Internship, Search for Common Ground, Tunisia
The Search for Common Ground (SFCG) Tunisia office seeks a responsible, creative, meticulous intern with excellent writing skills in English and French to provide support to SFCG Tunisia program. Duties would include writing and helping conceive funding proposals, creating communications documents, documenting success stories, researching and collecting program support materials, and helping monitor projects. The intern will report to the Country Director and will work closely with and provide support to all the program staff. The position will last from September to January and will be based in the Tunis office. This is an opportunity to take on significant responsibility with a large scope for initiative within SFCG’s newest country office, as well as to gain first-hand experience in a country grappling with the post-Arab Spring transition to democracy.
Responsibilities
Track funding opportunities, work with staff to conceptualize project ideas, and write funding proposals; Write content on behalf of SFCG Tunisia for SFCG’s blog and other communications outlets; Edit and contribute to SFCG Tunisia’s reports, proposals and other documents as necessary; Assist in monitoring projects; Research, collect, and adapt resources to support SFCG Tunisia’s projects; Ensure the monthly creation of a newsletter; Prepare a weekly news summary of current events in Tunisia; Perform other duties as required.
Minimum Qualifications
Native English speaker or equivalent skill level; Excellent oral and written French; Excellent analytical and writing skills; Experience with writing and editing, preferably of proposals and/or communications documents; Creative, entrepreneurial and collaborative work style; able to self-manage and multi-task; Bachelor’s degree, preferably in international relations, communications, or related field (or equivalent combination of education and experience); Ability to work in challenging, fast-paced, multi-cultural environment with minimum supervision; and Interest in the fields of peacebuilding and conflict transformation.
Preferred Qualifications
Prior international or cross-cultural working experience; Ability to communicate in Arabic; Experience working with social media; Background in conflict transformation
Salary
The position includes a $300/month stipend.
To Apply
To apply, please send a résumé, cover letter, two references, and a writing sample to MENAinternships@sfcg.org ASAP, with ‘Fall 2012 Tunisia internship’ in the subject of your email.
DEADLINE: August 10, 2012
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Job Opportunities with the African Union
See the above link for multiple job openings with the African Union including Senior Political Officer in Charge of Disarmament and Proliferation and Senior Political Officer – Crisis Management and Post-Conflict Reconciliation.
DEADLINE: Varies.
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IRC’s current governance programming approach in the DRC is focused on community-level approaches with a large community-driven reconstruction program in the four Eastern Provinces and some initial engagement with local governments (Entités Territoriales Decentralisées) in the context of decentralisation. To date, IRC’s global approach to the area of Governance and Rights, has largely focused on the three main areas : civil society development, community driven reconstruction, and protection and rule of law. IRC’s overarching Program Framework, also sets out fundamental aims that have links to governance: Meeting Basic Needs (Saving Lives), Strengthening Institutions, and Promoting Social Cohesion, all of which contribute to Durable Solutions for crisis-affected communities.
Within the coming year, IRC in DRC is aiming to develop a country-specific Governance Sector Strategy (GSS) to provide both strategic and operational positioning for the IRC team in the DRC. This GSS should align with the DRC overall country-program strategic plan (CPSP) and with new thinking IRC’s Governance and Rights strategic framework, currently in draft. Broadly this strategy will approach governance as both a ‘stand-alone’ set of programming and a ‘cross-cutting theme’ to programming in other sectors such as health, education, and water-sanitation. The DRC Governance Sector Strategy (GSS) will be an opportunity for growth and innovation in governance sector programming within IRC, with an approach that aligns with the draft global framework incorporating both stand-alone and cross-cutting theme elements. The main governance principles it will seek to foster in both of these approaches are broadly:
Participation – All men and women have a voice in decision-making, either directly or through legitimate intermediate institutions that represent their interests.
Effectiveness and efficiency – Processes and institutions produce results that meet needs while making the best use of resources.
Rule of law – Legal frameworks are fair and laws, particularly on human rights, are enforced impartially.
Transparency – Processes, institutions, and information are directly accessible to those affected by them, and enough information is provided to understand and monitor them.
Equity and inclusiveness – A society’s well being depends on ensuring that all its members feel that they have a stake in it and do not feel excluded from the mainstream of society. This requires that fair opportunities exist for all groups, but particularly the most vulnerable, to improve or maintain their well-being.
Accountability – The ability of institutions to be responsive to citizens, including abiding by their aggregated preferences, disclosing necessary information, permitting citizen participation in decision-making, and allowing for citizen sanction of public officials on the basis of publicly recognized norms and procedures.
It will seek to take as a point of departure the DRC governance system as it currently functions, with a view to strengthen local actors’ capacities to respond to governance and development challenges and self-identified priories in sustainable way. It will ensure both that IRC learn from its current and previous community driven approaches in DRC, from those of other partners, both local and international, in the governance and related programming areas. Ultimate the strategy seeks to broaden IRC’s vision and approach in the area of Governance and Rights in DRC to secure funding for future comprehensive multi-provincial programming.
1. Objectives
As a background to the development of the GSS, the consultant will undertake a governance and rights sector visioning and analysis focusing on the following areas:
a) Current state of governance and rights in DRC, with some degree of coverage and comparison of conflict and non-conflict areas of DRC, with particular, though not exclusive focus, on the local level; by local level we would include the space and structures between villages and provincial level, with a view to how these link to national level. Particular areas of focus would be:
Local public institutions, including line ministries and other administrative bodies, state bodies, including capacities, relationships, incentives, constraints and opportunities. Includes current status, dynamics and influence of decentralization in DRC including political, financial, and administrative aspects. This would be with a view to the objective of fostering effective and responsive public institutions
Civil society movements and organisations, community-based organizations, constituency-based political parties, local unstructured networks including structures, capacities of representation and demand, relationships to political/government actors, incentives, constraints and opportunities. This would be with a view to the objective of fostering strong citizen voice and engagement.
Existing and potential spaces and structures for interfaces between supply and demand sides of governance at any level that include generative dialogue, consensus-building, negotiated/joint approaches to reform. This would be with a view to the objective of fostering participatory governance.
Systems of protection and rule of law at local levels, both formal and informal, including capacities, relationships, incentives, constraints and opportunities and how they affect areas such as realization of women’s rights, children’s rights, rights of disabled and vulnerable peoples, business rights and legal empowerment of the poor. This would be with a view to the objective of fostering promotion and protection of human rights and rule of law.
b) Overview of successful, innovative approaches in DRC or in relevant/similar country contexts to increasing citizen demand, community monitoring, access to information, budget literacy, upward accountability mechanisms between communities and local authorities/line ministries
c) Overview of successful, innovative approaches in DRC or in relevant/similar country contexts to strengthen responsiveness of local authorities/line ministries to constituent needs, demands, and fulfillment of human rights
d) Discussion of relevant approaches to strengthening governance as cross-cutting theme to social service delivery in DRC through approaches such as access to information, community monitoring (report cards and score cards) and local public administrative strengthening, including discussion of linkages to existing sectoral programming to build capacities in line ministries (i.e. health and education); this discussion should include links to national level actors and capacities
e) Assessment of current programming by IRC and other international actors (UN, INGO) to strengthen governance at the local level in DRC, on either supply or demand sides including support to decentralization; includes successes, lessons learned and description of specific, proven intervention strategies
f) Overview of further possible programming approaches to foster the governance attributes stated above (participation, effectiveness and efficiency, transparency…) to include sustainability parameters and exit criteria in all programmatic aspects
2. Methodology
The consultant will work in two stages:
Preliminary stage to include initial document review, and mapping of actors and donor approaches
Second stage of focused information-gathering on draft framework elements, which would be drafted between stage one and two. This stage would include further in-depth document review, key informant meetings, and political economy analysis.
3. Deliverables
The consultant will submit to IRC:
At the end of the preliminary stage, a document with initial findings, outlining potential areas of strategic focus for the IRC-DRC Governance and Rights Strategy; a Powerpoint presentation of initial findings to IRC’s technical team before departure
At the second stage :
Full report addressing the above objectives, including:
Recommended areas of strategic focus which leverage IRC-DRC’s experience to date, based on analysis of current landscape
Recommended new or modified program approaches, each with sustainability parameters and exit criteria
Propositions for staffing organizational charts for operationalizing this strategic focus
4. Requirements
Sound knowledge of the field of governance and rights, particularly local governance and decentralisation, community monitoring, and community-drive approaches both theoretical and practical
Extensive experience with governance and rights strategies and programming in fragile, weak, highly corrupt and chronic crises states, and post-conflict settings
Experience liaising with donors, international organisations and implementing partners, and comparative analysis of their policies, strategies, and programme approaches
Knowledge and practical experience in political economy analysis, or peace and conflict assessments, preferably at sub-national levels
Experience in planning, design, and human resources aspects of governance and rights programs in resource-constrained countries
Relevant working experience in the region (DRC or neighbouring countries)
Fluency in English and French
5. Security / Housing
The consultant will be based in IRC’s guesthouses in Kinshasa and provincial bases, or will be accommodated in a mid-range hotel. The consultant will comply with IRC security rules.