Chief Fiduciary Inspection Specialist, SNFI at the African Development Bank Group (AfDB)

African Development Bank Group (AfDB) - Established in 1964, the African Development Bank is the premier pan-African development institution, promoting economic growth and social progress across the continent. There are 80 member states, including 54 in Africa (Regional Member Countries). The Bank’s development agenda is delivering the financial and technical support for transformative projects that will significantly reduce poverty through inclusive and sustainable economic growth.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Chief Fiduciary Inspection Specialist, SNFI

Position Number: 50104485
Location: Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire
Position Grade: PL3

The Complex

• The Senior Vice-Presidency complex (SNVP) is responsible for supporting the President in the day-to-day management of the Bank Group to achieve it strategic objective, and drive performance culture that will align all processes and systems to deliver high impact results.
• The SNVP will provide effective leadership and exceptional coordination to ensure implementation and monitoring of key corporate decisions as well as the identification of necessary corrective measures and actions.
• The Senior Vice-President (SVP) is responsible for strengthening of the Bank’s internal procedures, ensuring the efficient and effective coordination of business processes, monitoring and maintaining vigilant and dynamic fiduciary, quality assurance, operational safeguards and providing clear guidance on measurable internal service standards across the Bank Group.

The Hiring Department
The Senior Vice-President (SVP) supervises the Fiduciary Services and Inspection (SNFI) Department, which acts as the custodian of the procurement (including procurement for private and public partnership) and financial management profession, and has the following responsibilities for its functions:

• Developing and interpreting fiduciary policy, strategy and related implementing documents (Manuals and Tools), including serving as the secretariat of the Procurement Review Committee (PRC)
• Providing fiduciary support to operations complexes (Sector Departments, Directorate General) during the whole project cycle, including country strategy papers, to ensure that fiduciary arrangements comply with Bank Fiduciary (Procurement and FM) policies and procedures
• Developing and implementing fiduciary capacity-building strategy for Bank  Staff and Regional Member Countries (RMCs)
• Inspecting and reporting on the performance of fiduciary activities undertaken by sector departments and the regions, including preparing annual post review reports on these activities for Board presentation that will contribute to building credibility and trust of the Bank in the countries and with other stakeholders; and
• Dialoguing with external and global partners with a view to building partnerships and fostering harmonization.

The Position

• The SNFI department comprises an Inspection Section which provides evidence-based support to the fiduciary work of procurement and FM and helps significantly in building credibility and trust of the Bank in the countries and with other stakeholders. The inspection section is headed by a Lead Fiduciary Inspection Officer (LFIO) who supervises the technical activities of inspection staff, including those led by the Chief Fiduciary Inspection Specialist (CFIS). The CFIS reports functionally and administratively to Director SNFI.   

Key Functions
Under the overall supervision of the Director - SNFI, the Chief Fiduciary Inspection Specialist will perform the following duties:

• Contribute to the development of the fiduciary inspection policy, procedures and detailed guidelines on the processes to be followed by the Inspection Section;
• Contribute to the designing of templates, tools such as surveys, questionnaires…etc. to be used by the Inspection Section staff while performing their inspection duties;
• Conduct reviews on quality at entry of Bank Group operations to ascertain the adequacy and compliance of procurement and financial management arrangements with the relevant policies ;
• Conduct an independent physical verification on the ground of selected flagged Bank projects to ensure that the disbursement corresponds to the physical progress on the ground and that the Bank’s resources are being used as intended and are bringing value to the beneficiaries they are intended to serve.
• Analyze the results of surveys and questionnaires and interviews with the aim of ensuring that the Bank’s resources are being used as intended and are bring, identify gaps and shortfalls, propose corrective measures and make recommendations for future Bank operations;
• Ensure, in close collaboration with concerned Sectors and Safeguards & Compliance departments, that the borrower has taken measures to ensure that contractors on the ground are conforming to the conditions of the contract- particularly as regards the core-conditions of the ILO (use of child labor, payment of fair wages, safety and security at site etc.) ;
• Support the procurement and sectoral functions by reviewing unit rates, the quality of the outputs of Bank projects and support the FM function in ensuring that financial management arrangements are robust enough to capture weaknesses in implementing reliable and effective financial audit;
•  Review the findings of the supervision reports of the Bank in relation to fiduciary functions and ensure that they capture the progress and the challenges adequately.
• Identify required technical expertise from within or outside the Bank to contribute to the inspection in view of the type of project under consideration;
• Contribute to the development of the inspection yearly report or the inspection input to the department’s annual report ;
• Provide technical guidance to the Principal/Senior Inspection Specialist and other staff of the section while performing their duties;
• Design training material and deliver training on the inspection function when required;
• Provide the inspection related information to other Bank departments;
• Provide the inspection related input to various Bank’s reports when required and contribute to respond to any Board enquiry concerning inspection; and
• Identify and recommend training and capacity building needs to the inspection staff.

Competencies
Skills, experience and knowledge:

• Hold at least a master’s Degree in an engineering or Business Administration or Law or procurement or Economics or Accounting with a minimum of a professional accounting certification (CPA, CA, ACCA, finance, or a related discipline 
• Have a minimum of seven (7) years of relevant experience in providing procurement or financial management support and advice to sector departments supervising Bank-financed operations or similar international institutions; and conducting inspection, independent procurement reviews and audit.
• Proven familiarity with and solid experience procurement, financial management and operations using Multilateral Development Banks Guidelines and with the Bank’s policy and procedures.
• Experience in working in multi-lateral development Banks or similar international development institutions
• Experience in inspecting/auditing private sector operations
• Ability to be flexible, open-minded with integrity, client and results oriented for achieving both Bank’s and Borrowers’ objectives
• Strong planning, organization, and time management skills
• Excellent analytical skills.
• Good networking skills and judgment which are required in the management of professional relationships with procurement, financial management and sector specialists working in the regions
• Demonstrated ability to mentor less senior staff
• Skills in supervising and effectively managing fiduciary implementation of development projects and programs
• Proven behavioural competencies in the areas of innovation, creativity, communication, integrity, problem-solving, team working, relationships and operational Effectiveness
• Ability to communicate effectively (written and oral) in English or French and able to work in the second language
• Competence in the use of standard MS office applications (Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint).

Application Closing Date
22nd September, 2021.