Project Finance Analyst (Multi-Country Western Pacific Programme)

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UNDP contributes to public health and development partnerships through collaborations with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (the ‘Global Fund’), Roll Back Malaria, Stop TB Partnerships, and special programmes on human reproduction and infectious diseases that disproportionately affect poor populations.  As part of its wider engagement with the United Nations, the Global Fund has partnered with UNDP since 2003 to ensure that grants are implemented, and services are delivered in countries facing complex challenges. The partnership focuses on three closely linked areas of work: implementation support, capacity development, and policy engagement.

For implementation support UNDP serves as an interim Principal Recipient (PR) (currently in 25 countries) in a variety of settings including countries that face capacity constraints, complex emergencies, poor governance environments, political upheaval, or donor sanctions. It does so upon request by the Global Fund and/or the Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) and when no national entity is able to assume the role at the time. UNDP’s role as PR is an interim arrangement until national entities can assume full responsibility for implementation and the capacity of national partners (Government and CSOs) is also strengthened to ensure long-term sustainability of health outcomes.
The Pacific Islands Regional Multi-Country Coordinating Mechanism (PIRMCCM) has entrusted the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to serve as the Principal Recipient for GC7 grant cycle from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund). The three-year (2024- 2026) grant cycle aims to strengthen national responses to HIV and tuberculosis (TB) in the Western Pacific region.
The Multi-Country Western Pacific Integrated HIV/TB Programme supports national and regional efforts across 12 Pacific islands countries (PICs): Cook Islands, Fiji, Federal State of Micronesia, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu to scale up and improve the delivery of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and tuberculosis (TB) prevention, treatment, care and support services, with special attention to key and vulnerable population groups, and to mitigate against the emerging emergency health risks.

The programme objective is to:

• Strengthen comprehensiveness and quality of HIV prevention, treatment and care service-delivery models with a view to programmatic sustainability.
• Provide early rapid and quality diagnosis of TB, DR-TB and comorbidities with specific focus on hard to reach, vulnerable groups across 12 Pacific Island countries.
• Sustain high quality treatment for all forms of TB including drug-resistant TB and HIV-related TB with patient support; and 4) build up the resilience of healthcare systems, including community systems, to deliver integrated people-centered models of HIV and TB care.

 Duties and Responsibilities

The Project Finance Analyst will report to the Programme Manager. The Project Finance Analyst supervises and leads support staff of the Finance Unit.

Under the guidance and direct supervision of the Programme Manager, the Project Finance Analyst supervises and leads support staff of the Finance Unit and ensures strong coordination with programme and procurement staff of the PMU for the effective management of the programme budgets.

The Project Finance Analyst works in close collaboration with the Sub-Recipients (SRs) of the Global Fund project, the Country Office Operations unit, and project teams in the Country Office in ensuring successful implementation and oversight of GF programme resources and Country Office performance in finance. In addition, the Project Finance Analyst will play the lead role in the capacity development of the financial management systems of the national counterparts for the transition of the programmes. This will be done in accordance with UNDP rules, policies and procedures, the grant agreements and corporate agreements with the GF, and working in partnership with national stakeholders, and close coordination with the GF (including Local Fund Agent - LFA), CCM, technical partners and UN entities, and the GF/HIST.

Summary of Functions:

• Ensures effective and accurate financial resources management and oversight
• Ensures implementation of operational strategies and procedures
• Manages the programme budgets and ensures proper control of programme accounts
• Ensures close monitoring of the Sub-Recipients and other implementing partners
• Ensures facilitation of knowledge building and sharing
• Any other duty(s) assigned by the Programme Manager

The detailed scope of work for the Project Finance Analyst is outlined below:

Ensures effective and accurate financial resources management and oversight, focusing on achievement of the following results:

• Leads on financial analysis and oversight for all resources managed by the Global Fund programmes and provision of high-quality technical financial advice to the Programme Manager and other PMU staff members and Country Office senior management.
• Ensures proper planning, expenditure tracking of financial resources in accordance with UNDP rules and regulations, policies and procedures, grant agreements and corporate agreements with the Fund and Global Fund financial management rules.
• Maintains robust internal financial management controls over all financial processes.
• Maintains adequate financial management arrangements including reviews and reconciliations, to support the deployment of grant resources in an economic, efficient and effective manner to achieve the desired objectives, ensuring expenditures incurred are reasonable and allowable against budgetary allocations and that inappropriate payments and non-compliant expenditures are prevented;
• Ensures an efficient financial flow process is developed and implemented and amended to reflect the programme financial management requirements which are guided by risk assessments;
• Establishes and maintains a reporting system for internal and Global Fund needs, including Sub-Recipients, contractors, service providers, and technical assistance providers;
• Ensures an effective information flow between finance and non-finance actors (Country Co-ordinating Mechanism (CCM), Global Fund, Local Fund Agent and Sub-Recipients) in order to effectively link the programmatic results to expenditures, as required by Global Fund;
• Develops and maintains an organizational structure for the Finance Unit, and leads on the recruitment of staff, fostering diversity, equity and inclusion and builds the technical, management and leadership capacity of staff for promotion of organizational excellence.
• Monitors the financial performance of supply management systems/procurement.
• Prepares cost estimates for different activities according to the needs of programme management;
• Develops, tracks and reports to management key financial performance indicators; and
• Maintains a document management system for UNDP, including Sub-Recipients, contractors, service providers, and technical assistance providers records.

Ensures implementation of operational strategies and procedures, focusing on achievement of the following results:

• Establishes and/or ensures robust financial procedures: e.g. receipts, payments, disbursements and bookkeeping, filing procedures for the GF projects of Sub-Recipients;
• Ensures that financial procedures in place comply with the financial/accounting and procurement requirement of the Global Fund and UNDP;
• Performs a continuous analysis and monitoring of the financial situation, presentation of forecasts for the Global Fund programmes;
• Ensures the timely closure of programmes and compliance with Global Fund and UNDP rules, policies and procedures, including the transfer of assets;
• Ensures oversight for the transparency of the financial processes and use of funds and compliance with Global Fund and UNDP financial guidelines;
• Leads on the preparation of the donor reports, monthly Cash Flow and annual Cash Flow Forecasts, statement of sources and uses of funds in compliance with the Global Fund requirements;
• Leads on the preparation of other financial reports to be submitted to the LFA/Global Fund, acting as the Focal Point for financial management information for the LFA/Global Fund;
• Elaborates and implements cost savings and reduction strategies under the guidance of the Programme Manager;
• Under the guidance of the Programme Manager facilitates audits and investigations by the Office of Audit and Investigations and audits of Sub-Recipient(s)) and by the Office of Inspector General in line with corporate agreements with the Global Fund and UNDP rules and regulations and policies and procedures and ensures timely implementation of audit recommendations and findings as they relate to financial, asset and Sub-Recipient management;
• Routinely monitors financial exception reports for unusual activities, transactions, and investigates anomalies or unusual transaction and informs supervisors of the results of the investigation when satisfactory answers are not obtained; and
• Leads on preparing timely and quality monthly cash flow forecasts for use by the Programme Manager in liaison with other Implementing Partners.

Manages the programme budgets and ensures proper control of programme accounts focusing on achievement of the following results:

• Leads on managing financial resources through planning, guiding, monitoring, and controlling of the resources in accordance with UNDP rules and regulations;
• Prepares and monitors programme budgets in Quantum  and ensures that the budget in Hyperion Planning and Budgeting Cloud system is in line with the approved detailed budget;
• Elaborates proper mechanisms to eliminate deficiencies in budget management;
• Ensures that contributions from the Global Fund are properly transferred to UNDP on a timely basis;
• Leads on ensuring compliance with the internal expenditures control system, which ensures that vouchers processed are matched and completed, transactions are correctly recorded and posted in Atlas;
• Leads on arranging quarterly financial management review meetings with Sub-Recipients in coordination with other PMU staff across functional areas (programme, PSM, M&E);
• Ensures timely corrective actions on unposted vouchers, including the vouchers with budget check errors, match exceptions, unapproved vouchers and ensures timely responses to HQ requests to resolve financial data issues.

Ensures close monitoring of the Sub-Recipients and other implementing partners focusing on achievement of the following results:

• Assesses financial management capacities of Sub-Recipients and develops an action plan to close identified gaps;
• Provides guidance and capacity building of Federal Ministry of Health, partners, and Sub-Recipients on issues of financial and asset management – from contracting and banking issues to budgeting, accounting and reporting;
• Ensures advance payments and direct payments for Sub-Recipients vendors are properly; reviewed, processed, and retired, as well as ensuring that payment information is properly recorded into the Atlas system on a timely basis;
• Harmonizes reporting and accounting practices of Sub-Recipients, including budgeting and key financial performance indicators;
• Plans and ensures the Finance Unit team undertakes verifications of Sub-Recipients’ expenditures, and promptly follows up on non-compliant expenditures;
• Ensures coordination with the Sub-Recipients’ auditors to finalize the reports to ensure the final audit reports comply with the approved Sub-Recipients Terms of Reference, and follows up in a timely manner to ensure finance related audit recommendations are properly addressed; and
• Ensure continuous support for the financial managers of SR organizations.

Ensures facilitation of knowledge building and sharing focusing on achievement of the following results:

• Leads on the development of training plan/curriculums for the Sub-Recipients financial and accounting staff and conducts regular trainings on GF performance-based funding and financial reporting requirements management system;
• Organizes training for the PMU on financial management and oversight;
• Actively participates in UNDP and other relevant external networks to promote the programmes and represents UNDP in relevant technical meetings and working groups at country, regional and global level and gathers lessons learnt to apply to the programmes;
• Identifies and supports development of communications (print, video) highlighting key financial management achievements, best practices, and lessons learnt and contributes to information sharing with the Ministry of Health, Sub-Recipients, UN entities, financial and technical partners, the GF and the CCM.

The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization

• Achieve Results: LEVEL 2: Scale up solutions and simplifies processes, balances speed and accuracy in doing work
• Think Innovatively: LEVEL 2: Offer new ideas/open to new approaches, demonstrate systemic/integrated thinking
• Learn Continuously: LEVEL 2: Go outside comfort zone, learn from others and support their learning
• Adapt with Agility:  LEVEL 2: Adapt processes/approaches to new situations, involve others in change process
• Act with Determination: LEVEL 2: Able to persevere and deal with multiple sources of pressure simultaneously
• Engage and Partner: LEVEL 2: Is facilitator/integrator, bring people together, build/maintain coalitions/partnerships
• Enable Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 2: Facilitate conversations to bridge differences, considers in decision making  

People Management competencies: 

• UNDP People Management Competencies can be found in the dedicated site.

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies:

Business Direction and Strategy    

• System Thinking. Ability to conduct problem analysis and judgemnet to understand how interrelated elements coexist within an overall process or system, and to consider how altering one element can impact on other parts of the system.

Finance     

• Budget management. Ability to support budgetary aspects of work planning process, drawing and management of team budgets 
• Financial planning and budgeting. Ability to create and manage processes to achieve UNDP's long and short-term financial goals, including through planning, budgeting, forecasting, analysing and reporting 
• Financial reporting and analysis. Understands changes in regulatory, legal and ethical frameworks and standards for financial reporting in the public sector. Ability to extract, evaluate financial data, derive relevant findings and present them in a meaningful and coherent manner to facilitate effective decision making and performance monitoring. Understands the benefits of integrated reporting, including non-financial resources such as human, social and intellectual capital, and environmental and governance performance 

Administration & Operations     

• Documents and records management. Overall document (hard or electronic) management; registry and retention policy including storing and archiving 
• Events management (including retreats, trainings and meetings). Ability to manage events, including venue identification, accommodation, logistics, catering, transportation, and cash disbursements, etc. 
• Travel contract management. Knowledge of policy and procedures related to contract management, incl. oversight of the Long Term Agreement (LTA) with the Travel Management Services (TMS) provider; UN airline agreement management covering all major and rail providers; ability to negotiate airline discounts 
   

• The position requires extensive travel to the 11 Pacific Islands Countries for which UNDP will cover the cost of travel of the individual to and from the duty station.