Program Assistant

The IDH Sustainable Trade Initiative helps to accelerate and upscale sustainability within mainstream international commodity markets, driving sustainability from niche to norm. We build ambitious public private coalitions of companies, civil society organizations and governments and high-impact programs in order to benefit people, planet and profit. With a €130 million co-funding grant from the Dutch, Swiss and Danish Governments, IDH organizes scoping, development and implementation of public private partnerships in 18 sectors such as coffee, tea, cotton, electronics. IDH is a dynamic organization of  57 staff members based in Utrecht, The Netherlands, with hubs in Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries. In the last year IDH has expanded its activities and now runs around 100 projects through 17 commodity programs in 50 countries, together with a wide range of private and public partners.

Starting operating in Vietnam in 2010, IDH has since established strong partnerships with businesses, government and NGOs working on coffee, tea, cocoa, spices/pepper and aquaculture. In 2014, IDH also launched a program aimed at using the public-private approach to addressing the key sustainability issues in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, which plays a key role in the production of several agricultural commodities

Thanks to economic liberalization, government leadership, and rises in the world coffee prices, Vietnam became the world’s second largest exporter of coffee and top producer of pepper globally.  Several local organizations and multinationals are looking at Vietnam as a top Asian producer for key commodities. However, the intensive agricultural development brought also considerable environmental challenges. Issues such as deforestation and groundwater depletion will need to be addressed at a landscape scale to sustain high production and trade into the future and to allow for future economic prosperity in the region. There seems to be a compelling business case for supply chains, Vietnamese government and local farmers to tackle these challenges collectively.

IDH would like to strengthen its team with one Program Assistant

Job Purpose

The Program Assistant will provide services to IDH with regard to administrative and program support in Vietnam and, as required, in the Asian region. The Program Assistant will report directly to the IDH Country Manager.

Key responsibilities

  • Assist IDH in registering IDH in Vietnam and to identify, contract and maintain suitable office arrangements
  • Assist IDH staff in developing and maintaining tools and mechanisms for effective and efficient monitoring of IDH projects.
  • Assist IDH in sourcing information relevant to IDH’s operations.
  • Assist IDH partners and staff on general administrative matters, provide advice and ensures administrative support as required (including taking minutes of meetings).
  • Provide general secretarial assistance to IDH and partners.
  • Deal with and record telephone messages, email messages, visitors and arrange appointments for IDH staff and partners as required.
  • Maintain an accurate filing system and ensure that data system is in good order, in computerized form.
  • Develop and maintain a computerized mailing list, address lists with contact names, addresses, numbers and email addresses and ensure that the list is constantly accurate.
  • Maintain IDH’s identity by ensuring that all letters, memos, faxes, proposals and reports adhere to IDH’s style.
  • Organize meetings, seminars, conferences, workshops and other events.
  • Translate documents from English to Vietnamese and vice versa.
  • Provide simultaneous interpretation from English to Vietnamese and vice versa during meetings, workshops and any other working related situation.
  • Assist IDH staff in ensuring effective functioning of financial and accounting operations in support of IDH’s work.
  • Assist IDH staff in keeping and processing financial records and in arranging payments associated with program activities.
  • In relation to the following programs in Asian producing countries (aquaculture, spices) the Program Assistant will also:
  • Be responsible for supporting the development and implementation of the program, including administration, reporting, development of program pipeline deliverables, logistics and research.
  • Be responsible for following up on project leads as to assist applicants to submit solid project proposals
  • Support the development and implementation of Monitoring & Evaluation activities related to projects under implementation
  • Support the organization of input from the program partners to enable IDH Operations to run the required program administration and reporting.
  • Maintain contacts with existing program stakeholders
  • Contribute to maintain the program’s network and contribute to further development of the program. If there is no senior manager in a sector, this role provides the key contact for IDH.
  • Work to achieve agreed objectives and is accountable for meeting or exceeding them.

Requirements

  • Based in Ha Noi.
  • Holding a university degree, preferably in foreign trade, international relations, economics or other relevant discipline.
  • At least 5 years of working experience in a relevant position such as program assistant, program officer and so on, preferably in agricultural and rural development programs and/or land and water resource management programs.
  • Experience in working with different stakeholders (eg Vietnamese government, private companies, NGOs,…) and in implementing multi-stakeholder programs
  • Excellent project support skills.
  • Comfortable working in a team as well as independently developing new programs.
  • Proactive, entrepreneurial, with a strong eye for detail
  • Willingness to travel.
  • Fluent spoken and written English and Vietnamese.

Terms and Conditions

IDH is looking for people that wish to work on one-year full-time basis, but with the possibility to extend. IDH offers a market conformed fee. For more information about IDH, please visit  www.idhsustainabletrade.com.

For questions about this position, please contact Flavio Corsin at [email protected].

Interested candidates should send their CV and application letter (in English) to Femke Boersma at [email protected] and Flavio Corsin at [email protected]. The call for applications is open until 17.00 on Friday, 17 October 2014.

IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative
Nieuwekade 9
PO Box 19219, NL-3501 DE Utrecht
www.idhsustainabletrade.com

Job Details
Organisation Name: 
IDH
Location: 
Hanoi
Application Deadline: 
Fri, 2014-10-17