Administrative Assistant (Front Office)

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is an international financial institution and a specialized United Nations agency dedicated to eradicating rural poverty and hunger. It does so by investing in rural people. IFAD finances programmes and projects that increase agricultural productivity and raise rural incomes, and  advocates at the local, national and international level for policies that contribute to rural transformation.

The Office of the President and Vice-President of IFAD (OPV) oversees the Corporate Services Support Group (CSSG) and supervises the Protocol Unit. The CSSG comprises: (a) Office of the General Counsel (LEG); and (b) Office of Audit and Oversight (AUO), reporting to the President; (c) Office of Strategic Budgeting (OSB); (d) Quality Assurance Group (QAG); (e) Change, Delivery and Innovation Unit (CDI); and (f) Office of Enterprise Risk Management (RMO), reporting to the Vice-President; and (g) Ethics Office (ETH), a stand-alone unit reporting administratively to the Vice-President. 

OPV provides strategic oversight and direction to the entire organization, including all decentralised offices, and is responsible for IFAD’s strategic leadership, and all departments report to it. Most importantly, OPV is the highest-level of political and strategic engagement with IFAD Member States, Rome-based agencies, and other UN agencies and IFIs, leveraging the Fund’s resources, knowledge, relationships and reputation to ensure IFAD achieves its mandate through IFAD-funded programmes and non-lending activities providing sustainable impact to its target groups. The Office also serves as the primary liaison with the Senior Executive Management Team and supports general governance of the organization. The Office of the President and Vice-President leads the implementation of the strategic plan for the organization, as well as develops or champions new initiatives to improve organizational efficiency, visibility, and organization-wide leadership development. 

The position is located in the OPV division and the incumbent works under the direct supervision of the Executive Assitant (EA) to the President.

The Administrative Assistant is accountable for operational support and clerical services to assist in the smooth running of the technical division.

Position specifics:
The Administrative Assistant in OPV will be responsible for activities to ensure smooth logistical arrangements for the travel of the President and for staff in the Office of the President and Vice-President (OPV), including liaising closely with different parts of the organization to ensure timely meetings and events of the President of IFAD. The second main responsibility of the role is to maintain the invitations to the President for attendance. 

1. OPERATIONAL SUPPORT
   The Administrative Assistant provides operational support to Senior Office Staff. Accountabilities typically include: 

• ERP data entry and reporting activities as originator;
• Maintaining correspondence logs for incoming and outgoing correspondence; 
• Distributing incoming correspondence, reports and other materials; 
• Managing the generic office e-mail account; 
• Receiving telephone calls and visitors, referring them to the appropriate source; 
• Making travel arrangements; 
• Assisting in preparing periodic reports, extracting information and preparing statistical tables; 
• Maintaining the office filing and reference systems, both traditional and digital; 
• Maintaining office supplies stock; (x)Uploading content to inter/intra-net websites. 

2. OFFICE COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
   The Administrative Assistant supports communications and workflow of the organizational unit to enhance the efficiency and timeliness of operations and outputs. Accountabilities typically include: 

• Managing incoming and outgoing correspondence, e-mails and telephone calls; 
• Researching background documentation; 
• Communicating routine and non-routine information to the team; 
• Maintaining the supervisor’s calendar; 
• Providing support to knowledge building and information sharing in the organizational unit through participation in appropriate trainings on administration for operations/project staff; 

3. MANAGERIAL FUNCTIONS
   Is accountable for integrity, transparency, and equity in the personal use of assigned IFAD resources, including equipment, and supplies.
    
4. SECRETARY AND LOGISTICAL SUPPORT TO THE PRESIDENT OF IFAD
   The Administrative Assistant (Front Office) provides a range of office support. Accountabilities typically include:

• Supporting the supervisor in maintaining the President’s calendar;
• Drafting routine correspondence;
• Preparing briefing materials for official trips or meetings as requested;
• Formatting documents in draft or final form including briefing notes, correspondence, reports, official documents, charts and graphs;
• Proofreading correspondence and official documents for grammatical accuracy and formatting and assuring all attachments are the included.

In particular, the Administrative Assistant (Front Office) will:

• Maintain the Keep it Tracked (KiT) correspondence tracking system to ensure that follow-up actions are taken by on OPV/divisions to reply in a timely manner, especially on incoming invitations;
• Draft routine correspondence; liaising internally with OPV Advisers for review and finalization of documentation for the President’s signature;
• Assist with the organization of the President’s travel, handling logistical arrangements of meetings, collecting inputs to produce mission folders; working with teams in house and external event organizers to ensure all logistical needs are met; 
• Provide administrative and logistical support in making travel arrangements and raising travel authorizations for the professional team members in OPV; and
• Maintain divisional mailbox and share information with division.

Administrative Assistants typically report to a higher-level Assistant or Associate. The work is standard and repetitive in nature; there are no specialized administrative activities that would require formal training performed on a regular and recurring basis. Key performance indicators include the complete and accurate performance of assigned, recurring activities. The incumbent brings any inconsistencies or discrepancies to the attention of the supervisor or responsible specialist.  

Position specific: 

• Tasks are completed smoothly with the President’s timely meetings and events.
• Invitations are replied to in a timely manner. 
• Requests from external parties are replied and routed to the appropriate in-house entry points for action in timely manner. 

Administrative Assistants arranging travel, procurement and information technology support. Typical contacts within the division, office or departments as well as external contacts consist of responding queries.

Position specific: 

• The Administrative Assistant works closely with IFAD travel agent and travel unit, as well as with the division staff that will be preparing the President’s missions, including staff from medical services, protocol, security and communications. 
• The Administrative Assistant will work closely with all divisional front offices to gather information to support OPV decision-making on proposals for President’s engagements, and in so doing support timely responses to invitations/requests.

Organizational Competencies:

Level 1:

• Building relationships and partnerships - Builds and maintains effective working relationships
• Communicating and negotiating - Communicates effectively; creates understanding between self and others
• Demonstrating leadership - Personal leadership and attitude to change
• Focusing on clients - Focuses on clients
• Learning, sharing knowledge and innovating - Continuously seeks to learn, shares knowledge & innovates
• Managing performance and developing staff -
• Managing time, resources and information - Manages own time, information and resources effectively
• Problem-solving and decision-making - Demonstrates sound problem-solving and decision-making ability
• Strategic thinking and organizational development - Personal influence
• Team working - Contributes effectively to the team

Education:

• Level - High school diploma 
• Areas - Social Studies, Math, English language arts, Economics

Experience:

• At least two (2) years of progressively responsible administrative and/or programme experience.
• Position-specific experience:  Experience in general office and/or clerical experience is highly desirable.

Languages:

• Required English (4 – Excellent) 
• Desirable: French, Spanish, or Arabic (3 – Good) 

Skills:

• Logistics management: Know-how in logistics support specific to position, such as Travel Management (including travel arrangements, visa administration, etc.), Event organization (e.g. organization of conferences, (virtual) meetings, retreats, trainings), etc.
• Procedure adherence: Ability to strictly adhere to established, formal guidelines, including in new situations
• Record management: Know-how in record keeping (e.g. proper handling of records and systems to preserve institutional memory, including correspondence logs, office filing and reference systems, etc.)
• Topical expertise - Administration: Expertise relevant to the specific role (e.g. For ethics office assistant, procedures outlined in the Code of Conduct, Discipline and Anti-harassment provisions of applicable rules and guidelines)
• Time management: Adherence to deadlines under time constraints and pressure (e.g. to deliver governing body documents on time); ability to coordinate and manage complex workflows and in-house and external teams
• Basic ICT & digital fluency: High level of digital literacy and ability to quickly get familiar with new digital tools (e.g. ability to carry out EPR data entry and extraction when budgeting; monitoring security systems, uploading content to inter/intra-net websites, etc.)
• Client orientation: Strong critical thinking combined with communication skills to liaise between the business and technologies to understand business problems and needs, document requirements and identify solutions
• Initiative and good judgment: High sense of proactive initiative-taking and good judgement (including on security matters)
• Interpersonal skills: Ability to deal patiently and tactfully with others (e.g. visitors, clients, callers, etc.), including senior individuals (e.g. high-level meeting participants).
• Problem solving: Strong systemic and structured thinking, ability to identify and dissect problems into components and formulate a comprehensive set of creative viable and sustainable solutions and strategies.

IFAD staff members are international civil servants subject to the authority of the President of IFAD. In accordance with IFAD's Human Resources Policy, the President can decide to assign them to any of the activities of the Fund. All International Professional staff members are required to be geographically mobile and positions in the professional category are subject to changes in location at any time in line with strategic priorities and reform initiatives in IFAD.

IFAD is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of ethnic, social or political background, colour, nationality, religion, age, gender, disability, marital status, family size or sexual orientation.

Please be aware of fraudulent job offers. IFAD does not charge any fees at any stage of the recruitment process. Official communication from IFAD will always come from e-mails ending in @ifad.org.

In the interest of making most cost-effective use of funds and resources, we are only able to respond to applicants who are short-listed for interview. Candidates who do not receive any feedback within three months should consider their application unsuccessful.

Applicants for National positions at General Service level must be legally authorized to live and work in the country of recruitment at the time of application. Any job offer is subject to evidence from the candidate to have obtained and be able to maintain the legal status to live and work in the country of recruitment