Regional Program Assistant – AMPLIFY, WPS

Location: Bangkok, Thailand preferred, also considering countries within ASEAN.

Summary of Job Responsibilities:

AMPLIFY is a five-year regional initiative of The Asia Foundation and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade that aims to address the problem that women living in ASEAN are disproportionately impacted by armed conflicts and human security threats. At the country level, the program will concentrate efforts on Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Myanmar working at three levels of engagement to support Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) policy development; CSO initiatives; and community level peacebuilding. At the regional level AMPLIFY supports ASEAN’s Regional Plan of Action on WPS and other regional women’s peace initiatives.

The Asia Foundation (TAF) is a non-profit international development organization committed to improving lives across a dynamic and developing Asia with areas covering economic opportunity, governance, women empowerment, environmental resilience and international relations. TAF is looking for an experienced, confident, and enthusiastic Program Assistant to support the regional AMPLIFY program.

Supervision:

The Program Assistant will report to the Regional Program Manager of AMPLIFY.

Responsibilities:

The PA will support the Regional Program Manager in the overall management of regional elements of the AMPLIFY program, with focus on monitoring activity timeline and expenditure, event/activity management, program research and reporting and program communications.

Program coordination, administration and financial support

• Coordinate with the regional and country program teams to monitor and report on AMPLIFY activities, expenditures and achievement of program milestones.
• Provide administrative and logistical support for the program, that includes drafting contracts, initiating the procurement process, processing of financial documents and liaising with contractors and implementation partners.
• Track ongoing activities of regional partners/grantees and ensure that timely updates and reports are received from partners/grantees.
• Support organisation of regional events and activities, including managing logistics of regional training, workshops, conferences, and other events. Tasks may include for example, drafting of conference agendas, key talking points, drafting and managing invitations and coordinating participant travel and accommodation as well as in-person support during events. This role includes liaising with TAF country offices, donor partners, government partners, CSOs, and other stakeholders.
• Participate in relevant program coordination meetings and events, take minutes when required, and flag key action points for follow up to share with relevant country offices.

Program research, reporting and monitoring

• Support program team and partners in research-related activities such as consolidating key findings form country team research.
• Support the drafting, designing, and finalizing of annual, quarterly, and other programmatic reports as well as any other report required by the donor.
• Support Regional MERL Specialist on extracting data from a range of sources and updating program database and trackers.
• Develop and maintain internal project management documents and support general program knowledge management.

Communications and partner engagement

• Liaise with TAF Global Communications to support social media outputs and advise on the best channels to reach a specific audience.
• Establish and maintain effective relationships with media/journalists and maintain media database.
• Design, draft and distribute program-related content that includes press releases, website content, program one-pagers and other materials that communicate the program’s activities and impacts.
• Manage communications calendar and maintain database of communications products (including media).

Requirements:

• Advanced university degree in social sciences, international relations, communications, gender studies or related (master’s degree or equivalent is preferred).
• A minimum of 2 years relevant experience, in development, research, public policy, or international relations, communications and/or program management.
• Attention to detail and highly organized.
• Strong oral and written communication skills in English.
• Skilled in Microsoft office as well as basic design software (e.g. Canva).
• Proven ability to work productively, independently, and remotely; to be responsive to requests; and to be result-oriented.

Preferences:

• Experience with The Asia Foundation and knowledge of Foundations systems, procedures, program approaches, and program design, implementation, and review tools and resources a plus.
• Experience in budgeting and basic financial administration strongly preferred or willingness to learn.
• Demonstrated interest in increasing knowledge and experience in development programs, especially in areas of conflict prevention, peacebuilding and WPS.
• Experience and competency in developing communications products for development with high level of English fluency/copy-editing.
• Willingness to travel in ASEAN countries.

Other:

• Successful candidate is required to be legally authorized to work in the ASEAN member state s/he resides.