Country: Ethiopia
Closing date: 03 Aug 2016
Organizational Setting
FAO's Subregional Office for Eastern Africa is responsible for developing, promoting, overseeing and implementing agreed strategies for addressing subregional food, agriculture and rural development priorities. It develops and maintains relations with subregion-wide institutions including Regional Economic Integration Organizations (REIOs). It assists the FAO Representations (FAORs) in the subregion with addressing subregional food security, agriculture and rural development issues at country level. The Subregional Office reports to the FAO’s Regional Office for Africa.
Main Purpose
The Administrative Assistant coordinates and performs the full range of office support, management support and administrative tasks, providing for the smooth and efficient running of the Office. He/ she ensures quality and consistency of the flow of office work and information in the work unit.
Supervision Received/Exercised
The Administrative Assistant reports to the Administrative Officer under the overall guidance of the Sub Regional Coordinator and receives guidance from the Finance/Administration Officer. The incumbent operates independently and takes decisions on work priorities and exercises initiative for dealing with cases without precedents. Supervision received is focused on the quality of work outputs. He/ she provides guidance and advice to other office support staff.
Working Relationships
The Administrative Assistant (Accounting) works closely with a wide range of colleagues in the Office, with central units and external clients, performing and coordinating office- and management support services, and providing procedural guidance and information.
Key Functions/Results
Maintain financial records and monitoring systems for the office; maintain imprest accounts; reconcile expenditures, balances, payments, statements and other data for day-to-day transactions and reports; manage the Country Office petty cash; monitor project and programme accounts for which responsibility is assigned.
Retrieve, enter, select and analyse data from a wide variety of sources, including FAO’s corporate systems and data bases; verify accuracy of data documents; make necessary calculations.
Verify availability of funds under all programmes; ensure that operational expenditures are in accordance with approved budgets and that all committing documents are complete and consistent.
Prepare correspondence of administrative and financial nature; draft correspondence to verify data, answer queries, and obtain additional information on transactions and financial matters, as required.
Maintain detailed records of budget estimates, obligations and available balances; participate in the consolidation of budget proposals; prepare financial data for budget estimates and financial planning.
Provide reports on budgetary performance of office accounts, and, if required, of project accounts; report variations from budgets.
Maintain local inventory records with responsibility for proper recording of assets, their maintenance and safeguard.
Maintain a filing system of administrative and financial documents.
Monitor the receipt of Government contributions and the transfer of ownership of the Organization’s equipment.
Maintain liaison with local banks and financial institutions to keep up-to-date with financial and regulatory information (exchange and interest rates, procedures and rules, maintenance of bank accounts, etc.).
Support the streamlining of procedures and practices and the introduction of new information technologies to the office.
Support the administration of personnel and equipment.
Perform other related duties as required.
Impact of work
The incumbent’s work impacts on the timely and efficient delivery of office support services and on the overall output of the work unit.
MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS - candidates will be assessed against the following
Education: Secondary school education.
Experience: Four years of administrative, accounting, budget and office management experience.
Languages: Working knowledge (Level C) of the FAO official language used for communication within the country (English, French or Spanish).
IT Skills: Very good knowledge of the MS Office applications, Internet and office technology equipment**.**
Competencies
Results Focus
Teamwork
Communication
Building Effective Relationships
Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement
Technical Skills
Very good knowledge of communication and documentation standards
Very good knowledge of corporate computerized financial / accounting systems and administrative procedures and policies
DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS AND SKILLS
Very good knowledge of accounting principles, budget monitoring and reporting as well as invoice checking and payments
Very good knowledge of corporate organizational structure
How to apply:
HOW TO APPLY
To apply, visit the iRecruitment website at http://www.fao.org/employment/irecruitment-access/en/ and complete your online profile. Only applications received through iRecruitment will be considered.
Candidates are requested to attach a letter of motivation to the online profile.
Vacancies will be removed from iRecruitment at 23:59 Central European Time (CET) on the deadline for applications date. We encourage applicants to submit the application well before the deadline date. If you need help, or have queries, please contact: iRecruitment@fao.org