Operations Specialist ( Home Based ) IPSA10

Background

Countries around the world are facing increasingly complex and multifaceted development challenges, ranging from climate change and circular economy transitions to the coronavirus pandemic and the future of work. To help UNDP evolve and improve the relevance of its offers and support to governments and communities, UNDP’s Innovation Facility (IF) is investing in efforts that seek to enable the organization to support partners in their “great transformations”.

The IF is envisioned as a vehicle providing catalytic funding that helps the UNDP and its partners better understand the dynamics of transformational, systemic change. This will entail not only a shift in the type of policy problems that the Facility addresses, but also how to think about understanding and engaging with these problems. This requires a shift from single point solutions that provide incremental improvement within an existing paradigm, towards an approach seeking to plant the seeds for an entirely new paradigm. The IF’s approach is based on the premise that if UNDP will be able to work simultaneously on developing a new supply (offers to governments based on a system transformation logic) and a new demand (interest from governments and donors to go beyond single point solutions), then it will be able to increase its development effects and leverage the Facility’s investments to attract new funding for joint efforts and R&D by development partners.

To deliver on this mission, the IF is supporting Country Offices with catalytic funding to implement so-called Deep Demonstrations.  These seek to build new capabilities for system transformation that provide a different logic to addressing complex development issues. So far the IF has supported two cohorts of Deep Demonstrations, with the second cohort still ongoing. In these Demonstrations, COs have deepened their understanding of complex policy issues, designed portfolios to engage with these, and in this process developed new systems capabilities.

The Strategic Innovation Unit is looking for an Operations Specialist to support the implementation and closure of Innovation Facility 2.0. 

Duties and Responsibilities

a. Ensure effective project budget management

• Resource management through planning, guiding, controlling of resources in accordance with UNDP rules and regulations; applies UNDP project results-based management concept, contribution to implementation of the effective internal controls;
• Proper planning and expenditure control of financial resources;
• Elaboration of cost saving and reduction strategies;
• Monitors application of income – liaising with the BPPS operations and UNDP Treasury; Ensures programming of funds into the budget;
• Ensures correct GMS setup and proper GMS collection in compliance with the UNDP cost-recovery mechanisms;
• Continuous review and analysis of budget implementation and budget management in Quantum; 
• Preparation of periodic project delivery reports (monthly, quarterly, annual, on demand);
• Sets up and maintains document control procedures and a document filing system, including for supporting documentation for financial reviews, continuously integrating relevant new information/data; 

b. Management of project financial resources

• Full compliance with UNDP policies in cash management policies and procedures;
• Timely review of cash position to ensure sufficient funds for disbursements;
• Review and monitoring of project opening closing balances, income and expenditure levels;
• Elaboration of internal expenditure monitoring system;
• Review and analysis of the project accounts (vouchers, GL JEs, payroll transactions, etc.);
• Maintains the internal expenditures control system which ensures that vouchers processed are matched and completed; transactions are correctly recorded and posted in Quantum; 
• Takes timely corrective actions on unposted vouchers, including the vouchers with budget check errors, match exceptions, unapproved vouchers; 
• Creates payment and coordinate with Operations Specialist for approval in Quantum.
• Quality control and monitoring of financial reports to be submitted to donors, ensure compliance with corporate standards and correctness of financial information presented. Maintenance of a system for tracking and reporting on mobilized resources. 
• Monitoring of bilateral agreements and delegation of authorities provided to different UNDP offices, and maintenance of a system for tracking and reporting on resources allocated to Country Offices.

c. Ensure Donor funds and reporting

• Full compliance with UNDP rules, regulations, policies and strategies in the area of donor funds management, knowledge of UNDP partnership instruments enabling