Program Officer for Legal Empowerment at Open Society

POSITION AVAILABLE

PROGRAM OFFICER, LEGAL EMPOWERMENT

OPEN SOCIETY JUSTICE INITIATIVE

OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE, BUDAPEST

The Open Society Foundations work to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. To achieve this mission, the Foundations seek to shape public policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights. On a local level, the Open Society Foundations implement a range of initiatives to advance justice, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, we build alliances across borders and continents on issues such as corruption and freedom of information. The Foundations place a high priority on protecting and improving the lives of people in marginalized communities.

Investor and philanthropist George Soros established the Open Society Foundations, starting in 1984, to help countries make the transition from communism. Our activities have grown to encompass the United States and more than 70 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Each Foundation relies on the expertise of boards composed of eminent citizens who determine individual agendas based on local priorities.

BACKGROUND

The Open Society Justice Initiative uses law to protect and empower people around the world. Through litigation, advocacy, research, and technical assistance, the Justice Initiative promotes human rights and builds legal capacity for open societies. We foster accountability for international crimes, combat racial discrimination and statelessness, support criminal justice reform, address abuses related to national security and counterterrorism, expand freedom of information and expression, and stem corruption linked to the exploitation of natural resources. Our staff are based in Abuja, Amsterdam, Bishkek, Brussels, Budapest, Freetown, The Hague, London, Mexico City, New York, Paris, Phnom Penh, Santo Domingo and Washington, D.C.

The UN Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor estimated that 4 billion people live outside the protection of the law. The World Bank Development Report 2011 emphasized the link between conflict and insecurity and achievement of the Millennium Development goals, underscoring the need to build confidence between states and citizens, by developing effective institutions and empowering citizens to hold governments to account. The emerging field of legal empowerment has pioneered practical methods for meeting these related challenges. Legal empowerment interventions foster more empowered communities and more responsive governments. The vision of the Justice Initiative’s Legal Empowerment work is to create an independent global civil society-based movement to promote legal empowerment worldwide in a sustainable form that builds upon existing structures and increases interconnectedness, knowledge sharing and access to resources.

Towards this, the Justice Initiative is collaborating with other agencies to establish an independent organization, Namati, that coordinates, informs and strengthens legal empowerment programming worldwide; a Global Network, hosted on the Namati website, bringing together legal empowerment practitioners to provide a platform for sharing research findings, training materials and case management systems; and support to innovative country-level projects that develop model approaches to legal empowerment programming across a range of thematic issues and socio-political contexts. A small grantmaking facility will be established to complement this approach, enabling strengthening of, and more critical and substantive engagement with, the global network, and providing the opportunity to address the many research questions currently being asked of the legal empowerment movement.

Based in Budapest, and working under the supervision of the Legal Empowerment Project Manager, the Program Officer of the global legal empowerment initiative will primarily assist in supporting the program’s grantmaking facility so as to strengthen a wide range of grassroots organizations in developing effective, high quality, sustainable services, and filling any research gaps in the global legal empowerment agenda.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Grantmaking

• Assist in identifying potential partners and projects to advance the global legal empowerment agenda and research needs;
• Solicit, help develop, review and evaluate proposals; organize proposal reviews by other internal and external reviewers; correspond with potential grantees; prepare and review grant documentation and dockets;
• Supervise and monitor grants (maintain regular communication with counterparts, provide feedback, conduct site visits, review reports, budgets and financial reports, website and publications) and evaluate progress;

• Maintain ongoing, active relationships with grantees and oversee the implementation of funded grants;
• Document and provide ongoing assessment and evaluation of Justice Initiative’s legal empowerment grant portfolio.

Capacity Building

• Work with the Project Manager and grantees to identify capacity building needs, plan and coordinate technical assistance to support grantee technical capacity and organizational development;

• Identify relevant resource people/ external consultants as needed to provide capacity building on co-management, financial training, monitoring and evaluation training, data collection, documenting work etc.; negotiate and prepare terms of consulting arrangements;

• Ensure that learning from grantees is documented and integrated into the global program, presented on the web platform and contributes to the evidence base for legal empowerment;

• Identify and develop peer exchange and horizontal learning opportunities for grantees and technical assistance consultants, and facilitate these meetings as required.

Learning, documentation and advocacy

• Research/ documentation: prepare background papers, updates, program publications and assist in preparing reports, proposals for other donors etc. as needed;
• Maintain database of donors in the field, keep track of developments of donor strategies and activities on legal empowerment;
• Help organize events to publicize and discuss issues relevant to the work on legal empowerment and represent Justice Initiative in meetings, events and conferences;
• Observe and document the work and programmatic direction of civil society organizations, international non-governmental organizations and other actors working on legal empowerment issues;
• Build and manage relationships with other Open Society Foundation entities, funders, and interested parties who may be resources to Justice Initiative, and its grantees;
• Provide written and oral reports on activities.

General program administration

• Track and manage budgets for the above work;
• Provide general administrative support to the program, and when travelling, manage logistics and organization of meetings;
• Perform other duties as assigned.

REQUIREMENTS

• Bachelor’s Degree in law, international relations, public policy or another relevant field; post-graduate degree in similar preferred;
• Five to eight years professional experience in public policy, international development, human rights, gender relations or other relevant field;
• Excellent oral, written, and interpersonal skills in English required;
• Ability to communicate at a proficient level in French and/or Spanish preferred;
• Strong organizational, analytical, research and problem solving skills and attention to detail;
• Excellent listening and communication skills with sensitivity to cultural communication differences;
• Pleasant, diplomatic manner and disposition in interacting with colleagues at all levels, program contacts, and the general public;
• Ability to work independently and as member of a team;
• Willingness and ability to travel extensively.
• At least one year’s experience working with a civil society organization in a developing or post-conflict context;
• Previous grantmaking experience desirable;
• Experience in project management, including managing consultants, and developing and managing project budgets.
• Ability to work simultaneously on a wide range of projects and prioritize appropriately;

Application deadline: May 1, 2012

For more information about the Open Society Justice Initiative, please visit http://www.soros.org/initiatives/justice

The Open Society Foundations are an Equal Opportunity Employer which supports diversity and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, disability, or sexual orientation.

TO APPLY: Send resume, motivation letter, writing sample, contact information for three references, and salary requirements to applications@admingroup.hu indicating ‘Program Officer / OSJI’ in the subject line.