Administrative Assistant at African Development Bank - AfDB

Location: Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire
Position Grade: GS7
Position Number: 50104676/50104677

The African Legal Support Facility (ALSF)

• The African Legal Support Facility (“ALSF” or “Facility”) is an international public organization dedicated to providing legal advice and technical assistance to African countries in matters pertaining to creditor litigation and complex commercial transactions.
• The goal of the Facility is to remove asymmetric technical capacities and level the field of legal expertise among parties during litigation and negotiations. The Facility strives to further development in Africa by removing obstacles to realizing the benefits of debt relief through its work in vulture fund litigation.
• It also provides advisory services to improve the negotiating capabilities of its member countries. Through all of its activities the Facility aims to build additional legal capacity on the continent. The ALSF is hosted by the African Development Bank (AfDB).
• The African Legal Support Facility ("ALSF" or the "Facility") established by Treaty on December 22, 2008. Its membership is open to (a) all AfDB member states; (b) other states; (c) AfDB; and (d) other international organizations or institutions.
• The Facility currently has 60 members, comprising 53 countries and 7 international organizations. ALSF's main objectives include: (i) assisting AfDB’s Regional Member Countries(RMCs) address litigation brought against them by vulture funds (and other such entities); (ii) creating an avenue for AfDB’ s RMCs to access technical advice when negotiating complex commercial transactions (especially in the area of infrastructure and natural resources); and (iii) investing in and organizing the training of legal counsel from RMCs to equip them with legal expertise necessary to better represent their countries.
• The ALSF also develops and proposes innovative tools for capacity building and knowledge management.

The Position
As part of the African Legal Support Facility, the Administrative Assistant will:

• Perform administrative and personnel support functions including such tasks as the provision of and administrative services to support the planning and/or implementation of projects or activities within the Operations or Institutional Departments.
• Maintain administrative and budgetary control records.
• Requisition of office supplies and equipment; classify and code material relating to a number of subject matter areas; make arrangements for shipment and receipt of office and project supplies and equipment or material.

Key Functions
Under the supervision of the Head of the Operations or Institutional Departments, the Administrative Assistant will be responsible for the following:

Workflow Management:

• Devise and maintain office systems to deal efficiently with paper flow; organize and store paperwork, documents and computer-based information; these include the management of the filing and retrieval system.
• Track and follow up on documents: deal with incoming email, faxes, post and correspondence.
• Distribute documents from the Department and maintain a follow up system as required.

Meetings:

• Prepare documents, briefing papers, reports, spreadsheets and presentations.
• Acts as secretary at meetings. Draft minutes of meetings; establishes a reporting system on all decisions taken during the meetings for follow up of implementation of outstanding decisions.
• Processes schedule of the Department meetings within the ALSF.
• Processes the request to incur representation expenses; follow up of actions to be taken by concerned services.

Administration:

• Devises and maintains efficient office systems.
• Tracks and follows up on documents, deal with correspondence and general correspondence and briefs.
• Manages the flow of information by receiving, examining, sorting and monitoring the ALSF’s incoming and outgoing mail, taking into account the priority and urgency of the documents concerned; organizes logical filing of this correspondence.
• Handles incoming and outgoing telephone-calls.
• Establishes and update the agenda and electronic mail address book.
• Drafts mail and documents in conformity with administrative instructions.
• Drafts memoranda and acknowledgement letters to be submitted, along with their background documents, for the Departments Head’s signature.
• Makes necessary arrangements for visiting delegations.
• Assists in and advises the Departments Head on a variety of administrative and personnel matters.
• Establishes stock control system for the management of office supplies and other ALSF’s properties (personal computers, printers, etc.); centralizes requests for office supplies submitted by staff within the Department and makes provisions in order to ensure distribution of the required items.
• Advises on the allocation of support staff to meet priorities, workload and timeliness.
• Negotiates with CHGS on allocation of appropriate office space for the ALSF by providing justifications; responsible for organizing and coordinating office moving operations.
• Coordinates and submits staff missions, BTOR’s and training programs.
• Contributes to the preparation of the annual budget submission for the ALSF: Collects facts and presents them for decision making; recording data, monitoring and reporting on the Department budget implementation level; Initiates actions on expenses to be incurred, processing requests for recruitment of short-term staff and consultants, missions, with particular attention to the procedures, follow-up of the required travel authorizations, contracts and payments.
• Manage systems, creates and process expenses reports in MIS/SAP

Reporting and Correspondence:

• Consolidates the Departments reports and the reporting on level of work executed and following up with Departments Heads and staff on relevant documents.
• Drafts correspondence that requires research and/or discussion on administrative and technical matters including information memoranda to staff and various self-explanatory memoranda to obtain information from other Units.
• Liaise with professional staff in the Departments to obtain information for special and ongoing projects.

Secretarial Duties:

• Ensure maintenance of enough stocks of stationery and other basic office requisites.
• Track and follow-up on documents, deal with incoming emails, faxes and general mails.
• Handle internal and general public enquiries; screen telephone calls and requests and handle them as appropriate; welcome and look after visitors; organize and maintain electronic diaries and make appointments.
• Maintain confidential records and filing of reports, correspondence and related material for ease of referral.
• Source internal and external documents for research purposes and ascertain the methods and techniques required to undertake related projects.

Competencies (Skills, Experience and Knowledge)

• A minimum of a Bachelor's Degree in Business Management, Commerce, Administration or related discipline, preferably supplemented with courses in Administration/Office Management or Secretarial studies (BTS or DUT).
• A minimum of five (5) years of progressively relevant and practical experience, in an executive
• office preferably in an international organization.
• Good organisational, budgeting and planning skills will be highly desirable.
• Good organizational, analytical and writing skills, ability to make sound judgments and decisions.
• Ability to work under pressure in the dynamic setting of an international and multicultural setting.
• Speedy and efficient handing of internal and external requests.
• Ability to work and cooperate with others from diverse background.
• Excellent working knowledge and experience in administrative and sectorial skills and duties.
• Strong customer service skills, good organizational skills, ability to multi task, attention to detail and ability to work under pressure and with a diverse workforce.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English and/or French, with a good working knowledge of the other language.
• Competence in the use of Bank standard software (Word, Excel, Access and Power Point), knowledge of SAP or other ERP system would be an added advantage
• Excellent levels of initiative, enthusiasm and team spirit, and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to interpret ALSF policies, guidelines and procedures.