Program Officer/Sr. Program Officer

Job Description

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 democrats and 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. Headquartered in Washington, DC, NDI maintains offices in over 70 countries on five continents. Its diverse workforce of employees from 75 countries are united in the belief that democracies promote economic growth and development more consistently and equitably than non-democratic political systems. NDI’s office in Nepal has been operational since 1997 and has since collaborated with the Parliament, political parties, government agencies and civil society. 

NDI-Nepal is seeking candidates for the position of Program Officer/Sr. Program Officer for Political Parties, to support the Institute’s political party capacity building program. The Program Officer/Sr. 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 membersto mid-level party officials and senior party leaders. The Program Officer/Sr. 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, implementation, and evaluation of the political party program; managing day-to-day operations under the supervision of the Senior  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; reviews and edits reports submitted by partner organizations;
• Serves as point of contact and primary liaison for NDI’s political parties and other stakeholders; builds and maintains collaborative working relationships with key partners; maintain frequent contact with partners and brief them about NDI activities; represents NDI at appropriate events;
• Maintains 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 monthly reconciliations;
• Prepares a draft weekly report, incl. 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 Specialist to provide data regularly, measure impact of program
• Participates in and contributes to regular meeting with program partners and activities to gather input for program needs
• Closely follows and analyzes political developments in Nepal; develops draft program concepts for proposals based on those developments in collaboration with the Senior Program Manager
• Ensures the international staff has all necessary information and background on political affiliations of partners
• Maintains strict neutrality in dealing with the Institute's program related activities;
• Sets up high level meetings with senior political party leaders for the senior staff
• Willingness to work across NDI's team and programs when required
• Performs other assignments as and when necessary as assigned by senior staff.

Academic Qualifications and/or Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in International Relations, Political Science, International Development or a related field, Master’s preferred.
• Relevant experience working with political stakeholders/ international organizations or working on democracy building, elections, political activism and/or community organizing; {minimum of four (4) years of this experience for the Program Officer and six (6) years of this experience for the Senior Program Officer}
• Experience with management, development and implementation cycle of programming

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 to actively maintain and build constructive professional relationship with a broad range of (senior) political representatives and NDI’s partners;
• Excellent oral and written communications skills in Nepali and English to engage partners, effectively present information and respond to questions; Exceptional writing skills to create clear and concise proposals and reports;
• Ability to take initiative, inspire and motivate staff and serve in supervisor capacity when needed to delegate tasks and responsibilities to other staff;
• Capacity to work both independently and as a member of a team;
• Willingness to work longer hours if required;
• 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;
• Demonstrated ability to quickly gather, understand, analyze and contextualize relevant political developments in Nepal’s political environment and report on those to senior staff
• 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;
• Experience with organizing events; able to quickly tackle logistic and administrative challenges necessary to organize events; working in a structured and organized manner

Additionally, a Sr. Program Officer will need to have:

• Have access to a network amongst political stakeholders (without being politically affiliated to any of them), women’s organizations, media and/or civil society organizations;
• Have strong critical thinking and strategic planning skills; able to actively conceptualize, interpret, apply, analyze and evaluate information to reach conclusions or form opinions.

Apply Instructions

The application deadline is March 4, 2018. To apply, please e-mail a CV and cover letter to nepaljobs@ndi.org 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.

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