Grant Support and Implementing Partners Senior Analyst

General Background 

UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.

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

Working with us

UNOPS offers short- and long-term work opportunities in diverse and challenging environments across the globe. We are looking for creative, results-focused professionals with skills in a range of disciplines.

Diversity

With over 5,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,400 personnel recruited on behalf of UNOPS partners spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a wide range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced, diverse workforce — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs, and continually strive to improve our gender balance through initiatives and policies that encourage recruitment of qualified female candidates.

Work life harmonization

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

Background information - Implementation Practices and Standards (IPS) 

Within UNOPS, Implementation Practices and Standards (IPS) is responsible for the UNOPS delivery practices. IPS provides thought leadership, standards and oversight as support to the successful delivery of programmes and projects within UNOPS service lines (infrastructure, procurement, project management, human resources and financial management services). IPS is comprised of the Infrastructure and Project Management Group and the Procurement Group which aims to reduce organizational risks, improve project performance, and promote excellence across UNOPS projects through the Standards Management Framework; and provides organisational oversight on the application of standards. These Groups also support the positioning of UNOPS in the UN system and development sector in Infrastructure, Project Management and Procurement. IPSO also includes the Office of IPS (IPSO), that includes work streams on organizational excellence, knowledge management and the review of bid protests. As well as the Portfolio support unit, that aims at supporting the organisational readiness of UNOPS and provides support services to the Implementation Practices and Standards function.

Background information - IPMG

UNOPS strategic focus places increased emphasis on national capacity development and sustainable approaches to project management, procurement and infrastructure services. A key objective is to be recognized as an organization that delivers world-class infrastructure and project management, which is both economically and socially sustainable, even in the most challenging environments. To achieve this goal, UNOPS has established the Infrastructure and Project Management Group (IPMG). 

Within UNOPS, it is IPMG’s objective to serve the organization’s personnel and partners by broadening their infrastructure and project management capabilities, while disseminating best practices in both of these areas. Through this work, the group helps facilitate the successful delivery of programs and projects around the world.

To achieve its objectives, IPMG has established three interrelated and interdependent work streams, namely, Strategic Initiatives, Standards, and Engagement Assurance. IPMG is managed overall by the Deputy Director of IPMG.

The Standards team aims to reduce organizational risks, improve project performance, and promote excellence across UNOPS projects. It is achieved by having a fit for purpose infrastructure and project management standards framework in place, which notably includes the development and maintenance of grant support management standards, policy, template, guidance and tools.

Background information - Job specific

This position’s primary focus is on implementing partners and grant support management aspects. Grant Support is defined in UNOPS policies as “a UNOPS project activity, which is outside the framework of procurement activities, and is undertaken by way of grants, credits or loans carried out through an implementing partner."

UNOPS financial management services include managing grants/funding (including selecting implementing partners, monitoring and exercising due diligence), managing pooled funds and providing advice and oversight. UNOPS plays different roles in financial management services provision including executing small and large grant support programmes, selecting grantees through a range of various methodologies, disbursing and monitoring grants/funding in a variety of contexts, including peace and security, and ensuring funds are spent in a transparent and efficient manner, in line with partners' objectives; as well as building UNOPS implementing partners' capacity towards efficient and responsible use of grant funding. 

The Grant Support and implementing Partner(IP) Senior Analyst will be mainly responsible for supporting the Grant Support and IP Advisor in the grant support and implementing partners management framework co-ordination associated with the required policy, standards and guidance provision of expert inputs, as well as stakeholder management. The role will support the development and/or update of the grant support management policy, standards, template, guidance, process or tools and inter-agency coordination efforts. The role will be mainly responsible for identifying trends in the organisation with the different activities/initiatives, ensuring centralised monitoring and record keeping as relevant is maintained. 

UNOPS has recently revised its policy and is in the process of re-establishing grant support management framework related standards, processes, templates and guidance material to further develop and strengthen some aspects including capacity building of its implementing partners. UNOPS is also aspiring to streamline the processes and IT system use for the grant support and Implementing partners  management. Further, UNOPS is also engaging the UN inter-agency collaboration aspects relating to implementing partners, including the Partner Portal.

The Grant Support and Implementing Partners Senior Analyst will be responsible for supporting various tasks, work packages and projects in relation to the grant support framework as outlined and assigned in the annual work plan for IPS/IPMG. The Senior Analyst will support in co-ordination of the technical experts (specialists and advisors) who are engaged to in the delivery of the tasks/work packages associated with the grant support framework.

• Leading the coordination efforts across the organization (under the guidance of the Advisor) as required and providing technical input as relevant.

• Conducting research on grant support management aspects and best practices to inform policy, processes, tool systems and guidance material as requested.

• Support in the collection of data and provision of inputs as required to UNOPS annual reporting or audit on engagement and management of IP’s.

• Support in analyzing the risks and needs for corporate controls and oversight in the area of grant support management and fund management.

• Support in assessing the implementation performance and relevance of the policies and processes specific to grant support management.

• Coordinating with communication focal points and support in development of communication materials targeted to the UNOPS grant support management practitioners.

• Support in the development of the technical requirements of a new grant support management system, in consultation with relevant stakeholders and its rollout as required.

• Support in any efforts that might be required for the inter-agency representation by the Advisor.

• Support and the development of the content for corporate training activities in grant support management, in coordination with UNOPS regions as required.

• Organising and supporting the delivery of training to project teams on grant support management framework and community management / engagement, capacity assessment to strengthen the local capacity building efforts, along with the regions as required.

• Providing sound contributions to knowledge networks and communities of practice by synthesizing lessons learnt and disseminating best practices.

• Collecting feedback, ideas, and internal knowledge about processes and best practices and advocating to put them to use productively.

Monitoring and Progress Controls

• Responsible for meeting and setting goals, targets and performance standards; reporting on own progress against work plan.

• Responsible for supporting the timely delivery of products and work packages under the technical lead of the relevant IPS technical teams.

• Ongoing assessment of task completion, which meets quality expectations.

Education 

• An advanced university degree (Masters or equivalent) preferably in Development Studies, International Relations, Social Science, Business Administration, Finance, Public Administration, Accounting, Economics, Project Management, Community Management or in any relevant area is required.

• A university degree (Bachelor's degree level) with a combination of an extra 2 years of relevant professional experience preferably in Development Studies, International Relations, Social Science, Business Administration, Finance, Public Administration, Accounting, Project Management, Community Management may be accepted in lieu of an advanced university degree.

• Other advanced university degrees in combination with relevant professional experience and professional achievements may be considered.

Work Experience 

Required:

• A minimum of 2 years of progressively responsible experience in grant support management and/or management of Implementing Partners is required.

• A minimum of 1 year of experience with grant support management roles in the regional or headquarter level of a large and/or international organisation is required.

Desirable:

• Experience in policy/process/template/manual content development is desirable

• Previous work experience applied to grants with the UN system, international NGOs or International Donors is desirable.

• Experience and exposure to grant support in different contexts is desirable.

• Experience in implementing partner capacity assessment and capacity building is desirable.

• Knowledge and understanding of UNOPS Rules and regulations is an asset.

• Experience in multi-donor or multi-agency grants and projects is an asset.

• Certification in PRINCE2 Foundation is an asset.

• Knowledge of Google Workspace, preferably Google sheet, Google doc, Google slides and Google drive, is an asset.

Languages 

• Fluency in English required. 

• Fluency in French and/or Spanish is highly desired. 

• 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.

• Please attach a cover letter explaining your motivation for this position and describing how relevant your experience is. Applications without a cover letter may be disregarded.

• Qualified female candidates and candidates from the Global South 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.

• Recruitment in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.

• This recruitment process may be used to fill other vacancies including short-term placements and retainer contracts.

Work environment

IPS offers a unique work environment in UNOPS headquarters, in Copenhagen, Denmark, located in the UN City building, one of Copenhagen’s landmarks. UNOPS HQ offers a safe, family-friendly lifestyle environment with multiple opportunities for networking and active lifestyle, in a city known for its excellent urban design and planning.

The IPS team is a diverse team in terms of age, nationalities and family situations. IPS is keen on strengthening diversity in the team with a current focus on gender equality and geographic diversity. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. IPS is very dynamic and welcomes agility, autonomy and self-drive. The work of IPS is oriented towards exciting opportunities which have a corporate, global impact and is in touch with the whole of UNOPS. 

UNOPS has a hosting agreement with the Government of Denmark, and as such both national and international candidates are eligible for HQ-based positions. UNOPS officials are exempt from Danish taxes on UN incomes. EU citizens may opt to be registered with the Danish State Administration as EU migrant worker and keep the rights associated with that status or register through UNOPS with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. EU Citizens may apply for the public Danish health insurance or special health card depending on their choice of registration, while the non-EU citizens will be registered by UNOPS under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.