeployments, and the overall Mission budget. Additional tasks also include the coordination of effective financial services with the Regional Service Center, Entebbe (RSCE). These functions cover both UNOWAS and CNMC. The Finance and Budget Officer who acts as Head of the Finance and Budget Unit reports to the Chief of Mission Support for United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS) and the Cameroon-Nigeria Mixed Commission (CNMC).

Responsibilities

Within the delegated authority, the Finance and Budget Officer will be responsible for the following duties:

• Prepares cost estimates and budget proposals, in terms of mission’s resourcing requirements such as a staff and non-staff requirements, including programmatic aspects; reviews, analyses and revises data with respect to the finalization of budget proposal as well as Result Based Budgeting inputs.
• Provides support to programme/fund centre managers (Substantive and Support Sections) with respect to the elaboration of resources requirements for budget submissions.
• Administers and monitors extra-budgetary resources, including review of agreements and cost plans, ensuring compliance with regulations and rules and established policies and procedures.
• Administers the mission’s allotments in accordance with the established procedures including redeployment/reallocation of funds.
• Ensures the sufficient and effective use of budgetary resources through robust monitoring of budget utilization to the approved budget and timely provision of information to the Mission management for decision making; Provides support and guidance to fund centre/programme managers on budget implementation and corrective actions were necessary.
• Prepares the budget performance report of the mission and ensures that correct and accurate data and information are provided by various programme/fund centre managers in compliance with the Controller’s instructions. Reviews and finalizes the performance report ensuring valid and adequate variance explanations between approved budgets and actual expenditures.
• Analyses complex/unusual accounting transactions and open items in the accounting system and implements corrective actions.
• Reviews and reconciles various clearing accounts, investigates erroneous/invalid entries and takes appropriate corrective accounting action.
• Advises and ensures that only valid year-end budget commitments confirming with established procedures are valid for carrying forward.
• Reviews and verifies that appropriate relevant supporting documents have been provided for the processing of payment for goods and services received.
• Reviews and approves monthly and year-end financial statements, ensuring the reports are accurate and submitted to UNHQ as per the deadline
• Manages cash flow requirements of the mission; verify imprest documentation and prepares imprest statements.
• Acts as Approving Officer under Financial Rule 105.4 in adherence with the UN Regulations and Rules.
• Provides advice, financial interpretations, adaptations and corrective actions in response to audits and other queries to ensure adherence to the UN Financial Regulations and Rules, Staff Rules, Administrative Instructions, Bulletins and Circulars.
• Coordinates and supervises the work of Finance and Budget Section ensuring clear guidelines are given to the staff and ensuring full compliance with UN Financial Rules and Regulations and deadlines are met.
• Performs other duties as assigned Results Expected: Applies specialized expertise in providing accurate and complete accounting/financial and budget information. Successfully manages a complete accounting operation. Ensures strong internal control mechanisms in place in support of the stewardship of the mission’s resources in adherence to the UN Regulations and Rules.

Education

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or Doctorate degree, or equivalent) in business administration, finance, accounting or related fields is required. A first-level degree (Bachelor’s degree or equivalent) in the specified fields of studies with two additional years of relevant work experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Work Experience

• A minimum of five (5) years of progressively responsible professional experience in accounting, finance, and budget is required. Experience with Financial Systems/financial modules of enterprise resource planning (ERP) such as oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft is required. At least three years (03) of experience in budgetary functions, cost recovery and trust fund management within UN system is required. At least three years (03) of experience managing a small or medium size team is required. Experience with reporting of budget information in accordance with IPSAS is desirable

Languages

• English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For the position advertised, fluency in English is required; and knowledge of French is desirable.

Source: https://careers.un.org/jobSearchDescription/248077?language=en