Vacancy Announcement: Programme Officer (Budget and Quality Assurance), NOA, TA, Abuja #137252 (364 days)

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

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For every child, dedication

In Nigeria, UNICEF works in a complex humanitarian and development setting to fulfill and protect children's rights in partnership with the government, civil society, children, and families.  UNICEF Nigeria is one of the largest UNICEF Country Offices globally - click the link to learn more about UNICEF in Nigeria: https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/.

 The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, leaving no one behind. In Nigeria, the nutrition situation of children under five has recorded minimal change, and currently, Nigeria is off track to achieving the World Health Assembly 2025 and the Sustainable Development Goals 2030. Approximately one in three children under five in Nigeria is stunted, while one of every ten children is wasted. Consequently, Nigeria has the second-highest number of malnourished children in the world and the highest in Africa.

Malnutrition, in all its forms, is a violation of a children’s right to adequate nutrition. To change the narrative, UNICEF in partnership with the government and other stakeholders aims to deliver good quality prevention and treatment services at scale to build resilience and protect the most vulnerable, particularly during the First 1000 Days of Life. The focus, in keeping with UNICEF Nigeria’s new Country Programme Strategy (2023-2027), is to (i) strengthen the enabling environment, including data, to inform policy and programming; (ii) strengthen systems, especially the health, food and social protection system to deliver high quality services; and (iii) address social and behavioral practices that influence diets and practices.

 To deliver on these three critical output level results, UNICEF has planned to operationalize an estimated USD 250 million nutrition programme from 2023 – 2027. Resources are mobilized from both the government as well as different donors, each of whom has varying requirements and conditionalities. To enable UNICEF to deliver results for children, while complying with different conditionalities, the office is seeking a Programme Officer – Budget and Quality Assurance (NO1) on Temporary Assignment.

Under the direct supervision of the Nutrition Manager (Diets and Practices), the staff member will be responsible for the following:

• Develop and review proposal budgets and financial projections to ensure alignment with the overarching Nutrition and Child Development Section’s strategy and resource mobilization needs
• Track and manage effective and efficient utilization of budgets ensuring compliance with results-based principles and standards, UNICEF guidelines as well as donor conditionalities.
• Develop high quality financial reports and analysis and input into internal and external financial reports and communication products
• Track and manage timely development of partnership agreements and recruitments
• Track and manage timely completion of office-wide key performance indicators for financial and risk management (HACT)

As a Programme Officer – Budget and Quality Assurance based in Abuja, the incumbent will support the Nutrition and Child Development Section team in preparing planned activities budgets, proposals and reports, streamlined structures and processes, ensure funds utilization is in-line with donor approval, responsible for grants management and close monitoring of funds with knowledge of quality assurance, support on timely submission of expenditures and donors reports to HQ and donors, so that UNICEF’s financial accountability is not jeopardized at this critical stage in the Programme.

The Programme Officer – Budget and Quality Assurance based in Abuja, Operations will be entrusted with the following five pillars, the core focus of all operations functions: Valuing People, Valuing Money, Valuing Risk Management, Valuing Systems and Structures, Valuing Partners.

1. Support planning and coordination of financial mapping for planned nutrition grants including salary cost distributions, etc. in partnership with the Programme Monitoring and Reporting Team.
2. Work with field offices and the Nutrition and Child Development Section to track budgets and expenditures in accordance with donor conditionalities and UNICEF principles.
3. Support output leads in overall grant management, including review, timely fund allocation to outputs and field offices, expenditure monitoring, and variance analysis
4. Monitor field office budgets and workplans based on donor approvals and allocations, using VISION and other data sources to ensure financial transparency.
5. Prepare detailed budgets and financial forecasts for donor proposals in coordination with output leads and the Programme Monitoring and Reporting Section, incorporating financial gaps and cash flow analyses where necessary.
6. Track, manage, and maintain user‑friendly dashboards and summaries on budgets, expenditures, and supplies to inform programme planning and reviews.
7. Support field offices to strengthen grants management and administrative systems for nutrition.
8. Ensuring quality assurance of financial inputs for donor and other reports.
9. Support the section in tracking of key KPI indicators and follow up actions for UNICEF’s Harmonized Approach for Cash Transfers (HACT)
10. Provide analytics and summaries for weekly and monthly Country Management Team and other review meetings on budgets and finance.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

A university degree (minimum Bachelor) in one of the following fields is required: Finance / Accounting / Business Administration / and or Economics or another relevant technical field.

Experience:   

• A minimum of one year of relevant professional work experience in managing donor funded projects and financial management or related field
• Demonstrable experience of planning and managing high value budgets, multi-year grants and diverse donors
• Excellent knowledge of and hands on experience in excel, PowerPoint and PowerBI is critical
• Demonstrable problem solving, quantitative and analytical skills; strategic and creative thinking.
• Strong organizational, planning and coordination skills. Exceptional project management skills with attention to detail.
• Ability to articulate and present ideas both in written presentation and orally to team as well as external audience.
• Knowledge of the UN rules, procedures and regulations and/or working experience for the UN or other international development organization would be an asset
• Developing country work plan and budget and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset

Language Requirements:   

Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of a local language is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships (2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness (3) Drive to achieve results for impact (4) Innovates and embraces change (5) Manages ambiguity and complexity (6) Thinks and acts strategically (7) Works collaboratively with others. (8) Nurtures, leads and manages people) for supervisory role

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.
We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.
UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

This position has been assessed as an elevated risk role for Child Safeguarding purposes as it is a role with direct contact with children, works directly with children, is a safeguarding response role. Additional vetting and assessment for elevated risk roles in child safeguarding (potentially including additional criminal background checks) applies.

UNICEF’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable female candidates are encouraged to apply.

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance.  Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Advertised: 13 May 2026 W. Central Africa Standard Time
Applications close: 27 May 2026 W. Central Africa Standard Time

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