National Programme Officer Governance and Citizen Participation

The Swiss Cooperation Office in Vientiane designs and steers the Government of Switzerland’s bilateral development programme in Lao PDR. We support the Lao Government in reducing poverty and in reaching the Sustainable Development Goals. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) gives priority to sustainable and equitable development, especially in rural areas with minorities, to governance reforms favouring the poor and disadvantaged, to gender equity, and to social justice. We are a Swiss-Lao team of highly motivated professionals looking for a dynamic Lao national or resident to reinforce our expertise in the Vientiane Office, and to fill the position of:

National Programme Officer  Governance and Citizen Participation

SDC is currently supporting four large national projects and one regional project in the field of governance and citizen participation, according to its regional strategy. We are looking for an experienced governance specialist to manage part of the Governance and Citizen Participation domain portfolio.

The incumbent will be responsible for the following tasks:

• Project Management: manages with high degree of autonomy assigned projects of the portfolio supporting project cycles and controlling both operational and financial performance, represents SDC in dialogues and negotiations with implementing partners, government institutions and international providers of technical assistance and produces good quality English language documents
• Partner and Policy Dialogue: takes part in thematic discussions and governance sector policy dialogue
• Sector Development: analyses trends and  opportunities related to governance (including local levels and land), decentralisation, citizen participation, and  produces good quality English language inputs for decision making processes
• Strategy implementation: takes part in the SDC internal annual monitoring and planning processes and produces good quality English language inputs; supports the communication and outreach plan and prepares relevant and useful messages.

Is this an interesting challenge for you? Do you have:

• a master in law, political science, social science, or related discipline,
• working experience in the development cooperation sector,
• well-developed social skills and willingness to work in a team,
• strong analytical skills,
• interest in and ambition to develop broader expertise in the development cooperation field,
• good self-management skills, flexibility and resilience to work under pressure, with a proven track record of delivering results to a high standard under tight timeframes,
•  ability to ensure good communication and flow of information,
• very good English language skills, both orally and written,
• interest and availability to travel both in Laos and internationally.

SDC is a value-based equal opportunities employer, appointing on merits by open competition. We highly encourage women and persons from ethnic minority background to apply. Please send your Curriculum Vitae (incl. references, certificates and expected salary) and an application letter (not more than one page) explaining why we should consider you to be the ideal candidate for the position. Please send your application to:

For more information about SDC and our programmes, please visit:

www.eda.admin.ch/laos

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Closing date for applications is 22 July 2019.

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted for an interview. SDC does not return application files.

The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) regulary seeks qualified and motivated employees. Job vacancies will be published through the state job web portal. You can tailor your search towards your requirements through various search criteria. State job portal (de, fr, it).