IPSAS Specialist At UNOPS

Background Information – Job-specific

UNOPS – an operational arm of the United Nations – supports the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by successfully implementing its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian, and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve peace and sustainable development.

UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management, and human resources.

Working with us

We are proud of our people. With a wealth of knowledge and skills in various disciplines – engineering, finance, human resources, ICT, leadership, project management, procurement, and more – they help tackle some of the biggest challenges of our time. Their work around the world supports progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

At UNOPS, we offer a range of short- and long-term opportunities in various environments and duty stations – from Denmark and Kenya to Mexico, Switzerland, Myanmar, Senegal, Uganda, and many more.

Diversity

With over 5,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,400 personnel recruited on behalf of our partners, spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced and diverse labor force — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs. We continually strive to maintain our gender-balanced workplace. We encourage qualified underrepresented groups as per UNOPS Gender, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy to apply for our vacancies.

Work life harmonization

UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.

UNOPS mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.

UNOPS provides its partners with advisory, implementation and transactional services, with projects ranging from building schools and hospitals, to procuring goods and services and training local personnel. UNOPS works closely with governments and communities to ensure increased economic, social and environmental sustainability for the projects we support, with a focus on developing national capacity.

UNOPS vision is a world where people can live full lives supported by appropriate, sustainable and resilient infrastructure, and by the efficient and transparent use of public resources in procurement and project management.

With over 8,000 personnel spread across 80 countries, UNOPS offers its partners the logistical, technical and management knowledge they need, where they need it. By implementing around 1,000 projects for our partners at any given time, UNOPS makes significant contributions to results on the ground, often in the most challenging environments.

The Finance Group (FG) is a critical and strategic business function in UNOPS and serves as an authoritative and integrated partner in the organization on strategic financial planning and budgeting, financial policy, practices, analysis, management services and reporting, organisational treasury and investments. As the steward of resources of a self-financing UN entity, FG is accountable for processes to ensure timely cost recovery and reporting to partners, maintaining the integrity and transparency of financial management of resources in accordance with the highest standards of ethics and organisational/international accountability framework and the accurate and transparent financial reporting to governing bodies, clients, partners and stakeholders.

The IPSAS Specialist reports to the Head of Financial Statements and UNBOA Relations who provides broad supervision and guidance. The IPSAS Specialist is responsible for efficient financial reporting and the provision of accurate, thoroughly researched and documented financial policies compliant to accounting standards and support for preparation of the financial statement. He/she analyzes and interprets the financial rules and regulations and the applicable accounting standards (IPSAS) and provides solutions to a wide spectrum of complex financial issues including financial investments.

Functional Responsibilities

1. POLICY IMPLEMENTATIONS AND COMPLIANCE

• Maintain and develop IPSAS compliant accounting guidance and financial procedures
• Develop and maintain financial reporting standards compliant to IPSAS standards
• Support development of IPSAS compliant financial statements and management reports
• Implement and operationalize new IPSAS standards and updates made to current standards and collaborate with related business process owners and IT Group for implementation of necessary measures
• Analyze IPSAS exposure drafts and published standards, assess impact on business processes and ERP systems, recommend appropriate course of action
• Coordinate comments on exposure drafts and other papers issued by IPSASB
• Review existing and new business processes for compliance to IPSAS and coordinate with process owners for necessary improvements
• Reviews new business processes for compliance to IPSAS and advise necessary recommendations to the relevant business policy owners for necessary recommendations
• Actively monitor and implement changes in accounting standards and regulatory requirements and offers good change management practices when required
• Liaise with external auditors on audit queries related to accounting and reporting and compliance to accounting standards and UNOPS Financial Rules and Regulations

  2. FINANCIAL INVESTMENTS AND OVERSIGHT

• Update and maintain policy documents on financial reporting and recording of corporate financial investments
• Exercise periodic monitoring over transactions and account balances to ensure recording and reporting in accordance with UNOPS Financial Rules and Regulations and IPSAS policies on financial instruments and other applicable Organizational Directives and Operational Instructions.
• Review and assess agreements for financial instruments and equity deals and devise accounting treatments in compliance to IPSAS and UNOPS Financial Rules and Regulations
• Provide specialist support in establishing necessary processes for derivatives valuations, hedge accounting and application of impairment models
• Take a proactive approach in identifying issues related to data quality and liaise with related parties in the organization to ensure timely and necessary corrections.
• Maintain a log of issues identified, analyze data and draw a holistic action plan to improve processes and establish necessary controls based on lessons learned.
• Contribute to developing and maintaining a strong control environment around financial reporting and the integrity of data used for preparation of corporate financial statements

3. CAPACITY BUILDING / SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT

• Develop training materials and guidance on relevant IPSAS standards
• Conduct, webex and virtual trainings to relevant personnel and business community
• Develop IPSAS awareness informative contents for internal communication
• Support business process owners in the development of training materials through a review of the contents for technical IPSAS accuracy for topics assigned
• Collaborate and communicate with UNOPS departments in HQ and field on regular basis

Education/Experience/Language requirements

Education:

• A Master’s Degree or equivalent in Finance, Accounting, Financial Management or a related field is required.
• A first-level university degree (Bachelor’s or equivalent) in combination with additional 2 years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of a Master’s degree.
• Professional certification in accounting (CA, CPA, ACCA, ACA, etc.) or equivalent is required

Experience:

• Minimum 5 years of relevant working experience within an international environment in the areas of financial reporting, audit and accounting
• A thorough knowledge of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) or International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is required.
• Experience in areas of Financial Instruments and specialized knowledge in financial instruments (IPSAS 41, IFRS 9) and their practical application is considered as a strong asset
• Excellent computer skills and ability to use software tools to present data clearly and concisely is highly desirable.
• Demonstrated experience in interpretation of international accounting standards and preparation of financial statements is required.

Language Requirements

• Full working knowledge of English.
• Knowledge of another official UN language is an asset.

Contract type, level and duration

Contract type: ICA
Contract level: IICA 2
Contract duration: Ongoing, subject to organizational requirements, availability of funds and satisfactory performance.

For more details about the ICA contractual modality, please follow this link:
https://www.unops.org/english/Opportunities/job-opportunities/what-we-offer/Pages/Individual-Contractor-Agreements.aspx

Additional Information

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• Work life harmonization – UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. This policy applies to UNOPS personnel on all contract types
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns.
Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.