The National Democratic Institute (NDI) is seeking candidates for the position of Program Officer/Senior Program Officer to support the Institute’s Parliamentary Program for GEPT/CEPPS IV program. The Program Officer/SPO position reports directly to the Senior Country Director. The position is based in Kathmandu, but requires frequent travel to different parts of the country. This position is available immediately through June 30, 2018 and might be extended based on funding availability.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Manage and oversee overall development of program activities including, being involved in or informed about all progress related to the legislative process and committee work
• Design and implement programs, managing day-to-day operations under the supervision of the Senior Country Director
• Build a functional network of significant contacts with political leaders, especially with parliamentary leaders including women and youth members of parliament (MPs) and the Parliament Secretariat in order to leverage these relationships for the advancement of the Institute’s programs
• Stay up to date on the parliamentary and political news and dynamics to assess how various developments might affect program strategy, approach and implementation
• Conduct/facilitate trainings, workshops, and conferences
• Assist in developing training/workshop materials and manuals for programs
• Travel to the districts to monitor and evaluate program activities; and to accompany MPs and committee members during field visits
• Prepare program budgets and keep track of expense spending
• Report on program activities to the Program Director/Country Director on a regular basis
• Make sure program outputs are completed effectively and on time by team members; assign and monitor program tasks and outputs by other parliamentary program team members 
• Review, edit and coordinate submission of internal and external program reports (weekly, quarterly and success stories)
• Prepare program briefings by collecting, analyzing, and summarizing information
• Collaborate with program, monitoring and evaluation, and administrative teams and managers in development of NDI-Nepal annual work plan, budget and performance monitoring plan (PMP), as well as general program activity implementation
• Ensure programmatic goals and adherence to operational and reporting requirements are achieved
• Perform other assignments as and when necessary 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; 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 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
• Demonstrated 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   
• Possess  basic public speaking skills
• Good English and Nepali speaking, writing and translation skills are required
• Familiarity with presenting ideas and expressing yourself effectively in front of groups
• High degree of initiative and flexibility and a positive attitude to work
• 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 Senior Program Officer will: 

• 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
• Have experience with trainings/ presentations and solid public speaking skills
• Have strong critical thinking and strategic planning skills; able to actively conceptualize, interpret, apply, analyze and evaluate information to reach conclusions or form opinions