UNOPS in Albania

UNOPS Office Albania is part of the UNOPS European and Central Asia Regional Office in Geneva and is under the oversight of the UNOPS Austria Multi-Country Office (AUMCO) in Vienna. UNOPS Albania was established in 2020 to develop and implement UNOPS’ growing portfolio of projects in the country, it has been supporting the Government of Albania to Build Back Better in facing the challenges brought by the Covid-19 pandemic and the earthquake prior to it. Currently it also implements a project in the area of digitalisation of the justice system. The office has around 25 personnel. You can read more about the work of UNOPS Albania on our website www.unops.org/albania and on social media. We are looking for a Project Manager for a new project related to property rights and state cadastre who wants to join our dynamic team.

Austria Multi-Country Office (AUMCO)

The Austria Multi-Country Office (AUMCO) is part of the UNOPS Europe and Central Asia Region (ECR). AUMCO works through its country offices like UNOPS Albania with regional governments, international financial institutions, bilateral donors and other partners to assist in the realization of their development objectives – making progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and furthering the objectives set forth in the Paris Agreement. Through its country offices, it has administered a diverse portfolio of projects and global programmes. This includes providing support to partners through sustainable infrastructure development, procurement and project management services, partner personnel and transactional services, grant management, and the provision of technical and advisory services.

Project Information:

Albania’s land administration system is undergoing a critical transformation to enhance land governance, transparency, and economic development. The modernization of cadastral records, first-time property registration, and the implementation of an EU-compatible Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) are essential to improving property rights, ensuring legal certainty, and aligning with EU accession requirements. Despite progress in digitalizing ownership records and making land services accessible online, Albania continues to face challenges in data accuracy, incomplete property registration, and legal inconsistencies.

The project will be implemented by UNOPS over a duration of three and a half years, ensuring a structured and efficient approach to capacity building, system development, and service enhancement. UNOPS will collaborate closely with national authorities and stakeholders to facilitate sustainable improvements in land administration.

Key activities under this project include:

• Capacity building for the State Cadastre Agency SCA and relevant institutions to ensure effective system integration and service delivery.
• Digitization of cadastral maps to improve data accessibility and reduce discrepancies.
• First-time property registration in priority cadastral zones to strengthen land tenure security.
• Enhancing cadastral data quality through systematic data correction and verification.
• Developing an LPIS framework aligned with EU standards to improve land use monitoring and subsidy allocation.

The principal beneficiaries of the project are the State Cadastre Agency and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. By improving land governance, legal certainty, and service efficiency, this project will foster a transparent and accountable land administration system, increase investment opportunities, and enhance Albania’s readiness for EU accession. Ultimately, it will contribute to economic growth, sustainable land management, and improved public trust in property rights.

The Senior Project Manager will oversee project implementation, ensuring alignment with Albania’s EU accession goals and cadastral system modernization.

* Please note that the project is planned to commence in July 2025, contingent upon the timely signing of the project agreement.

The Senior Project Manager is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the project, ensuring efficient service delivery to donors, partners, and beneficiaries. Acting on behalf of the Project Board, they manage the project throughout the Implementation Stage, ensuring outputs are delivered within the defined tolerances of time, cost, quality, scope, risk, and benefits while meeting UNOPS’ performance and delivery goals.

For the “EU for Property Rights” project, the Senior Project Manager will lead its implementation, ensuring timely delivery of outputs in accordance with the project’s Description of Action and the legal agreement. They will implement the project using UNOPS project management methodology and in line with EU requirements. Reporting to the UNOPS Albania Country Manager, the Senior Project Manager will oversee budget management, stakeholder coordination, and compliance with UNOPS policies. They will work closely with national authorities, stakeholders, and donors, leading a team of core personnel and experts.

The ideal candidate will have expertise in similar projects, a strong understanding of EU accession processes, and familiarity with the regional context.They will provide strategic guidance on legal, technical, and institutional aspects of national cadastre and property rights reform and support capacity-building initiatives for national institutions and stakeholders to enhance property registration and land administration processes. They will ensure alignment of project activities with EU accession requirements and international best practices.

1. Project Delivery and Performance

• Develop, complete and update implementation plan
• Implement the approved plan (including the establishment of milestones) within tolerances set by the Project Board.
• Embed sustainability dimensions including social and gender inclusion, environmental and economic aspects into project life span.
• Manage the production of the required outputs, taking responsibility for overall progress and use of resources and initiating corrective action where necessary.
• Ensure that quality of work packages and deliverables complies with the quality requirements defined in the Implementation Plan.
• Liaise with any external suppliers or account managers
• Manage acceptance and delivery of work packages
• Monitor project progress ensuring that work packages are being executed properly
• Control project and work packages changes
• Accept goods, services or works delivered by suppliers
• Lead contract management duties including supplier performance evaluation
• Identify, and anticipate in a timely manner, potential risks and issues and advises mitigating measures to senior management/ Project Board so that maximum benefit to partners and other stakeholders is achieved
• Identify and report to the supervisor potential business opportunities for UNOPS

2. Procedures

• Comply with organizational policies, especially the Project Management Manual.
• Prepare/adapt plans for Project Board approval.
• Manage reporting per Legal Agreement and Implementation Plan.
• Closely collaborate with the Procurement team and experts to prepare procurement requirements, and evaluate tenders
• Maintain project files and record lessons learned.
• Implement financial management guidelines per UNOPS regulations
• Manage budgets, cash flow, and payments to contractors/personnel.
• Understand and manage UNOPS overheads and corporate charges.
• Budget appropriately for UN personnel structures.
• Monitor expenditures against the budget.
• Oversee commitments/disbursements if not a committing officer.
• Ensure a formal project handover for closure.
• Support audit activities and follow up on recommendations.

3. Monitoring and reporting

• Prepare and issue regular project and/or financial reports in accordance with Partner and UNOPS requirements for reporting.
• Regularly review project status, evaluating performance criteria (scope, cost, schedule and quality).
• Maintain diaries and progress reports as required by the organization’s standard procedures.
• Provide routine oversight and analysis of delivery data within the dashboard system.
• Ensure all project team members track and regularly update milestones and targets for the duration of projects’ life span

4. Stakeholder engagement

• Develop stakeholder profiles and facilitate the formulation of stakeholder engagement strategies
• Establish solid working relationships with the Project Board (Executive, Senior Users and Senior Suppliers), client and key stakeholders
• Enable the formulation of project communications plans. Coordinate internal project communications. Monitor the effectiveness of project communications
• Coordinate stakeholder engagement and communication, ensuring effective timing and interdependency management of communications. Ensure stakeholders are aware of project activities, progress, exceptions and are in a position to accept handover outputs

5. Quality assurance

• Coordinate quality reviews of project documents and deliverables
• Provide quality control for management outputs (project documents, reports, etc.)
• Work with internal stakeholders to ensure projects comply with audit requirements
• Work with procurement/purchasing staff to ensure effective interface with suppliers’ quality systems

6. Knowledge management and innovation

• Encourage routine and effective capacity building activities are conducted in order to build the long-term and sustainable capacity of staff.
• Actively interact with other Project Managers and the wider PM community to share case studies, lessons learned and best practices
• Contribute to the oversight of lessons learned procedures, ensuring that lessons learnt are shared in a timely and appropriate manner. Participate in the relevant Communities of Practice
• Research and logging of lessons learned throughout the project life span.
• Provide feedback to Practice Groups on policy, supporting guidance with an aim towards continuous improvement of UNOPS policies

7. Personnel management

• Lead and motivate the project management team
• Ensure that behavioural expectations of team members are established
• Ensure that performance reviews are conducted fairly, accurately and timely
• Select, recruit and train team and experts as required and take into account gender parity and diversity objectives.
• Ensure safety and security for all project personnel and comply with UNDSS standards
• Create, foster and role model a culture of respect and zero tolerance for discrimination, abuse of authority, harassment, sexual harassment and sexual exploitation and abuse. Ensure accountability for actions and perform duties in accordance with protection mechanisms and action plans, as expected by UNOPS policies, standards and commitments

Education:

• Advanced university degree (Master’s or equivalent) preferably in Law, Land Administration, Geospatial Sciences, Public Administration, International Development, or a related field.
• A first-level university degree with additional years of relevant experience may be considered in lieu of an advanced degree.

Experience:

• Minimum 7 years of progressive experience in project management is required;
• Proven track record in procurement and management of contracts and leading multidisciplinary teams of experts and national staff.
• Previous work on EU accession is required;
• Experience in working with national authorities, government agencies, and international donors in EU accession countries is required.
• Experience in the area of digitalisation processes in regards to property rights and land administration is a strong asset.
• Experience in Property rights and land administration is a strong asset;
• Familiarity with UNOPS project management methodologies, financial management, and procurement processes is an asset.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English required.
• Knowledge of Albanian languages is an asset.

1. Contract type ICA,
2. Contract level: I-ICA 3 (ICS-11)
3. Contract duration: Open-ended, subject to organizational requirements, availability of funds and satisfactory performance.

For more details about the ICA contractual modality, please follow this link:
https://www.unops.org/english/Opportunities/job-opportunities/what-we-offer/Pages/Individual-Contractor-Agreements.aspx

• Please note that UNOPS does not accept unsolicited resumes.
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process, which involves various assessments.
• UNOPS embraces diversity and is committed to equal employment opportunity. Our workforce consists of many diverse nationalities, cultures, languages, races, gender identities, sexual orientations, and abilities. UNOPS seeks to sustain and strengthen this diversity to ensure equal opportunities as well as an inclusive working environment for its entire workforce.
• Qualified women and candidates from groups which are underrepresented in the UNOPS workforce are encouraged to apply. These include in particular candidates from racialized and/or indigenous groups, members of minority gender identities and sexual orientations, and people with disabilities.
• We would like to ensure all candidates perform at their best during the assessment process. If you are shortlisted and require additional assistance to complete any assessment, including reasonable accommodation, please inform our human resources team when you receive an invitation.

Terms and Conditions

• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post.
• For retainer contracts, you must complete a few mandatory courses ( they take around 4 hours to complete) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS. Refreshers or new mandatory courses may be required during your contract. Please note that you will not receive any compensation for taking courses and refreshers. For more information on a retainer contract here.
• All UNOPS personnel are responsible for performing their duties in accordance with the UN Charter and UNOPS Policies and Instructions, as well as other relevant accountability frameworks. In addition, all personnel must demonstrate an understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a manner consistent with UN core values and the UN Common Agenda.
• It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential personnel. Recruitment in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.