Individual Contractor - Operations & Team Assistant, Free Town, Sierra Leone, Hosted Funds, EOF, 11.5 Months, Req: 557582

Freetown

Organization: UNICEF - United Nations Children’s Fund
Location: Freetown
Grade: Administrative support - Administrative Services and Support - Generally no need for Higher Education
Occupational Groups:
- Operations and Administrations
- Administrative support
Closing Date: Closed

EOF is seeking to recruit an Operations & Team Assistant to be a part of EOF´s Sierra Leone Team and play a vital role in supporting the delivery of EOF’s first programme, the Sierra Leone Education Innovation Challenge (SLEIC). As the Operations & Team Assistant, you will support EOF's Sierra Leone team in the fulfilment of its programmatic and operational responsibilities. You will report directly to a member of the operations team and collaborate with all members of EOF’s Sierra Leone team and EOF’s central team.

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, Education

How can you make a difference?

BACKGROUND ON EOF

There are few greater challenges faced by the global community than the twin crises of learning poverty and youth unemployment. In response, the Education Commission (chaired by Gordon Brown, former UK Prime Minister and UN Special Envoy for Global Education) and the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment (chaired by Sir Ronald Cohen) came together to create EOF. We aim to improve the education and employment outcomes of 10 million children and youth by supporting governments to utilize a range of innovative finance instruments at scale, including outcomes funds and other results-based financing (RBF) instruments.

EOF supports improvements in the quality of education and skills programs, with a special focus on underserved populations, including the hardest to reach, rural populations, girls, children with disabilities, and refugees. It measures (and pays for) what matters – both core skills like literacy and numeracy, but also critical 21st Century skills such as socio-emotional skills, ICT skills, and other broader fundamentals of a quality education. It helps close the persistent gap between the skills needed by employers and those attained by today’s youth by paying for employment and retention outcomes.

For all the above, EOF pays primarily on the basis of the results achieved, ensuring that taxpayer-funded domestic resources, aid, and philanthropic funds are only used to pay for what works. This is a game-changing way to finance results in education. It is more than just a fund – it is a powerful new set of partnerships and way of working.

Together with our supporters, we believe this is the early stages of a much larger movement. Our approach is at the cutting edge of development finance, shifting risk to the private sector, crowding in private capital, and harnessing the capacity and capability of non-state actors, with huge potential to achieve better outcomes for children and youth around the world.

RATIONALE FOR THE CONSULTANCY

PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The SLEIC programme is a partnership between the Government of Sierra Leone, outcome funders, education delivery partners and social investors. Five different delivery partners have been selected to support 325 schools across five implementation lots to improve learning outcomes for 136,000 children in partnership with school leadership and teachers in accordance with the Basic Education curriculum.

The program will run for nine school terms, starting September 2022 and ending in August 2025. The aim is to generate evidence to inform which interventions are the most effective in Sierra Leone context, which can then be scaled up by Government and donors. Using a result-based financing approach, service providers are expected to build sustainable capacity in schools, targeting interventions that improve learning beyond the life of the programme.

As the Operations & Team Assistant, you will support EOF's Sierra Leone team in the fulfilment of its programmatic and operational responsibilities. You will report directly to a member of the operations team and collaborate with all members of EOF’s Sierra Leone team and EOF’s central team.

TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

DESCRIPTION OF ASSIGNMENT (TASKS):

TASK	END PRODUCTS/DELIVERABLES	DURATION/DEADLINE
Service provider budget monitoring and verification • Check quarterly financial reports submitted by service providers during year 1 of the programme • Verify documents submitted by providers to account for expenses included in their expenses quarterly report • Support with planning and conducting of in-person spot checks on expenses and support documentation of service providers • Support with the development of the Costs Report	• Quarterly summary reports of service provider expenses • Contact reports of site visits • Costs Report after year 1 of the programme’s implementation	Ongoing
Financial Management and Administration • Support internal finance processes for the team, which includes collecting invoices, filling documents, certifying and submitting payment requests to EOF Operations central team • Support in the organization of activities, which may include coordination and liaising with service providers, donors, the Government and other stakeholders • Provide travel assistance to members of EOF´s Sierra Leone Team including travel arrangements and entitlements following organization’s rules and policies; monitoring travel certification and reporting. • Assist in the drafting of regular reports needed from EOF´s Sierra Leone Team for EOF’s central team • If further recruitment is required for EOF’s Sierra Leone Team, draft vacancy announcements, ensure the timely and efficient screening of applications for minimum eligibility, and liaise with candidates in various stages of the process	• Documented internal finance processes, and invoices saved centrally • Travel processes documented and records saved centrally • Quarterly reports for EOF’s central team • Recruitment vacancy announcement and records of process followed	Ongoing
Administrative support • Support local procurement for EOF Sierra Leone team, including market research • Support local office and assets management • Support EOF’s Sierra Leone team to keep up-to-date the programme operational risk register, according to EOF’s policies	• Documented procurement activities, in line with UNICEF policy • Centrally maintained asset register • Updated risk register for the Sierra Leone team	Ongoing
Supporting EOF´s Sierra Leone team overall work • Support in the preparation of first drafts of documents including reports to EOF´s central team and donors • Assisting in the preparation of the materials for governance meetings • Supporting in the maintenance and update on the online platform that will be used by providers to provide reports for learning purposes • Collaborating in overseeing that the reports submitted by service providers for learning purposes (and which will be collected through an online data platform) are accurate and according to the programme's needs	• Draft documents for EOF’s central team and donors, as required • Preparation materials for governance meetings for EOF’s Sierra Leone programme • Guidance for service providers for the online platform	Ongoing

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

A minimum of a Bachelor’s degree in business, economics, political science, finance, education, or a related field.
Strong academic credentials – distinction grade average or above.
A minimum of two years of relevant professional experience in program delivery, operations, accounting, financial services, administration or related fields.
Experience or an interest in international development, the global education sector, and international aid is desirable.
Fluency in English and Krio is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

General information

The Operations & Team Assistant will be based in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Travel is expected to Districts, which EOF will cover costs for.
We are aiming for the successful candidate to join the team late January / early February 2023, or earlier depending on their notice period.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.

This vacancy is now closed.
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