Budget and Finance Specialist

Details

Mission and objectives

Achieving food security for all is at the heart of FAO’s efforts – to make sure people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. Our mandate is to improve nutrition, increase agricultural productivity, raise the standard of living in rural populations and contribute to global economic growth. To meet the demands posed by major global trends in agricultural development and challenges faced by member nations, FAO has identified key priorities on which it is best placed to intervene. A comprehensive review of the Organization’s comparative advantages was undertaken which enabled strategic objectives to be set, representing the main areas of work on which FAO will concentrate its efforts in striving to achieve its vision and global goals. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is an intergovernmental Organization with more than 190 member countries. Since its inception, FAO has worked to alleviate poverty and hunger by promoting agricultural development, improved nutrition and the pursuit of food security - defined as the access of all people at all times to the food they need for an active and healthy life. To achieve its goals, FAO cooperates with thousands of partners worldwide, from farmers’ group to traders, from non-governmental organizations to other UN agencies, from development banks to agribusiness firms (further and more detailed information on FAO can be found on the internet site: http://www.fao.org).

Context

FAO’s work in West Bank and Gaza Strip is guided by its Country Programming Framework for Palestine (CPF). The overall objective of the CPF is to contribute to the wellbeing of Palestinians – making the agrifood system more inclusive, sustainable and resilient. To this effect, the CPF adopts a nexus approach to bridge humanitarian and development interventions, recognizing the centrality of environmental sustainability and market led development and their dependence on the enabling environment put in place by the public sector policies and investment priorities. More specifically, the CPF sets out four priority areas for FAO partnership with the Palestinian Government for the period 2018-2022 in alignment with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as follows: Priority 1: Sustainably managed natural resources in the agrifood value chains. Priority 2: Increased competitiveness of the agrifood value chains. Priority 3: Enhanced protection and inclusion of highly vulnerable groups in agrifood value chains. Priority 4: Improved safety, quality, nutritional value and sustainability of food consumption. The assignment is envisaged to support the Operations Unit in budget preparations and finance management.

Task description

Under direct supervision of Operations Specialist, the UN Volunteer will perform the following tasks: Budget preparation • Prepare cost estimates and budget proposals, in terms of office resource requirements such as staff and non-staff requirements, including programmatic aspects, reviews, analyses and revises data with respect to the finalization of the budget proposals. • Provide support to the operations unit with respect to the elaboration of resource requirements for budget submissions. • Monitor extra-budgetary resources, including review of agreements and cost plans, ensuring compliance with regulations and rules and established policies and procedures. • Monitor budget implementation and determine /recommend reallocation of funds when necessary. • Monitor expenditures to ensure that they remain within authorized/approved levels. • Prepare relevant documentation with respect to budget performance submissions. • Review and make appropriate recommendations with respect to the finalization of budget performance reports, analyzing variances between approved budgets and actual expenditures. • Contributes to the collection and analysis of data as well as identification of trends or patterns and provides draft insights through graphs, charts, tables and reports using data visualization methods for data-driven planning, decision-making, presentation and reporting. • Monitor income generated to ensure that funds are fully utilized within the authorized period. Financial management • Monitor the preparation of project documents and their subsequent revisions. • Ensure that proposals are in line with funding agreements and donor requirements. • Review draft agreements with donors or UN organizations before administration clearance. • Coordinate and check financial reports as well as progress reports. Perform other duties as required.