UNDP Jobs - 53453- Re-advertisement - UNMC Programme Associate Consul

Re-advertisement - UNMC Programme Associate Consultancy

Location :

New York, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

22-Apr-15 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

6 months (3-5 days per week)

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

6 months with option for extension

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. 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.

Background

Candidates who previously applied need not re-apply.

The Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has corporate responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan. BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to Country Offices; advocates UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogue initiatives, South-South and Triangular cooperation initiatives and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas. BPPS assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working. BPPS supports UNDP and partners to provide high quality, technical support to UNDP Country offices for the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programme support activities.

The UN Millennium Campaign is a unit of the Strategic Policy & Global Programming Department, led by a Director. The Cluster work closely with all the other Teams to ensure effective collaboration and quality services to all BPPS clients is helping to ensure citizens are directly involved in the design of an ambitious new set of internationally agreed development priorities with specific goals to be met by the year 2030 (“Post-2015 Agenda”). As global leaders finalize the priorities of the Post-2015 Agenda the MY World initiative will work to ensure that these voices are heard and clearly articulated during key moments during the decision-making process. Once member states finalize and ratify a set of goals MY World can again be used to invite citizens to express views and propose actions that would help achieve the goals in areas of importance to them.

The Programme Associate provides programme and administrative services in support of the Unit’s programme responsibilities, deliverables, and operations. This includes programme support in data, financial management, project/programme design, planning, implementation, reporting, and information management. The Programme Associate promotes a client-oriented approach, in the framework of UNDP policies, rules and regulations.

In close collaboration with project team colleagues, operations specialist and finance/procurement colleagues in HQ,Regional Hubs, COs, and other individuals, identifies and helps resolve bottlenecks, clarifies and interprets procedures, and escalates complex programmeand administrative issues as needed. S/he is responsible for the following:

Support for the formulation, implementation, management and monitoring of the Unit’s programme portfolio;
General operational and administrative support to the Unit;
Management of the Unit documentation portfolios.

This is a part-time position with a minimum requirement of 3 days per week, and the option for full-time work 5 days per week depending on the quantity of work. Part-time remote based work is accepted depending on clearance from the Director.

The consultant will report to the Deputy Director with the following institutional arrangement envisioned as well:

The Programme Associate will liaise regularly with all members of the UN Millennium Campaign team to ensure effective coordination of projects. The direct supervisor will be the Deputy Director, who is general manager of Operations. It is also envisioned that regular interaction will be necessary with Operations Specialists in BPPS;
The Programme Associate will update shared team documents with status reports regularly, and give a monthly financial report.
It will be necessary to liaise regularly with vendors, donors, other agencies as per UNMC project requirements.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of Key Functions for the duration of the assignment:

Support to project budget/ATLAS monitoring and reporting;
General operational and administrative support to the Unit;
Provides resource, procurement and budget management support to UNMC programmes and projects focusing on the achievement of the following results:

Provides finance/operational support to project budget/ATLAS monitoring and reporting, closely working with operations specialist for the team

Provides programme/project management support to the Unit, such as implementing budget and project award revisions, providing COA authorizations; creating requisitions;receipts;
Prepare programme budgets and financial data (allocations and expenditures) in ATLAS and undertakes budget ;revisions.Provides regular monthly updates on project expenditure status, and project resource balancesetc, maintaining the internal expenditures control system;
Prepares GLJE’s and supporting documentations as required for reversals/fund transfers;
Maintain “shadow” budget to monitor overall expenditures of the programmes;
Generates reports and information on routine implementation of projects and programme/project status; Reviews, verifies and reconciles financial data and reports to ensure accuracy and conformity with UNDP financial and administrative rules and regulations;
Monitors and tracks all donor agreements and contributions received and expected, and supports preparation of financial and donor reports; prepares DMS forms as needed, working with Finance colleagues to ensure submission to GSSC;
Assist in preparation of closing projects financially and operationally;
Support the transfer of residual balances of the various projects as well as donor refunds;
Assists in year-end closure activities, helping team with planning and ensuring processes are done well ahead of deadlines.

General operational and administrative support to the Unit:

Provides general secretarial and administrative assistance to UNMC staff when requested;
Processes official Unit Mission Travel Requests, including timely follow-up action on medical/security clearance, travel related claims(including DSA, reimbursement claims, etc.), liaises with travel agents and AMEX when necessary, signatures as appropriate and ensuring preparation of the necessary documents in ATLAS, collaborating with BPPS ROM as needed;
Processes all requests for UNLP and visas for team members and external travelers as well as for workshop and meeting participants, as required;
Monitors all travel-related payments for the Unit, liaising appropriately with BPPS ROM/Q and BPPS staff in the field, as required;
Undertakes special assignments as may be assigned, as and when required.

Provides procurement support to UNMC programmes and projects focusing on the achievement of the following results:

Provides support to all aspects of the UNMC programme/projects and operations, as required, through ATLAS and all aspects of the procurement processes as appropriate, all in accordance with established procedures;
Supports all procurement processes, including the recruitment of consultants and experts through preparation and posting of TORs, preparations of contracts, both in and out of ATLAS, and setting up vendors;
Liaises with the appropriate procurement colleagues in obtaining necessary clearances, as well as preparing CAP and ACP submissions as needed;
Prepares draft (standard) contractual documents for the procurement of equipment/services, all in accordance with established procedures, for the Unit;
Provide administrative assistance with initiation of project level procurement activities (small purchases, printing, editing and design services);
Process payments against approved invoices;
Assist project managers in managing contracts for the service providers (for publications, experts, venues), ensures effective contract management and their successful closure;
Helps solve budget errors expeditiously so POs/vouchers are approved timely. Make budget checks for requisitions, purchase orders and vouchers;
Verify and provide support to the team members in the approval processes in ATLAS;
Presents information for audit of Unit’s projects; supports implementation of audit recommendations;
Keeps up to date with new releases vis-à-vis ATLAS and UNDP regulations, and exchanges information;
Ensure that team members follow UNDP operation guidelines and procurement procedures;
Maintains hard and an electronic copy filling system, ensuring safekeeping of confidential materials by following the established filing and archiving standards and procedures for the Bureau: organizes, updates and maintains all project/programme-related documents; scans and ensures proper digital filing of all Unit documents that must be retained in support of corporate policies; and collects and disseminates information related to thematic area, including inputs for donor reports and provides information when requested from various sources.

Expected Outcomes and Key Deliverables:

Effective provision of support in respect to the budget management needs of the project including revisions, monitoring and reconciliation – daily basis, with a financial report to be presented at monthly meetings;
Effective support to the procurement needs of the UNMC;
Effective support to the administrative tasks related to the project implementation;
Logistical and operations support is provided for key events of the cluster;
Regular updates to Google Drive operations documents to keep a live tracking of outstanding or upcoming tasks.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

Demonstrates commitment to UNDP’s mission, vision and values;
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
The highest standards of integrity, discretion and loyalty are essential..

Functional Competencies:

The ability to meet deadlines and maintain high-quality of output working under pressure;
The international project management skill in multinational environment is required for this position;
Excellent communication/organizational skills, attention to details;
Ability to operate personal computers, corporate and commercial software applications and databases such as Microsoft Office;
Microsoft Outlook, Internet, ERP (Atlas) based applications;
Ability to quickly learn corporate software applications is essential and thorough knowledge of Atlas is a definite advantage;
Knowledge of UNDP/UN administrative procedures is strongly desirable.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Completion of secondary school, preferably supplemented by accounting and administration studies.

Experience:

Minimim 6 years of progressively responsible administrative and/or programme experience is required at the national or international level;
Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc) and advanced knowledge of spreadsheet and database packages is required;
The ability to use good judgment and experience working in a multi-cultural setting are critical;
Strong experience in use of ATLAS/ERP, project management, procurement, finance tasks modules is a requirement;
Work experience at UN institution a strong asset.

Language Requirements:

Outstanding communication skills, verbal and written English.

Cumulative analysis:

When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

Technical Criteria weight: 70.

Financial Criteria weight: 30.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 (70%) points on technical part would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Technical Criteria (70%)

Experience in programme budgets and financial data (allocations and expenditures) in ERP/ATLAS (30 points);
Experience in procurement (15 points);
Administrative support (15 points);
MDG and/or post-2015 and inter-agency general knowledge (10 points).

Financial evaluation: (30%)

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal: p = y (µ/z)

Where:

p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated
y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal
µ = price of the lowest priced proposal
z = price of the proposal being evaluated

Additional documents:

Personal CV and/or UNDP Personal History Form.

Applicants must submit their CV or Personal History Form through this Online system. Click “Apply Now” button, fill in necessary information on the first page, upload the document and click “Submit Application”. Please note that the system takes only one attachment. Scan all documents into a single PDF file to attach;
To note, a completed PH 11 Form will be required at the time a consultant signs an Individual Contract (IC) or his/her employer, if employed, signs a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA) for work associated with this assignment. UN Personal History form (UN PH11) can be downloaded from (http://sas.undp.org/documents/P11_Personal_history_form.doc

Financial Proposal:

Applicants are instructed to submit their lump sum daily fee for this consultancy to maria.fare@undp.org at time of application with the subject heading “Financial Proposal for Programme Associate for UN Millennium Campaign (Consultant)". In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal should be all-inclusive and include a breakdown. The term ‘all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, travel related expenses, communications, utilities, consumables, insurance, etc.) that could possibly be incurred by the Contractor are already factored into the financial proposal Applicants may be guided by the financial proposal template available here. http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_file.cfm?doc_id=43528

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