Program Officer: Political Party Program
Founded in 1983, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to strengthen and expand democracy worldwide. NDI works with democratic institutions in every region of the world to build political and civic organizations, safeguard elections and promote citizen participation, openness and accountability in government. NDI’s office in Nepal has been operational since 1994 and has since collaborated with the Parliament, political parties, government and civil society. NDI is currently implementing a five year (2017-2022) program Niti Sambad aimed at improving governance systems, including to increase transparency, inclusivity and accountability within Political Parties, the Legislature-Parliament (LP) and the Government of Nepal.
NDI-Nepal is seeking candidates for the position of Program Officer for Political Parties, to support the Institute’s political party capacity building program. The Program Officer supports activities aimed at building the skills, capacity and knowledge of political parties to become more inclusive, representative, accountable and better performing public institutions. The Institute’s work includes knowledge and resource sharing and trainings, and aims to expand the participation of marginalized groups including: women, youth and minorities. NDI’s assistance reaches across party organizations, from grassroots party members to mid-level party officials and senior party leaders. The Program Officer position reports to the Resident Senior Program Manager. The position is based in Kathmandu, but requires frequent travel to different parts of the country.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Contributes to the design, oversight and implementation of the political party program; managing day-to-day operations under the supervision of and in and coordination with Sr. Program Manager; Assists in designing and organizing trainings and activities; when necessary conduct sessions for political parties and other partners;
- Collaborates with political party team and managers in drafting briefing memos, reports, work plans and concept notes with some editing; drafts portions of quarterly reports and the work plans; edits work of Program Assistant; review and edit reports submitted by partner organizations;
- Serves as point of contact and primary liaison for NDI’s political parties and other stakeholders; build and maintain collaborative and strong working relationships with key partners/focal persons; maintain frequent contact with these partners and briefs them about NDI activities; represents NDI at appropriate events;
- Maintaining a collaborative working relationship and team atmosphere within the political party team as well as with the rest of NDI’s team in Kathmandu;
- Assists and coordinates with Administrative/Finance team in monitoring budgets and expenditures and review reconciliations;
- Prepares a draft weekly report for NDI DC, including political and programmatic updates in the country;
- Travels as necessary around the program targeted districts to supervise and monitor the implementation of program activities.
- Assists and coordinates with M&E Manager to provide lists and data regularly, measure impact of programs;
- Participates in and contributes to regular meeting with program partners and activities to gather input for program needs;
- Willingness to work longer hour if program required;
- Closely follows and analyze political developments in Nepal; develops draft program concepts for proposals based on those developments in collaboration with the Senior Program Manager;
- Ensure that the Institute’s partners are non-partisan and ensure that the international staff has all necessary information and background on political affiliations of partners;
- Maintain strict neutrality in dealings with the Institute’s program related activities;
- Set up high level meetings with senior political party leaders for the Country Director and Senior Program Manager;
- Willingness to work across NDI’s team and programs when required; and
- Performs other assignments as and when necessary assigned by Sr. Program Manager and/or Country Director.
ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE:
- A minimum of a Master’s/graduate or Bachelor’s degree in International Relations, Political Science, International Development or a related field;
- At least four (4) years of relevant experience working with political stakeholders or international organizations or working on democracy building, elections, political activism and/or community organizing
- Experience in program design and how to strategize is desired
REQUIRED SKILLS AND ABILITIES:
- High level of interpersonal skills and cultural sensitivity to effectively interact with all levels of staff, foreign personnel, members of donor organizations and political party representatives; and to actively maintain and build constructive professional relationship with a broad range of (senior) political representatives and NDI’s partners;
- Excellent oral communications skills to engage partners, effectively present information and respond to questions; Exceptional writing skills to effectively create clear and concise proposals and reports;
- Basic managerial skills; ability to take initiative, inspire and motivate staff; Capacity to work both independently and as a member of a team;
- Working knowledge of PC-based word processing and spreadsheet applications and experience with Google Apps (Gmail, Calendar, Google Drive, G+, etc.);
- Ability and willingness to travel to remote and difficult to reach locations;
- Ability to quickly gather, understand, analyze and contextualize relevant political developments in
- Nepal’s political environment and report on those to superiors;
- Identify areas for programmatic intervention and develop proposals on the basis of a political analysis; able to introduce new concepts convincingly;
- Good English and Nepali speaking, writing and translation skills are required
- Familiarity with presenting ideas and expressing yourself effectively in front of groups is desired; Experience with organizing (large) events; able to quickly tackle logistic and administrative
- challenges necessary to organize events; working in a structured and organized manner
- Have access to a network amongst political stakeholder (without being politically affiliated to any of them), women’s organizations, media and/or civil society organizations;
- Possess basic public speaking skills or have experience with conducting trainings and/or presentations;
- Have strong critical thinking and strategic planning skills; able to actively conceptualize, interpret, apply, analyze and evaluate information to reach conclusions or form informed opinions;
- Take a pro-active role in the identification of programmatic opportunities and drafting of program proposals;
- A strong team-player, working closely with the Senior Program Manager to supervise, develop and mentor other staff in the political party program; be able to take the lead in managing, assigning and delegating responsibilities;
- Be familiar with using basic qualitative and quantitative research methods, understand how to translate the use of that information to parties and political stakeholders.
COMMENTS:
The application deadline is September 30, 2018. To apply, please e-mail a CV and cover letter to [email protected].
Short listed candidates will be contacted. No phone calls please!
Applicants need to possess work authorization to work in Nepal.
NDI is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or any other characteristic protected by law.
