This Call for Interest is for a Temporary Professional Officer (TPO) position, which is a short-term contract. The appointment of a short-term staff member carries no expectation of continuous employment or conversion to any other type of appointment with IFAD. The intital duration of the assignment is 14 months.
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 Financial Operations Department (FOD) is a dynamic financial, strategic and responsive business partner and service provider fully supporting IFAD in developing its financial strategy and managing its financial, investments and material resources. FOD ensures that these resources are efficiently, economically and effectively used to achieve IFAD’s objectives in the long-term and deliver on its development commitments. The Financial Operations Department is composed of the following three divisions: (a) Financial Controller's Division (FCD), (b) Financial Management Services Division (FMD) and (c) Treasury Services Division (TRE).
The Treasury Services Division (TRE) mandate is to safeguard IFAD’s resources through liquidity planning, borrowing, management of investments and cash operations with the aim to preserve capital and maximize returns within the provisions of IFAD’s Financial Regulations; formulate and implement investment and cash operations strategies and policies; ensure prompt availability of cash for IFAD operations through prudent liquidity and borrowing planning; oversee the integrity of the Fund’s daily investment and cash operations in line with corporate risk management standards and manage the investments and cash of extra budgetary funds, hosted entities and trust funds; as well as manage IFAD’s borrowing programme.
Position specific:
Within the Division, the Financial Planning Modelling and Middle-Office (FPM) team formulates strategies and policies for the optimization of the use of internal and external resources to finance IFAD's operations, monitor the Fund's liquid assets, the level of overall financial resources against liquidity requirements, implement and monitor ALM policy and provide investment portfolio analytics. The incumbent will be committed to the delivery of assigned objectives and activities and keep abreast of related industry developments and skills required to respond to the divisional work plan and results.
The incumbent works under the overall strategic, policy and management guidance of the Director and Treasurer, TRE, and the direct supervision of a Senior Treasury Officer.
The incumbent is a seasoned professionals reflecting an in-depth, broad understanding of applicable regulations, standards, and methods as well as IFAD’s financial regulations, rules, and transactional procedures in one or more financial occupations including accounting, budget, loans and grants, public financial management and/or treasury.
1.FINANCE BUSINESS PARTNER: The incumbent is a credible, trusted partner to the Department/Division/Unit where assigned. They support the Fund’s finance strategy and plans as well as models a commitment to financial integrity by acting as a responsive and constructive service provider with a focus on results. The incumbent provides seasoned verbal and written advice and guidance to supervisors and staff on finance regulations, rules, and procedures, facilitating a mutual understanding of roles and fiduciary accountabilities in direct support of integrity in the management of the Fund’s financial resources.
2. FINANCE MANAGEMENT: The incumbent is a seasoned professional with the capacity to interpret and apply a broad range of international and IFAD financial policies, rules, and regulations as well as standards and techniques, and with knowledge of pillars of financial market drivers and financial risks. Activities performed by the incumbent at this level may include (a) maintaining the financial procedures relating to the assigned operation; (b) preparing information for internal financial reporting and for IFAD's Annual Financial Statements, and to IFAD governing bodies as applicable; and (c) preparing timely, substantive replies to internal and external audit observations concerning the assigned financial operation.
3. AGENT OF CHANGE: The incumbent understands and applies the principles of change management and proactively serves as a role model for transformation and capacity for acceptance of change. They use a seasoned knowledge of results-based management and budgeting, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and other information technology to develop, analyze and promote acceptance of new methods of work and automated workflows. The incumbent manages change through consultations with finance colleagues and outreach to internal and external stakeholders to build understanding of and to ensure open and regular communications pertaining to current and planned changes in the Fund’s financial standards, regulations, and rules.
4. MANAGERIAL FUNCTIONS: The incumbent is accountable for integrity, transparency, and equity in the personal use of assigned IFAD resources, including equipment, supplies and, as applicable, staff or consultants supervised.
Position specifics:
5. FINANCIAL PLANING MODELING: The Finance Specialist (FPM) is responsible for the development of financial policies and frameworks, financial models, treasury systems and middle office. Through simulations and enhancement of financial models, they build simulations on a range of scenarios reflecting IFAD's current and future resources and financial positions, analyse results and identify key inputs for information on resource mobilization priorities/ opportunities, and the Fund's financial sustainability. The incumbent administers Treasury systems, provide investment portfolio analytics and reporting liaising with external counterparts and internally with IM unit. They implement ALM methodologies. They produce reporting periodically on all output of the functions above for TRE and FOD management, Risk Management, and internal committees.
More specifically, the incumbent is accountable for making short and long-term financial/resource projections; managing and enhancing IFAD's financial model; analyzing and recommending the minimum liquidity requirement; determining the resources available for commitment based on a sustainable cash flow approach; originating governing body and other official documents; interaction with external institutions which may assess IFAD's credit standing.
Core functions for this position include but are not limited to:
Build simulations for a range of scenarios to reflect IFAD's current and future resources and financial positions. Analyse results of simulations and identify key inputs for information on resource mobilization priorities/opportunities. Analyse trends in financial data to assess relevance for existing models and recommend changes to underlying assumptions to promote alignment with IFAD current and future operating environments. Update financial model projections quarterly for base case reporting - semi-annually with IFAD balance sheet and income statements. As administrator of the current financial model, support the development of new functionalities, including the integration of relevant internal and external financial information sources, through APIs if required. Manage independently the whole cycle of financial scenario production, including periodic data feed, adjustment of assumptions, analysis of the output, reasonability assessment, and production of reporting. Establish and maintain contacts with internal departments and divisions involved in any step of the modelling process, including internal/external model validation if and when required.The incumbent is accountable for in¿depth analysis of a variety of financial reports that reflect transactions where many different consecutive stages of operations are involved; problems involve interrelationships and interactions within the financial structure and her/his role is to ensure that the Organization's financial business conforms to regulations. Based on a thorough knowledge of finance principles, concepts and systems, the incumbent independently performs the full range of work for a complete, homogenous financial operation or components of financial operations in support of a geographic or other organizational area. The supervisor may be consulted in the analysis of complex and/or precedent setting cases to ensure consistency in the interpretation and application of regulations and rules and to document such decisions. The work typically requires the identification of the need for changes to finance policies, as well as the authoritative interpretation and application of finance policies, rules and regulations to a broad range of complex casework. The key performance indicators for the incumbent include accurate performance of assigned finance operations, technical quality in terms of both substantive depth and adaptive relevance to client needs and customer service approach to problem resolution.
Position specific:
Produce quarterly base-case reports, starting with Q/2 report. Support the equity-raising activities of the Fund with ad hoc scenarios testing different levels of donor’s contributions and leverage and financially sustainable operations. Support the production of the annual report on status of IFAD resources available for commitment.The incumbent may represent the unit to which assigned on related matters at internal and external meetings and conferences as requested by the supervisor. Internally the incumbent is required to explain, clarify and implement financial plans and decisions taken or procedural changes planned to ensure accuracy, completeness and integrity of financial data and reporting. They collaborate with Senior Treasury Officers to provide their feedback on the policies and procedures improvement process. Contacts are with finance, budget, loans and grants, treasury, audit, risk management, legal and programme management staff in country offices and Headquarters. External work relationships for the incumbent normally require an exchange of information with a range of outside sources including banking counternparts, peers from other Multilateral Development Institutions, external advisors and financial service providers, lenders and investors.
Organizational Competencies - Level 1
Education:
Level - Advanced university degree from an accredited institution in a technically relevant area. A specialized professional certification listed below, in combination with a relevant first level university degree, may be accepted in lieu of an advanced level university degree. Degree must be an accredited institution listed on https://www.whed.net/home.php . Areas - economics, finance or other job related field.Certifications:
Professional qualifications, for example Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), or programming languages such as SQL are an advantage.Work experience:
At least five (5) years of progressively relevant professional experience in a similar position in finance or treasury departments with focus on financial projections, cash-flow modelling, use of forecast models for the management of liquidity, balance sheet and income statement projections. Three (3) years preferably in an international financial institution, or another multi-lateral organization or a national development financial institution.Languages:
Required English (4 – Excellent) Desirable: French, Spanish, or ArabicSkills:
Job role specific
Position specific:
Financial process management, Know-how in the management of financial processes such as reporting, treasury, investment processes and securities trading, cash management processes, etc.; Digital Finance, FinTech and related, Know-how in FinTech applications, robotic process automation, block chain and digital finance applications to design, setup, implement and report; Financial reporting & accounting, Know-how in financial reporting, statutory and other reporting as well as advanced application of IFRS standards, derivatives, loan credit risk, financial regulations, policies, rules, and procedures applicable to IFAD and IFIs; Financial data integrity and financial systems, know-how in systems interface control, core banking system management, data mining and analytics; Capital market instruments, Knowledge of capital markets instruments (fixed income, derivatives, loans), risk and performance metrics and quantitative tools of fixed income valuation (cash flow, present value, interest rate risk, duration, etc.); Data analysis/architecture, Know-how in the analysis and interpretation of data needs and sources considering its operational context, using systems and models to disseminate ensuring integrity, availability to meet reporting and business analytics needs.A Temporary Professional Officer (TPO) is a short-term staff member. The appointment of a short-term staff member carries no expectation of continuous employment or conversion to any other type of appointment with IFAD. The intial duration of the assignment is 14 months.
In general, an appointment of a short-term staff member may be renewed upon mutual agreement and satisfactory performance, provided however that short-term appointments granted by the same Division/unit shall not exceed 18 cumulative months (including extensions). In no case the total duration of short term appointments shall exceed 36 cumulative months (including extensions). Once the short-term staff member has completed the cumulative 36-month limit, that staff member may not be re-employed by the Fund on a short-term appointment.
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
Candidates may be required to participate in interviews.
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.
This vacancy is archived.