Programme Assistant

The Programme Assistant provides direct assistance to the Director of the Division of Priority Africa to ensure quality and consistency of office work flow and management of information. The role involves supporting meetings, coordination of conferences and events, document review, programme activity coordination, administration, and calendar management.

Responsibilities

• Attend meetings with Member States, partners, Programme Sectors and Field Offices, prepare minutes, and follow up on action items.
• Collaborate with team members to assess needs for meetings, events, and travel, and guide document processing timelines and procedures.
• Provide support for the coordination of conferences, events, and outreach activities with Member States, regional organizations, and relevant sectors.
• Support the review of documents, briefing notes, and reports for meetings, incoming correspondence, and ensuring dissemination of timely responses and draft formal communications.
• Support coordination of the programme activities, prepare for project evaluations, and review budgetary data.
• Support project and programme reporting as well as monitoring, in coordination with UNESCO's Sectors and Field Offices.
• Assist in all administration-related matters, maintain and update filing systems, ensuring proper organization and retention of programme and project documentation.
• Manage contractual documents, requisition processing, and payment tracking, ensuring financial compliance and timely updates to responsible officers.
• Manage the Director's calendar, ensuring appointments are scheduled and confirmed, queries are addressed, and correspondence is handled efficiently.

Requirements

• Completed secondary, technical, and/or vocational school.
• At least five (5) years of relevant work experience in providing programme and administrative support services, or related tasks/fields, in a national and/or international environment.
• Good interpersonal and communication skills, including drafting skills.
• Good organizational and coordination skills.
• Ability to work effectively within tight deadlines, to deal with complex and sensitive situations and flexibility to adjust work schedules/priorities.
• Sense of diplomacy, discretion, good sense of judgement and professional integrity.
• Capacity to handle information objectively, precisely and confidentially.
• Ability to establish and maintain positive working relationships, team-worker oriented.
• Capacity to deal efficiently and tactfully with different partners/institutions and other stakeholders at all levels in a multicultural environment.
• Excellent IT skills with proficiency in the use of MS Office (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.).
• Excellent knowledge (oral and written) of English and French.
• Training/certification in administration and/or office management, or in any other related field (desirable).
• Relevant experience within the UN system or in an international organization/institution (desirable).
• Experience in providing programme and administrative support services (desirable).
• Familiarity with the work and general functioning of international organizations and/or of the UN system (desirable).
• Knowledge of the Africa region (desirable).
• Knowledge of another official language of UNESCO (Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish) (desirable).

Skills

• Programme Support
• Administrative Support
• Office Management
• Document Drafting
• Meeting Coordination
• Event Coordination
• Calendar Management
• Information Management
• Interpersonal Communication
• Organizational Skills
• Coordination Skills
• Time Management
• Confidential Information Handling
• Diplomacy
• Microsoft Office Suite
• Outlook
• Word
• Excel
• Power Point

Languages

English, French