The incumbent will support IIEP activities related to costing, financing and Public Financial Management (PFM) for education, which includes, but is not limited to, i) conducting education cost and funding analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, public expenditure reviews (PER), national education accounts (NEA), and ii) financial costing and programming activities such as simulation models, sectoral medium term expenditure framework (MTEF), costed action or operational plans, sectoral budget programming, PFM diagnostics and support to budget implementation and monitoring.
Responsibilities:
Support the implementation of a portfolio of projects in educational planning and management, and/or the implementation of reforms in the educational sector with a strong focus on education financing and budgeting.
Contribute to the identification of strategic priorities and provides technical inputs on IIEP’s core technical offer to countries in support of their planning and implementation management capacities.
Support regular consultation across IIEP’s Offices and with IIEP partners (Member States, Donors, external institutes, etc.) about IIEP’s country facing research and development, capacity development and technical cooperation activities, by adopting a problem-driven and collaborative approaches to improving IIEP’s line of activities in education finance.
Work with the Education Finance lead to ensure alignment of IIEP’s research and development, training, and capacity development activities, and maintain a strong corporate focus on programme effectiveness, resource mobilization and strategic impact.
Take ownership of specific strategic objectives and quantified targets thematically, geographically, according to her/his portfolio and missions.
Contribute to public debates and establish network with relevant actors and organizations in education finance.
Contribute to and support IIEPs internal budgeting and costing processes, including on financial reporting to donors, the Governing Board and UNESCO HQ.
Contribute to mentoring of colleagues in areas related to costing, budgeting, and financial management.
Education:
Advanced university degree (Master's degree or equivalent) in economics, statistics, public policy, public finance, or related fields.
Work Experience:
A minimum of four (4) years of relevant professional experience in the field education financing and public financial management, including budget planning and reporting, education financing diagnostics, financial costing and simulation.
Working experience in one or more of the following areas of expertisealyses of education costs, finances .
and budget, costing and projections.
Public Financial Management (PFM) in Education.
Experience in providing technical assistance in support of national or subnational entities in the analysis of education financing.
Experience in the functioning of public administration and education systems including experience with PFM reforms in developing countries.
Experience in the field of public finance (budget preparation, execution, and reporting); with a strong command of texts and guidelines for the preparation and execution of the budget (budget laws, public finance governance framework, manual of procedures, etc.).
Skills:
Demonstrated knowledge of issues related to education and education financing in the context of developing and/or emerging countries.
Demonstrated knowledge of contemporary developments in the field of global education and effective strategies to improve education planning and management, including in crisis-affected contexts.
Proven ability to design and implement training materials and courses.
Proven ability to design and implement action research.
Strong analytical and synthetic skills and good ability to undertake analytical and synthetic writing, including preparation of training materials and policy briefs.
Ability to develop coalitions and partnerships with a wide range of relevant actors within and outside IIEP-UNESCO.
Excellent proficiency in Microsoft Excel and statistical packages such as STATA, R, Python, etc.
Excellent project management skills, with the ability to support the implementation of complex and multi-component projects.
Languages:
Excellent knowledge of English or French (written and spoken), with working proficiency in the other.
