National Finance and Administration Assistant FOLUR

Organizational Setting

The unsustainable management of globally traded commodity crops (cacao, coffee and oil palm), and their expansion into forest areas, are leading to major impacts on globally important biodiversity, the degradation of soil and water resources, the loss of carbon stocks, and the degradation of watersheds that are vital for maintaining water flows to rice production areas. Rice production is itself a source of globally significant environmental impacts, in the form of the contamination of soil and globally- important aquatic ecosystems due to excessive and inappropriate use of agricultural chemicals, and the generation of methane (a potent greenhouse gas) from flooded paddy systems.
A narrow focus on the production of globally-traded cash crops by farmers is environmentally and socially unsustainable – even in the case of perennial crops such as coffee and cacao that have the potential to yield environmental benefits if appropriately managed – because of the volatility of global markets for these crops and their vulnerability to the effects of global climate change. A large number of major global value chain actors have committed to sustainable sourcing of the products that they trade, in order to comply with corporate social and environmental responsibility goals and to satisfy consumer requirements for sustainable production. This presents farmers with a major potential source of market-based incentives for sustainable production, but at present their ability to take advantage of this opportunity is constrained by their disconnection from these “green” value chains and their limited technical capacities to satisfy their requirements in terms of environmental standards, product quality and reliability of supply.
Despite significant policy commitments to sustainability by the Government of Indonesia, capacities, knowledge, tools, regulatory instruments and incentives for putting these into practice are still inadequately developed, and the agricultural and environmental sectors continue to be highly compartmentalized, lacking the integrated vision that is required if social and economic development and landscape management are to be sustainable.
With the funding support from the Global Environmental Faculty (GEF), the Government of Indonesia, led by the Coordinating Ministry for Food Affairs (CMFA) and with technical support from UNDP and FAO is preparing the full-size project implementation entitled “Strengthening sustainability in commodity and food systems, land restoration and land use governance through integrated landscape management for multiple benefits in Indonesia (FOLUR)”. The project aimed to ensure sustainable value chains of palm oil, coffee, and cocoa via application of a comprehensive land use approach linking biodiversity conservation, restoration, and production at scale.

Reporting Lines

The Assistant will work under the overall administrative suvervision of the FAO Representative in Indonesia, and the direct supervision of the Assistant FAO Representative (Administration).

Technical Focus

Economy, Accounting,  Business Management, Development Administration. The National Finance and Administration Assistant will support National Project Manager (NPM) in particular and Project Management Unit (PMU) in general to consistently implement UNDP, FAO, and/or project’s Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) as well as the Government of Indonesia’s rules and regulations.

Tasks and responsibilities

The financial management aspects: 
•    Provide support to the project implementing partners (MoA and MoFor) in preparing budget plan and its management. 
•    Monitor project expenditure to ensure its compliance with budget lines, project SOP and government policies and procedures. 
•    Assist the project implementing partners in preparing quarterly and annual financial project progress reports concerning financial issues.
•    Assist the project implementing partners in performing budget cycle: planning, preparation, revisions, and budget execution.
•    Monitor all project financial activities carried out on schedule and within budget line to achieve the project outputs.
•    Prepare the financial report and submit to PMU to be incorporated into the annual financial report. 

Administration management aspects: 
•    Support the project implementation partners to organize project events, such as workshops, trainings, etc. 
•    Collect and file up required administrative documents for project implementation including invoice, travel documents, list of attendance, minutes of meeting, copy of participant ID, documentation, etc.  
•    Assist project implementing partners to drafting quarterly and yearly project progress reports concerning administrative related issues. 
•    Provide advisory support to the MoA and MoFor to collect and record co-financing related activities and its budget allocation. 
•    Develop electronic file up system for tracking project activities and expenses.  

Logistic aspects: 
•    Support preparing required logistic needs of project events (transportation, accommodation, consumption, etc.) 
•    Manage the inventory of project goods (receiving, storage, distribution). 
•    Assist the procurement of goods and services, including the process of requesting and quoting prices.
•    Organize the timely delivery and receipt of goods
•    Monitor and record regularly the status and condition of project goods. 

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements  

•    Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Accounting, Business Management, Development Administration, or other relevant fields.
•    Minimum 3 years for candidate with Bachelor’s degree and of relevant project experience; 
•    Working knowledge (level C) of written and spoken English and Bahasa Indonesia.
•    National of Indonesia.

FAO Core Competencies

•    Results Focus
•    Teamwork
•    Communication
•    Building Effective Relationships
•    Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills 

•    Meeting/workshop/training organizing, facilitation skills, administrative support, project planning and implementation, project monitoring, reporting, knowledge management.
•    Demonstrating/safeguarding ethics and integrity. 
•    Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.
•    Building and promoting effective teams, including working in teams and empowering project staff to create an enabling gender equality environment on non-hierarchical bases.
•    Self-development, initiative-taking.
•    Acting as a team player and facilitating teamwork.
•    Strong leadership and managerial skill with track records of management roles in a team of multi-diversity background. 
•    Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively.
•    Creating synergies through self-control.
•    Managing conflict.
•    Learning and sharing knowledge and encourage the learning of others. 
•    Informed and transparent decision making.
•    Communication skills to exchange information, and key ideas in a manner that engages the audience and helps others to understand and retain messages about gender equality and parity.

Selection criteria:

•    Knowledge of and experience in supporting administration of Government and FAO/UNDP development projects dealing with environmental issues will be highly desirable. 
•    Strong knowledge and experience in project management support are essential as well as ability to draft correspondence on budget-related issues, briefing notes, graphic and statistical summaries, accounting spreadsheets, etc. 
•    Good inter-personal communication skills. 
•    Full time availability for project management support duties is essential. 
•    Familiar with Government and UN/FAO/UNDP procedures would be desirable. 
•    Up-to-date computer skills required, knowledge of spreadsheet and database packages.
•    Experience working on GEF-supported projects is an advantage.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION