Regional Program Officer

Summary

Join IREX as a Regional Program Officer and oversee consortium partners, leading daily program activities. You will coordinate progress with local partners, manage reporting and compliance, and develop regional strategies and work plans. Responsibilities include providing guidance to partners, facilitating project implementation, and using your Central Asia media landscape knowledge to inform project work. You will also manage project work, including analysis, oversight, and technical expertise. This is a remote position based in the EU (excluding Central Asia) and is contingent on funding.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field (e.g. media, law, international relations)
• A minimum of 5 years of relevant experience
• Demonstrated understanding of the operational challenges and opportunities for media and civil society in Central Asia
• Demonstrated proficiency with Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel)
• Demonstrated very good communication skills and follow up
• Demonstrated knowledge of local laws and donors’ procurement policies
• Demonstrated high attention to details
• Positive attitude and willingness to support and assist colleagues
• Ability to work under pressure and tight deadlines
• Excellent communication in English and one of the Central Asian languages or Russian
• Strong interpersonal skills

Responsibilities

• Oversee IREX consortium partners and lead the day-to-day planning and implementation of program activities
• Coordinate and monitor progress with the local implementing partner and liaise between IREX team members on reporting and compliance issues
• Lead components of the IREX Central Asia program in all countries of implementation, including development of regional strategy, workplans, instruction documents, reports
• Provide guidance on workplans, directions, and support to all consortium partners in development of working plans and related documents
• Lead clear and effective communication between IREX and consortium partners to implement the Central Asian activities
• Manage and implement project work, including development of analysis, oversight, and technical expertise for the context of this region
• Facilitate project implementation by development of documents with partners
• Monitor reporting and compliance issues for day-to-day programming
• Use contextualized knowledge of the Central Asian media landscape to inform the project workplan, and tools and approaches
• Provide technical support and inputs to IREX Central Asia project
• Be responsible for the development, contributing, and guiding the work associated with project outputs; to include but not limited to program design, required products, gathering, drafting, and creating workflow plans, budgets, internal/external reports, presentations, and other documents/deliverables as identified
• Be responsible for the development of written communications by drafting, approving, and sending correspondence
• Serve as a focal point on partnership with Central Asian media, as applicable
• Lead work planning to ensure that project design and design of all project activities consider support to target groups, including recommendations and considerations of safety and long-term consequences
• Develop the package of internal and donor-requested documentation, related to the launch and implementation of the project
• Provide oversight and technical expertise for the project activities phases in Central Asia
• Support subgrant and contract arrangements, including drafting scopes of work and collecting deliverables
• Mentor and accompany IREX partners and ensure that project activities are working according to schedule and meeting targets
• Identify target audiences and an appropriate means to assist in project development in Central Asia
• Identify, together with IREX partners in Central Asia, exact tools, forms, and formats for collaborations, which would have best consumption and cultivate new partner opportunities among target audience representatives through strong networking in the region
• Advise the design of program M&E and quantitative baseline research tools by contributing to surveys and methodology, if needed
• Establish, maintain, or cultivate relationships with key stakeholders to ensure project activities can continue with minimal disruption
• Conduct trainings and consultations
• In partnership with project and practice leadership, it facilitates key stakeholders’ relationships in country
• Represent IREX to external stakeholders by speaking about project and practices initiatives
• Regularly shares relevant information in support of organization-wide collaboration
• Supports the development of written communications by drafting, approving, and sending correspondence and manages shareholder relationships with the guidance and/or approval of program management
• Leads and coordinates the renewal process in regional/country of responsibility
• Leads with support from new program development for the country of responsibility
• Supports one or more areas of the proposal development process; to include, but not limited to proposal strategy, writing, and/or review
• Supports and coordinates country partner outreach and requested; gather market intelligence specific to regional/country of responsibility
• Identify opportunities and facilitate communication, at the national and community level, with partners from CSOs, government, and other bodies based on specialized development expertise
• Lead specific engagement with global stakeholders, with minimal oversight, and contribute to strategy and design as appropriate
• Regular collaboration with IREX staff and global partners
• Support in preparing presentations and documentation for high-level stakeholder and donor meetings
• Join leadership, when invited, in donor project meetings to increase awareness and relationship building
• Create and maintain a data base of media support organizations
• Document and present findings and recommendations in a clear, concise, and usable written report format and provide updates, either written or oral, to the senior management, and other relevant staff, as available
• Lead day to day implementation of project programming in Central Asia
• Supporting the adaptation and implementation of virtual collaborative platforms, if needed
• Contribute to monitoring and evaluation activities including data management and analysis, if assigned
• Attend internal and external program events and facilitate updates and messaging on these as required
• Other duties as assigned
• At the direction of project leadership, independently and accurately perform financial administration tasks (check requests, sub-award approval level, etc.)
• Make independent decisions about the type of information needed to populate a given document consistent with policies
• May have the authority to sign for approval for smaller amounts
• Contribute to budget management, monitoring, and compliance
• Draft complex documents, including training materials, program reports and evaluations
• Contribute to office administrative and financial management, including initiating procurement
• Monitor the subgrants and subgrantees performances, provide high-level assistance to the subgrantees
• Process and track financial processing including invoices, stipends, and other payments

Preferred Qualifications

Travel in the EU and Eastern Europe could be required