Public Finance Officer, Bangkok, Thailand

General

Description of assignment title: ​Public Finance Officer​

Assignment country: Thailand

Duty stations: Bangkok

Work location: On UN premises

Expected start date: 08/06/2026

Duration: 12 months(with possibility of extension)Long-term benefits and allowances

Sustainable Development Goal: 1. No poverty

Host entity: UNICEF

Modality: Onsite

Type: International

Volunteer category: Specialist UCoS from Apr2026

Work schedule: Full-time

Number of Assignments: 1

Details

Mission and objectives:

• UNICEF's fundamental mission is to uphold the rights of every child, everywhere—across programmes, advocacy, partnerships, and operations. Guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNICEF places equity at the heart of its work, recognising that the most disadvantaged and excluded children must be prioritised to achieve sustainable development for all. Equity means ensuring that every child has an equal opportunity to survive, develop, and thrive—free from discrimination, bias, or systemic barriers. When any child is denied this opportunity, their rights are compromised.
• There is growing global evidence that investing in the health, education, and protection of the most marginalised not only advances individual well-being and their communities' social justice, but also contributes to long-term economic growth, social cohesion, and national stability. By addressing inequality, UNICEF accelerates progress towards fulfilling the rights of all children while supporting the equitable development of nations.
• The Global Programme Division (GPD) plays a central role in driving programme excellence across UNICEF. It provides global strategic leadership and policy direction, develops and monitors frameworks and standards, and ensures coherence and alignment across sectors, regions, and partners. GPD generates high-impact, evidence-based solutions and serves as a hub of specialised expertise, offering technical guidance on policy reform and scalable programming.
• GPD leads UNICEF's policies, standards, and negotiations for programmes, ensuring that the organisation's assets and priorities align with, and contribute to, child development goals. In addition, GPD strengthens country-level implementation through integrated technical support, linking global policy with on-the-ground action to deliver results for children at scale.
• As part of this structure, UNICEF has established Centres of Excellence (CoEs) to provide high-quality, demand-driven technical assistance to Country and Regional Offices, and their governments and partners. Located strategically in Nairobi, Panama, Amman, and Bangkok, the CoEs bring together cross-cutting expertise across time zones. Global Programme Practices in CoEs function as a single point of entry for support, delivering tailored assistance in priority areas such as policy reform in matters that advance the well-being of children, at-scale programme design, public finance, workforce development and institutional strengthening, and timely humanitarian response while promoting resilient development. In doing so, the CoEs also contribute to global policy standards, ensuring that UNICEF's support is grounded in practical knowledge.

Context:

• This assignment is part of UNICEF's mission to uphold the rights of every child, everywhere, across programmes, advocacy, partnerships, and operations. Guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), UNICEF places equity at the heart of its work, recognising that the most disadvantaged and excluded children must be prioritised to achieve sustainable development for all.
• Public Finance for Children (PF4C) is central to this mission. Governments' fiscal choices determine whether health, education, protection, social protection, and climate investments are adequate, equitable, and sustainable. UNICEF works to ensure that public budgets and financial systems are transparent, inclusive, and child-sensitive, so that all children—especially the most marginalised—can survive, develop, and thrive.
• Within UNICEF, the Global Programme Division (GPD) drives programme excellence by setting standards, building coherence across sectors, and linking global policy with country-level action. Through its Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in Nairobi, Panama, Amman, and Bangkok, UNICEF provides high-quality, demand-driven technical assistance to Country and Regional Offices and their partners. The Child Poverty Centre of Excellence (CoE) focuses on reducing multidimensional child poverty through social protection, livelihoods, and PF4C.
• PF4C priorities include:
• Reviewing national budgets and expenditure frameworks to strengthen policy action, improve fiscal equity, and promote sustainable financing for children.
• Supporting ministries of finance, planning, line ministries and subnational agencies in applying a child lens to the development, prioritisation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of budgets.
• Influencing domestic resource mobilisation, SDG financing, debt and tax reform, and climate and humanitarian financing, in line with Article 4 of the CRC, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Seville Commitment.
• Building political commitment and accountability for children's rights through stronger evidence, and more transparent and inclusive fiscal governance.
• In Asia-Pacific, UNICEF is increasingly engaged, thanks to the EU-UNICEF Public Finance Facility, in providing analytical and technical support to public financial management to leverage domestic public resources for greater, more sustainable, and more equitable results for children. This work includes ensuring social services are prioritised in government budgets and promoting financing solutions that support human capital investments.
• This work contributes directly to UNICEF's Strategic Plan 2026-2029, Impact Result #3 (reducing child poverty), and to the achievement of SDGs 1 and 10, while also linking to wider UN and IFI financing agendas.
• This assignment sits within the Economic and Social Policy Section's Child Poverty CoE Satellite in Bangkok, as part of the PF4C team, and reports to the Social Policy Specialist, Public Finance for Children. It contributes directly to Impact Result 3 of the UNICEF Strategic Plan 2026-2029, focused on reducing child poverty.

Task description:

• 1. Technical Assistance and programme support to deliver EU-UNICEF's Public Finance Facility (PFF) for Children work (40%)
• Provide support to country offices for the roll-out of the EU-UNICEF PFF agenda, including through assistance to the design, delivery and documentation of country-level technical analysis and evidence-based advocacy to make budgets and fiscal frameworks work for children
• Assist EU-UNICEF PFF country offices in the design, implementation and documents of public finance system strengthening, including in the areas of local governance, subnational financing, and improved transparency and participation
• Provide support to country-office public finance requests for technical assistance on issues and topics complimentary to the UNICEF's EU-UNICEF PFF goals, in line with the UNICEF PF4C Framework, and reflecting the contribution of the public finance and sector financing perspectives
• Assist COs in identifying and compiling budget data for health, education, social protection and other relevant social sectors, and support analysis to link budget data to children's outcomes.
• Coordinate program activities, monitor progress, and ensure timely reporting on key initiatives related to child-focused public finance, including through donor updates and donor reporting.
• Support the EU-UNICEF PFF Programme Manager in day-to-day operations and programme implementation tasks.
• 2. Policy Analysis and support to policy dialogue processes on Financing for children (30%)
• Support research and analysis on key trends and challenges related to Public Finance for Children agenda that contributes to the EU-UNICEF-PFF priorities.
• Collaborate with different UNICEF teams to provide quality assurance on key tools and processes of the Public finance for Children agenda, including through budget briefs, expenditure reviews, cost-effectiveness analysis, tax incidence analysis, financing options papers, etc.
• Facilitate programme country participation in regional policy dialogue on Financing for Development, with the particular focus on UNICEF's contribution from the Public Finance for Children agenda, including through the promotion of South-South and Triangular cooperation knowledge exchanges.
• Provide strategic policy analysis support in the assessment of key regional and sub-regional trends and challenges in the different areas impacting children's wellbeing.
• 3. Positioning and representation (20%)
• Collaborate with key stakeholders, including governments, academia, NGOs, the EU, the OECD, multi-lateral development banks, and bilateral and multilateral agencies working on public finance to support UNICEF's positioning as a vital partner in child-focused public finance initiatives, building and maintaining strategic partnerships to advance children's rights and well-being through effective public finance.
• Contribute to advocacy efforts by preparing presentations, case studies, short accessible policy briefs, advocacy materials and messages, and by representing UNICEF at relevant events.
• Support communication initiatives to disseminate research findings, policy recommendations and key messages related to social sector spending, children's rights, child poverty and human capital investment.
• 4. Knowledge management (10%)
• Collect and organize country data, technical reports, advocacy materials and other documents related to the EU-UNICEF PFF, support the maintenance of a structured knowledge repository for easy access by colleagues across teams, regions and COs, as well as key external partners and stakeholders.
• Support the development and management of a centralized repository for project documents, research, and publications of COs and CoE to support the scaling up of good practices, the dos and the donts of our work, ensuring accurate documentation of lessons learned and the overall Public Finance for Children related milestones.
• Support knowledge sharing through the development and delivery of webinars and brownbag sessions, and create and distribute updates and resources to keep COs and the PF4C network informed (including through the development of thematic briefs, summaries and communication materials).

Eligibility criteria

Age: 18 - 80

Required experience: 3 years

Nationality: Candidate must be a national of a country other than the country of assignment.

Assignment requirements

Relevant experience:

• 3 years

Languages:

• English, Level: Fluent, Required

Required education level:

• Master's degree in International Relations, Government, Public Administration, Public Policy, Social Policy, Economics, Development Economics or another relevant technical field

Competencies and values:

• UNICEF Core competencies skills :
• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (2)
• Works Collaboratively with others (2)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (2)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (2)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (2)
• Drives to achieve impactful results (2)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (2)
• Functional Competencies :
• Persuading and influencing (1)
• Applying technical expertise (1)
• Learning and researching (2)
• Planning and organizing (2)

Skills and experience:

• Technical skills :
• Mandatory requirements,
• 1. Public Financial Management (PFM)
• Understanding of government budgeting cycles, processes, and frameworks.
• Ability to analyze national and subnational budgets.
• Knowledge of Medium-Term Expenditure Frameworks (MTEF).
• Familiarity with public expenditure tracking and financial accountability systems.
• 2. Budget Analysis for Social Sectors
• Skills in budget analysis of allocation and execution data (including at least some sector specific analysis for health, education, social protection, WASH, nutrition, or early childhood development).
• Ability to assess equity, efficiency, and adequacy of public spending.
• Familiarity with common public expenditure analysis tools, such as costing, cost effectiveness/cost benefit analysis, public expenditure reviews, benefit incidence analysis, budget analysis.
• 3. Data Analysis & Statistical Skills
• Strong ability to work with quantitative data sets (household surveys, administrative data).
• Proficiency in tools: Excel (advanced), Stata / R / SPSS (or similar).
• Ability to translate data into policy-relevant insights.
• Skills in data visualisation.
• 4. Policy Analysis & Advisory
• Ability to analyze public policies and reforms.
• Drafting of policy briefs, technical notes, and reports.
• Translating technical findings into clear recommendations for a variety of audiences, including government counterparts and non-technical audiences.
• 5. Strategic stakeholder engagement
• Partnership building and relationship management .
• Evidence-based advocacy and influencing.
• Clear and persuasive communication.
• Collaborative working across teams, sectors, and partners.
• Desirable assets.
• 1. Fiscal Space & Financing Analysis
• Understanding of fiscal space analysis (revenue, borrowing, reprioritization).
• Ability to identify financing options for social services.
• Familiarity with domestic resource mobilization strategies.
• 2. Intergovernmental Fiscal Systems
• Knowledge of fiscal decentralization.
• Understanding of mechanisms and systems for transfers to local governments.
• Experience undertaking analysis of efficiency and equity of investments across regions.
• 3. Financial Modelling & Costing
• Ability to develop costing models for policies and programmes.
• Scenario analysis (e.g., scaling up social benefits).
• Basic macro-fiscal projections (desirable).
• 4. Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E)
• Designing indicators to assess budget performance and service delivery results.
• Linking financial inputs to outputs and outcomes for children.
• Supporting development and use of results-based management frameworks.

Area(s) of expertise:

• Development programmes, Economics and finance

Driving license:

• -

Other information