Background

The Office of Audit and Investigations (OAI) reports to the UNDP Administrator and is responsible for internal audits and investigations.  The general objectives of OAI audits are to evaluate and contribute to the improvement of governance, risk management, and control processes, and report thereon.   . 

As part of its oversight mandate, OAI reviews and assesses audit reports prepared by third party auditors on audits of nationally-implemented projects and projects implemented by non-governmental organizations and on audits of implementing partners in the context of the Harmonized Approach to Cash Transfers (HACT).

Development projects in country offices with these implementation arrangements are required to be audited on a sample basis by external auditors to provide an opinion on the financial statements.   

The external auditors conduct their audits in line with International Standards on Auditing and address specific requirements such as:

• certifying, and expressing an opinion on the statement of expenses, the statement of cash position and the statement of assets and equipment;
• providing the monetary value of the net financial impact of the qualification when a modified opinion is expressed on any of the above statements;
• indicating the risks associated with the audit findings and providing a categorization by risk (high, medium, low).

The audit reports are submitted by UNDP country offices through a web-based database system – CARDS (Comprehensive Audit Report and Recommendations Database System).  These audit reports are reviewed by OAI and their results summarized in review letters to: 

• inform senior management of the results of the audits in a particular country and to highlight to areas that require their attention;
• input into the planning for country office audits;
• input into the annual audit risk assessment for country offices and projects;
• provide assurance to the External Auditors of the UN Board of Auditors (BoA) on the true and fair view of the financial statements of UNDP as a whole.

OAI seeks to compile a Roster with suitably skilled and experienced Audit Consultants to be part of the team responsible for the review of the audit reports during the period April to July of a specific year. The roster will be made of three groups based on full proficiency in the following languages:

• Group 1:  English
• Group 2:  French and English
• Group 3:  Spanish and English

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant will support the OAI Regional Centre team in preparing financial audit review letters that summarize the results of audits conducted on projects in a particular country.

The number of audit reports will vary depending on the countries assigned (usually as a minimum of one report to a maximum of 40 per country).  The number of action plans will always be one or two per country.

The consultant will be required to:

Access the CARDS system for each country assigned and select the assigned audit reports to be reviewed in-depth;

Review the assigned/selected audit reports. The review tasks include :

• summarize audit opinions for projects and reasons for any qualifications and quantify their financial impact;
• assess if the auditors conducted the audit in accordance with the terms of reference, including adequacy of coverage;
• assess if the country office has adequately administered the audit exercise, such as timeliness of submission of audit reports and follow-up action plans, etc;
• assess the adequacy of actions taken to address prior year audit observations and those planned to be taken to address current year audit observations;
• ensure that all observations and recommendations raised in the audit report have been captured and correctly entered in the system;
• ensure that observations are classified by impact or severity (risk) and properly classified by audit area

Review the prior and current year action plans of the assigned country. The actions plans are also submitted in the CARDS system. The tasks of review of actions plans include:

• assess the adequacy of the current action planned to determine to what extent the proposed action will serve to address, partly address or not address the observations;
• verify and/or determine that the status for the project actually represents the result of the action that has been taken (or not) to address the specific prior year audit observation.

Deliverables

A review letter for the approval and signature of the Chief of the OAI Regional Centre that will include the following:

• transmittal memo with highlights/executive summary of results of audits
• detailed review
• net financial impact of qualifications
• audit observations/outcome
• adequacy of audit scope
• administration of the audit exercise
• actions taken to address prior year audit observations; and
• planned actions to address current year audit observations.

Working papers

The consultant will be required to:

• enter the data about the review process in the CARDS tracking system (with pre-built template), for each country, and
• generate the related reports in CARDS for the purpose of preparing the Review Letter in accordance with the established templates and guidelines.

Competencies

Communication:

• Is able to read and understand financial audit reports written in English, French or Spanish and write clearly in English.

Task Management Skills:

• Produces timely, quality outputs.
• Exercises sound judgment/analysis.
• Ability to handle multiple tasks.

Technical:

• Proven knowledge and experience in the field of auditing
• Demonstrated ability to use Microsoft WORD and EXCEL and database systems

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced university degree in accounting, finance, business administration, or first level of degree in combination with certification in accounting, or audit (CA, CPA, ACCA, CIA).

Experience:

• Minimum of five years of experience in the field of audit; working in an international organization or similar setting desirable;
• Proven ability to quickly and accurately analyze, assess and summarize audit opinions, reasons for modified opinions and the related net financial impact of the opinions;
• Proven ability to quickly and accurately analyze, assess and summarize audit findings, observations and recommendations contained in a large number of audit reports;
• Proven ability to work with computer-based systems;
• Good command of Microsoft Word and Excel;
• Good organizational skills and ability to perform in a fast -paced environment and to deliver timely, accurate and good quality review letters;
• Knowledge of UN/UNDP policies and procedures is an advantage.

Languages:

• Excellent writing skills for preparation of review letters and executive summaries in English;
• Proficiency in French and/or Spanish for reviewing and accurately summarizing into English observations and information from audit reports written in one of these languages;

Applying for the Roster:

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information in his/her application:

• A detailed explanation of your motivation to apply for this roster in the allocated space of the application
• Completed P11 form including past relevant experience and contact details of three referees. 

Selection of consultant:

The consultant will be engaged on an ‘as needed’ basis.  In other words, as and when OAI requires the services of one or more contract consultants, a competitive selection will be made from the Roster that takes into account the TOR requirements, their qualifications, their language abilities, and availability to undertake the assignment within the required period.

The selected consultant will be awarded an individual contract with specific TOR for assigned audit reports/action plans of specific country (ies).

Duty Station

The assignment will be completed remotely (home based) and will not require any travel.

For further information please see OAI's procurement notice which also includes a link to download the P11 form.

http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=34382