Short Term Staff - Administrative Assistant - ALSF at African Development Bank - AfDB

The Hiring Department

• The African Legal Support Facility (“ALSF” or “Facility”) is an international 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 ALSF's main objectives include: (i) assisting African Governments in defending against litigation brought against them by vulture funds (and other such entities); (ii) providing legal advisory services to African Governments in the negotiation of complex commercial transactions relating to natural resource & extractive industries, infrastructure/PPPs, energy and sovereign debt (“Key Sectors”); (iii) capacity building for lawyers and Government officials related to the above; and (iv) development of knowledge products.
• The ALSF is hosted at the African Development Bank (AfDB), in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire and was 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 ALSF currently has 60 members, comprising 53 countries and 7 international organizations.”

The Position

• The objective of the position is to ensure the smooth workflow of the corporate affairs division activities related to administrative and archive matters. In particular, the purpose of the job is to provide administrative support, in the coordination of multiple and diverse processes and activities in the division thus ensuring that effective execution of management decisions.

Key Functions
Under the overall supervision of the Manager, the Administrative Assistant performs the following:

• Devise and maintain efficient office systems.
• Track and follow up on documents, deal with general correspondence and briefs.
• Manage 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.
• Handle incoming and outgoing telephone-calls.
• Establish and update the agenda and electronic mail address book.
• Draft mail and documents in conformity with administrative instructions.
• Draft memoranda and acknowledgement letters to be submitted, along with their background documents, for the Division Head’s signature.
• Make necessary arrangements for visiting delegations.
• Assist in and advises the Division Head on a variety of administrative and personnel matters.
• Establish stock control system for the management of office supplies and other ALSF’s properties (Personal computers, printers, faxes,etc.); centralizes requests for office supplies submitted by staff within the department and makes provisions in order to ensure distribution of the required items. Processes the schedule of the Division meetings.
• Process the request to incur representation expenses; follow up of actions to be taken by concerned services.
• File and archive of legal documentation in various hard copy and electronic systems
• Liaise with internal and external clients on matters such as due diligence and execution modalities.
• Process outside counsel and consultancy engagements in accordance with all relevant procedures and approval processes, preparing engagement/consultancy contracts and arranging invoicing.
• Update databases to ensure correct templates and data is used for management reports.
• Arrange travel, itineraries, visas and process travel expenses in compliance with Bank’s policies and procedures.
• Provide support during absences of other staff.
• Arrange internal events, meetings and conference calls and receiving visitors.
• Prepare and organising documents for management meetings and Board and GC meetings, as well as briefing papers, reports, spreadsheets and presentations
• Perform any other administrative tasks as assigned.

Competencies (Skills, Experience and Knowledge)

• A minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, Management, Law and related fields
• Experience in secretarial duties and/archiving would be an advantage
• Fluent in English or French, with excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Knowledge of French both written and spoken would be an advantage
• A minimum four (4) years of relevant work experience,
• Familiarity with legal terms, jargon and the practice of law (in-house or law firm) will be an advantage.
• Good organizational skills and proactiveness.
• Show Initiative to undertake tasks and projects with minimum guidance.
• Good communications skills.
• Attention to detail.
• Ability to cope well under pressure
• Ability to build effective working relationships with clients and colleagues in a multicultural environment.
• Conscientious, reliable, and flexible with a professional and helpful attitude.
• Strong team player
• Ability to multi-task while remaining calm and professional.
• Excellent interpersonal manner
• Ability to exercise judgment on and deal discretely with confidential/sensitive information and data.