Project Associate

UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks. 

The Enabling Community Recovery and Resilience project, ENCORE, aims to empower the most vulnerable communities in rural areas to shift from crisis to recovery. The project incorporates short, intermediate, and long-term interventions. ENCORE works in 52 Townships in 11 States and Regions in across Myanmar with targeting beneficiaries to improve their resilience to economic, security, health and climate-related shocks. 

Working closely with highly vulnerable communities, ENCORE aims to:

• Address the most fundamental and critical needs
• Restore livelihoods and rehabilitate basic community infrastructure
• Build social cohesion and community preparedness to sustain project gains and manage future shocks

All three project components, (i) Community capacity building, and mobilization, (ii) Community-led undertakings to address basic needs and promote recovery and resilience, and (iii) Improved governance and service delivery in contested territories, are underpinned by the inclusive and principled multi-stakeholder engagement process, in which the selection of partners is done in collaboration with the UNDP’s Civil Society Unit and informed by the Human rights due diligence (HRDD) and conflict-sensitive considerations. 

ENCORE envisages providing hands-on capacity development to improve dialogue/facilitation, problem-solving, gender and conflict sensitivity, participatory planning, insider mediation, and negotiation skills. The project activities are designed so that they will not in any way contribute to any existing conflict or tension within the community or create new sources of conflict but, instead, should contribute to peacebuilding and promote social cohesion among community members. The capacity development component will include strengthening awareness, skills, and methods to engage in more participatory, transparent, inclusive, human rights-based, gender, conflict-sensitive, and accountable service delivery and governance processes.

The ENCORE Project is designed to deliver interlinked interventions covering the whole crisis to recovery to resilience continuum, and the emphasis on building community resilience and increasing sustainability is therefore central to its overall strategy. The phasing of ENCORE includes (i) household-level basic needs responses (Phase 1), (ii) intermediate-term community-level crisis response interventions (Phase 2), and (iii) medium-term community-led recovery and resilience-building initiatives (Phase 3). The gradual progression of community support enables the project to carefully adapt to the complex and widely varying operational conditions across project sites while gradually building trust and social cohesion thus promoting community ownership and social cohesion.

The Project Associate works under the overall direction of the Project Manager, ENCORE. The Project Associate works in as a member of the Project Management Unit, Programme Support Unit and other project teams, technical advisors and experts, implementing partners, beneficiaries and civil society to support successful implementation of the project. 

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of key functions:

• Supports management and implementation of project activities
• Provides effective support to project financial monitoring and management
• Provides administrative and operational support to project implementation, ensuring quality of business processes
• Ensures facilitation of knowledge building and knowledge sharing

Supports management and implementation of project activities focusing on achievement of the following results:

• Provide inputs in the elaboration of annual work plan of the ENCORE Project and update the budget on system and expenditure reconciliation as required.
• Maintaining of timetables for the Project Board/Committee meetings and provides support to organizing and holding the meetings, including the preparation and dissemination of information and follow-up.
• Assist in arranging logistics, preparing agenda and coordinating with related stakeholders for organizing workshops/trainings as and when required.
• Assist in minutes taking for program/project meetings and in drafting research reports as required.
• Assist in coordinating of the planned events of the project.
• Provision of guidance to the implementing partners on routine implementation of project activities, tracking use of financial resources.
• Assist in drafting inputs for the project’s reports.
• Support to data collection such as project team’s inputs.
• Assist to provide documentation for auditing and spot check exercises

Provides effective support to project financial monitoring and management focusing on the achievement of the following results: 

• Project budget management through Quantum.
• Ensures budget availability for requisitions, POs and vouchers.
• Follows up on the internal expenditures control system including timely corrective actions on un-posted vouchers, including the vouchers with budget check errors, match exceptions, and the unapproved vouchers.
• Supports entry of project proposals and project budgets, supports preparation of budget revisions, monitors the funds availability and to ensure the effectiveness in payment process.
• Provides inputs into periodic and ad-hoc financial reporting to CO, donors, as needed;
• Supports in monitoring the project budget and preparing project finance documents, including budget revisions.
• Provides finance-related data to support project implementation and planning.
• Drafts various correspondence concerning finance, operations and budgetary issues as required.
• Assists team members, experts and consultants, in cooperation with Programme Finance Unit on financial and other operational matters.
• Facilitates according to UNDP’s procedures for disbursement of grants advance, liquidation and regular update of resource balances/expenditures records.
• Facilitates project related payments.

Provides administrative and operational support to project implementation, ensuring quality of business processes focusing on achievement of the following results: 

• Ensures full compliance with the CO business processes and UNDP’s procedures.
• Drafts HR and Procurement Plans for the project and provision of support to their implementation.
• Ensures completion of monthly leave reports and attendance records of project staff.
• Assists in preparation of drafting job creation forms; facilitates requests for recruitments/procurements and contract issuances.
• Ensures quality control of documents required for processing personnel or procurement actions related to the project activities.
• Prepares and regularly updates security list of project staff
• Assists in the management of logistical support to the project activities.
• Leads maintenance of the inventory of project assets/equipment and project correspondence and files.
• In cooperation with Common Services and Transaction Services Unit provides support to team members and consultants on administrative and other matters, i.e. visa etc.
• Leads maintenance of all administrative, personnel and financial files and records as well as general office files.

Ensures facilitation of knowledge building and knowledge sharing focusing on achievement of the following results: 

• Designs filing system and ensures accessible, accurate and comprehensive filling and archiving.
• Identifies best operational management practices and proposes ideas for achieving operational efficiencies; Shares knowledge with project teams; Promotes culture of operational excellence.
• Supports organization of trainings and learning events for project staffs on relevant topics.
• Facilitates preparation of knowledge products.

Required Skills and Experience

Education: 

• Secondary Education is required.
• University Degree (Bachelor´s degree) in Business or Public Administration, Economics, Political or Social Sciences will be given due consideration, but it is not a requirement.

Experience:

• Minimum 6 years (with secondary education) or 3 years (with Bachelor´s degree) of progressively responsible administrative or project experience at the national or international level.

Language Requirements: 

• Fluency in Myanmar and English is required.

Source: https://estm.fa.em2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_1/requisitions/job/21360