Antecedentes

UNCDF is the UN’s capital investment agency for the world’s least developed countries (LDCs). It creates new opportunities for poor people and their communities by increasing access to inclusive finance and investment capital.  UNCDF focuses on Africa and the poorest countries of Asia and the Pacific, with a special commitment to countries emerging from conflict or crisis.  It can provide seed capital both grants and loans as well as technical support that will improve poor peoples’ lives.

UNCDF works to enlarge peoples’ choices: it believes that poor people and communities should take decisions about their own development. UNCDF works in challenging environments – remote rural areas, countries emerging from conflict – and paves the way for others to follow. Its programmes are designed to catalyze larger investment flows from the private sector, development partners and national governments, for significant impact on the SDGs. Established by the General Assembly in 1966 and with headquarters in New York, UNCDF is an autonomous UN organization affiliated with UNDP.

The Better Than Cash Alliance is a partnership of governments, companies and international organizations that accelerates the transition from cash to digital payments in order to reduce poverty and drive inclusive growth.

Billions of dollars in cash payments and transfers are made daily in emerging and developing economies, including payment of salaries, social welfare and relief, payments to suppliers, remittances, etc. The problems with these cash payments include a lack of transparency, accountability and security, as well as inefficiency.  Furthermore, the individuals who receive the cash payments are often part of the 2 billion excluded from the formal financial sector.  This means they are excluded from access to a range of appropriate and affordable financial services to help them save safely, take advantage of economic opportunities and reduce their vulnerability to risk.
 
Shifting these payments from cash to digital has the potential to improve the lives of low-income people, particularly women, while giving governments, the development community and the private sector a more transparent, time and cost efficient, and often safer means of disbursing payments.

The Better Than Cash Alliance partners with governments, companies, and international organizations that are the key drivers behind the transition to make digital payments widely available by:

• Advocating for the transition from cash to digital payments in a way that advances financial inclusion and promotes responsible digital finance;
• Conducting research and sharing the experiences of our members to inform strategies for making the transition;
• Catalyzing the development of inclusive digital payments ecosystems in member countries to reduce costs, increase transparency, advance financial inclusion-- particularly for women-- and drive inclusive growth.

For more information on BTCA, please visit the website: http://www.betterthancash.org/

Deberes y responsabilidades

Summary of key functions:

• Finance and Programme Planning – leads on financial planning including cash flow management and financial management processes; ensures BTCA team plans and implements the programme efficiently and effectively;
• Performance Management Mechanisms and Monitoring – Establishes and ensures the observance of mechanisms to monitor staff, consultants and BTCA programme performance, including progress on indicators for agreed BTCA project milestones and internal indicators of progress towards goals. Provides support to staff and consultants to achieve targets as needed. Reports on performance to BTCA and UNCDF management and external parties;
• Funder Relationships – Maintains active relationships with current and potential funders, reporting to them and keeping them across BTCA’s work. Manage the preparation of documents for Executive Committee meetings and ensure proper follow up;
• Liaison with the MSU, PMSU – in partnership with relevant BTCA staff, facilitate relationships with UNCDF MSU and PMSU teams on procurement, finance and personnel issues.

Finance and Programme Planning – leads on financial planning including cash flow management and financial management processes; ensures BTCA team plans and implements the programme efficiently and effectively:

• Ensures effective and accurate financial management by implementing proper planning, budget forecasting, cash flow management, expenditure tracking and audit of financial resources in accordance with UNCDF rules and regulations;
• As a member of the BTCA management team, develops and implements an effective operational strategy, providing guidance and support to BTCA programme management and other team members on programme implementation in line with the UNCDF corporate operational strategies;
• Supervises Programme Associates, providing oversight and guidance;
• Ensures facilitation of knowledge building and sharing with regards to programme management processes, highlighting lessons learnt/best practices, and sound contributions to UNCDF knowledge networks and communities of practice;
• Analyzes and identifies opportunities to ameliorate business processes and knowledge management including the use web-based and other systems and databases (e.g. Salesforce) as needed to enhance efficiency and accountability and ensure the maintenance of a secure, reliable archive of program documents;
• Identifies and pursues opportunities for collaboration with other UNCDF teams (e.g. MM4P).

Performance Management Mechanisms and Monitoring – Establishes and ensures the observance of mechanisms to monitor staff, consultants and BTCA programme performance, including progress on indicators for agreed BTCA project milestones and internal indicators of progress towards goals. Provides support to staff and consultants to achieve targets as needed. Reports on performance to BTCA and UNCDF management and external parties:

• Coordinates weekly team meetings, ensuring items of strategic importance are added to the meeting agenda, preparing documents as needed and ensuring accountability on follow up actions;
• Develops and implements systems for regular internal tracking/monitoring and evaluation procedures as needed to ensure BTCA is on track to meet project milestones and indicators (including of grants and performance based agreements);
• Ensures monitoring and indicator development/tracking is aligned with  industry best practices including UNCDF and DCED guidelines.

Funder Relationships – Maintains active relationships with current and potential funders, reporting to them and keeping them across BTCA’s work. Manage the preparation of documents for Executive Committee meetings and ensure proper follow up:

• Contributes to partnership and resource mobilization strategies and efforts, including liaising with UNCDF partnerships unit to finalize agreements with funding partners, implementation of agreements and oversight of financial reporting;
• Maintains active relationships with current and future funders;
• Provides robust support for the management and coordination with the Executive Committee including preparation of documents; coordinating all follow-up to Ex Com requests including commitments made and actions taken, ensuring deadlines are met;
• Oversees preparation of meeting logistics and technology;
• Ensures Programme is in compliance with donor requirements.

Liaison with the MSU, PMSU – in partnership with relevant BTCA staff, facilitate relationships with UNCDF MSU and PMSU teams on procurement, finance and personnel issues:

• Coordinates with UNCDF´s operations teams as needed, ensuring an efficient flow of information and liaising on planning around operational needs;
• Supports procurement processes that are the responsibility of the programme team including the drafting of TORs, review and selection of candidate CVs, development of selection criteria, interviewing and candidate review in accordance with UNCDF rules and regulations;
• Manages strategic requirements of the programme by supporting the contracting of firms via Long Term Agreements, in accordance with UNCDF rules and regulations;
• Liaises with UNCDF ICT staff to ensure efficient and effective functioning of SharePoint, and the Shared Drive.

Competencias

Core:

Innovation:

• Ability to make new and useful ideas work.

Leadership:

• Ability to persuade others to follow.

People Management:

• Ability to improve performance and satisfaction.

Communication:

• Ability to listen, adapt, persuade and transform.

Delivery:

• Ability to get things done.

Technical/Functional:

Building Strategic Partnership:

• Displays initiative, sets challenging outputs for him/herself and willingly accepts new work assignments;
• Takes responsibility for achieving agreed outputs with set deadlines and strives until successful outputs are achieved.

Promoting Organizational Learning and Knowledge Sharing:

• Makes the case for innovative ideas documenting successes and building them into the design of new approaches. Identifies new approaches and strategies that promote the use of tools and mechanisms;
• Develops and/or participates in the development of tools and mechanisms, including identifying new approaches to promote individual and organizational learning and knowledge sharing using formal and informal methodologies.

Job Knowledge – Technical Expertise:

• Understands more advanced aspects of primary area of specialization as well as the fundamental concepts of related disciplines;
• Serves as internal consultant in the area of expertise and shares knowledge with staff;
• Continues to seeks new and improved methods and systems for accomplishing the work of the unit;
• Keeps abreast of new developments in area of professional discipline and job knowledge and seeks to develop him/herself professionally;
• Demonstrates comprehensive knowledge of information technology and applies it in work assignments.

Promoting Organizational Change and Development:

• Provides counseling and coaching to the colleagues who are dealing with the change. Assists in the development of policies, communications, and change strategies. Performs appropriate work analysis and assists in redesign to establish clear standards for implementation.

Design and Implementation of Management Systems:

• Makes recommendations regarding design or operation of systems or programmes within organizational units. Identifies and recommends remedial measures to address problems in systems design or implementation.

Client Orientation:

• Anticipates client needs;
• Works towards creating an enabling environment for a smooth relationship between the clients and service provider;
• Demonstrates understanding of client’s perspective;
• Keeps the client informed of problems or delays in the provision of services;
• Uses discretion and flexibility in interpreting rules in order to meet client needs and achieve organizational goals more effectively;
• Solicits feedback on service provision and quality.
• Promoting Accountability and Results-Based Management;
• Provides inputs to the development of organizational standards for accountability and results-based management;
• Ability to address gender equality and empowerment of women considerations in strategic and operational activities of UNCDF.

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Education:

• Master’s Degree or equivalent in Business Administration, Public Administration, Law, Finance, Economics or related field or the equivalent experience;
• A Bachelor’s degree with an additional two years of experience would also meet this requirement.

Experience:

• Minimum of five (5) years of professional experience in progressively responsible positions in relevant field;
• Experience in successfully managing large projects and corresponding budgets required;
• Experience with financial management within the UN system, including use of ATLAS is required;
• Experience with fundraising, donor reporting, and a working knowledge of international donor organizations is highly desirable;
• Experience with project and impact monitoring and evaluation systems, knowledge of DCED standard is highly desirable;
• Understanding of the benefits of digitizing payments and its contribution to poverty reduction, desirable; 
• Experience with of procurement and managing RFP processes within the UN system is desirable;
• Experience in providing management advisory services and/or managing staff and operational systems;
• Strong IT skills, including ability to work in MS Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint.

Language:

• Fluency in spoken and written English is required;
• Professional competency in additional UN languages is desirable.

Note:

Applicants are strongly encouraged to upload (as a *pdf attachment) the completed and signed UNDP Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded fromhttp://sas.undp.org/Documents/P11_Personal_history_form.docx  Completion of all the fields is required.

Please Combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.