Handicap International is recruiting a
Road Safety Project Coordinator
Based in Vietnam (Province)
Please send CV and cover letter to jobs@handicap.be by May 5th (application deadline)
Country: Vietnam
City/Site: Bac Giang (35%), Hanoi (30%), Binh Thuan (35%) acc. to needs
Programs / Projects: 4 projects
Number of Employees: 28 National, 2 International
Title of Position: Road safety Project Coordinator
N + 1: Operations Coordinator
N+2: Program Director
Direct Team Management: 2 national project managers,
Indirect Team Mgmt: 3 national staffs
Budget Responsibility: Yes
Contract: Fixed term contract 12 months
Expected Date of Arrival: July 2013
Duration of Mission: 1 year (extension possible)
International Travel: Possibilities for conferences
Travel between Sites: Job is based in Hanoi for networking but will require regular travel to project sites: Binh Thuan, and Bac Giang.
Possibility of a couple: Yes
Donor: PAU Education
DESCRIPTION OF THE PROGRAM AND THE PROJECTS
History, context and evolution of the job
Handicap International in Vietnam
With its economical growth, Vietnam belongs to this ‘Development’ contextual category. Since 1989 (registered in 1991), upon request from national partners (ministries or provincial institutions), Handicap International got involved as a technical advisor for the implementation of projects focusing on Prevention and Rehabilitation of disabilities due to war, accidents, congenital defects, or disabling diseases. The main concern is the long term sustainability, multiplying the impacts on beneficiaries after the end of the project, and not only a beneficiary approach during the few years of partnership.
For each project, Handicap International combines its expertise with partners’ experiences. These complementarities led to the elaboration of original concepts which are at the same time adapted to international standards and appropriate to the local context and available resources.
In a dynamic environment like in Vietnam, these concepts are rapidly implemented by the local institutions on their own, and reproduced for the long term impact on further beneficiaries. On the other hand, these concepts improve the expertise of Handicap International, and are made available for other countries.
Up to now, more than 30 projects have been implemented in the country.
In 2013, 4 projects are being implemented in 5 different sites, in the fields of Mother & Child’s health, Road Safety and Social and Economic Integration.
HI Vietnam is actually in a transition phase, with:
– Nationalization process of the management: all projects are managed by junior coordinators;
– Active fund-raising, inducing a multiplication of private donors;
– Changes in the national policies regarding NGOs;
– Exit strategy planed for 2016.
For more information concerning the context of work in this country, please consult our websites www.handicapinternational.be and www.handicapvietnam.org
Road Safety in Handicap International
Deaths and injuries from road traffic crashes are a major and growing public health concern. The World Health Organization has estimated that, worldwide, 1.27 million people are killed in road crashes every year and almost half of them are pedestrians, motorcycles and cyclist. In addition, road crashes cause between 20 million and 50 million non-fatal injuries and are an important cause of disability[1]. Deaths from road traffic injuries account for around 25% of all deaths from injuries.
More than 90% of all road traffic deaths occur in low and middle income countries, while these countries only have 48% of the world’s vehicles. While road traffic death rates in many high-income countries have stabilized or declined in recent decades, research suggests road deaths are increasing in most regions of the world and that if trends continue unabated, they will rise to an estimated 2.4 million a year by 2030[2]. Without appropriate action, road traffic injuries are predicted to be the fifth leading contributor to the global burden of disease and injury.
In 2000, the Physiotherapy Project in Lao PDR discovered that at least 80% of the patients needing physio-treatment had sustained their injuries from road traffic crashes. Alarmed by this trend, HI started some awareness raising activities to alert the population on the danger on the road. A more comprehensive survey was commissioned by HI in 2002 in selected hospitals in the region (Lao PDR, Cambodia and Vietnam) to understand better the causes of road traffic crashes. The survey revealed that there had been a significant increase of road crashes in the past decade, due to factors such as increased vehicle volume and lack of road safety knowledge among the region’s population. At the same time, HIB at the head office in Brussels also identified road crashes as one of the major public health issues and potential causes of disability. The fist road safety publication was disseminated by HIB Brussels, as a literature review[3]on overall road safety issues in developing countries.
Following the results from the survey, as well as the realization of the global cost of road crashes, HIB launched pilot road safety project in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam in 2003. HIB’s initial projects focused on public awareness campaigns and education to prevent road traffic crashes and injuries, as well as lobbying and supporting the governments and several actors from civil society in the three countries to take more action on road safety. The pilot projects were successful, and based on these early experiences, all three country-level road safety programs expanded their scope of activities and geographical coverage.
In Vietnama first project has been implemented in Ho Chi Minh City from 2004 to 2008. Based on the experience of this first phase, a second phase was designed with as objective the replication, extension and strengthening of the results of the initial project, to support and reinforce partners’ capacity and to improve HIB’s methodology and expertise in RS in Vietnam. Started in January 2008, for a 3 years period, the second phase of the Road Safety project was implemented in a rural area, in Dong Nai Province which is the centre of the commercial roads among Central regions, North of Viet Nam and Cuu Long Delta. The project focused on 5 main areas: Enforcement, Engineering, Education, Emergency preparedness (First Aid system), capacity building of local actors and authorities.
The project in Dong Nai is now over and HI is starting a 3rd phase in 2 new Provinces: Bac Giang and Binh Tuan. The objective of this third phase is to strengthen the best practices and develop a final ‘evidence-based’ model to be handed over at national level.
The 3rd phase started in July 2013 with a new project called “Safe Roads 4 Youth” (SR4Y) in partnership with P.A.U Education. In this project the scope of intervention is reduced and focused on 2 specific areas: drink driving prevention among youth and first aid network.
Safe Roads 4 Youth is a research-action project. This action research is carried out simultaneously in 3 countries (Vietnam, Argentina, South Africa) by 3 different organizations (Handicap International in Vietnam, GRSP in South Africa, Red Cross in Argentina). Research is an integral part of the project which combines scientific research and field action. In addition, similar researches are conducted, on a smaller scale, on the HI Road Safety Program in Lao PDR and Cambodia and exchanges are fostered within the HI Road Safety programs in the region.
The main objective of the SR4Y project is to contribute to the better understanding of the impact of cultural context in the effectiveness and efficiency of drink driving preventive actions.
The SR4Y addresses the following question: What types of community programs are effective in preventing drink driving and how does their effect vary across countries and cultures?
In the same time, we will set up the base of the First Aid network along main axes, as a base to be duplicated by the provincial traffic safety committees in the 2 provinces.
Up to date, the baseline has been realized, shared with the partners in February 2013 and some pilot activities have been launched.
The First Aid network implementation will be launched in May 2013 (training of the Red Cross volunteers, equipment purchases).
A central aspect of the approach proposed is the involvement of community stakeholders, especially youth, in the development of the actions and activities aimed at achieving change. Genuine participation is both a tool as well as a consequence of the proposed approach. Therefore special emphasize will be given to community participation and youth participation.
The project coordinator is responsible for coordinating the implementation of this Road Safety project and to promote good practices with the National Road Safety Committee members.
RESPONSIBILITIES AND TASKS:
· Strategic Management
- Participate in discussions on global strategy definition in Road Safety of HI Vietnam
- Communicate the HI Vietnam internal rules and procedures to the project teams
· Project management
1. General management
- Represent the project to the local authorities and other RS stakeholders
- Ensure respect of HI rules, procedures and mandate
- Ensure respect of obligations stated in MOU and follow their implementation
2. Project planning
- Develop the Operational Plans (Ops) based on the BCC
- Schedule the project milestones using appropriate tools
- Review and revise planning whenever the needs occur
3. Project implementation
- Conduct regular participatory planning meetings with Local Promoting Groups (local stakeholders) for quality control and adequacy of the project strategy.
- Ensure good communication and coordination with partners, with the research team in country and in the region, with the RS technical reference
- Select and disseminate technical communication between HI, NGOs, team and partners
- Identify needs for further or specific training, equipment, external support, and elaborate terms of reference
- Organize the training in Vietnam and abroad as defined by proposals, and organize the complementary if necessary
4. Project monitoring & reporting
- Coordinate with the research team for data collection and updating the baseline
- Coordinate the definition of appropriate monitoring system for the project with appropriate plan of follow-up indicators
- Update indicators, achievements, activities and results according to the project LogFrame
- Follow up, spot check on-going activities for quality control
- Organize operations monitoring and lessons learnt workshops if needed
- Prepare and write reports: progress reports, donor reports, internal reports (annual reports, information for website, newsletter…)
5. Project Evaluation
- Periodically evaluate project activities
- Assess project progress together with Local Promoting Groups and local actors involved
- Identify with partners the possible re-orientation of the project
- Coordinate with technical referent for the mid-term review and final evaluation
6. Fund raising
- Establish networking for possible fund raising
- Develop ideas/key notes of potential new activities for fundraising
- Contribute to proposal writing
· Communication
1. Internal communication
- Act as a link between the project and the HIVN Board of Direction, as well as with other HI administrative departments at Hanoi Office
- Act as a link between other projects implemented by HIVN
- Communicate with Technical Supportive Department at HQ and with SR4Y research team
- Participate in regional dynamic within the HI Road Safety program exchanges
2. External communication
- Communicate with mass media for publicity of HI-VN image
- Represent HI and the SR4Y project in different seminars in the region
- Make a link between projects at the same field in the region
- Inform partners and potential partners about HI
- Release project activities reports
- Establish relationships and meetings with other NGOs
· Team management
- Participate in the recruitment of team members
- Prepare job profiles for project staff and short term consultant
- Validate the IAP of coordinator’s assistant and project consultants
- Implement HIVN policy training
- Prepare and lead the periodical internal office meetings
- Manage the project team delegation of task and responsibilities (monitoring, supervision, evaluation)
- Manage team communication to prevent and solve possible conflicts
- Develop team building activities when appropriate and possible
- Manage consultants
· Financial management
- Elaborate operational budget with comments and explanations: direct costs for the operations and functioning cost for the project office
- Monitor the daily expenditure, monthly accountancy and bank follow-up (monthly forecast to HI VN office)
- Monitor the project expenses, by using the HI follow-up tools, justify the variations.
- Make sure all procedures are followed, according to both HI, Vietnamese rules and donors rules
- Identify complementary local funding possibilities linking with Communication coordinator
- Write intermediary and final financial reports
· Logistics management
- Supervise the purchasing process (14 steps) conducted by the project assistant
- Conduct the handover process of equipment after purchasing
- Coordinate with the Support office for necessary advice or support
- Follow up on the use of equipment after handover
- Supervise the maintenance of office and project inventory
WORKING ENVIRONMENT
The Project Coordinator will work under the supervision of the Operational Coordinator based in Hanoi and will manage 3 persons: 2 project coordinators + 2 project assistant / accoutant in Binh Thuan and Bac Giang. He/she will also coordinate with the HI Road Safety technical referent, in charge of guaranteeing the coherence of the RS approach in the region and the respect of HI RS guidelines.
Travel:
Regular trips to Binh Thuan and Bac Giang to support the team and networking in Hanoi to coordinate with National Road Safety stakeholders
Main Interactions:
Interface Frequency
Internal
National projects management team Daily
Operational Coordinator Regularly
Other Projects / Services teams Regularly
Technical referent Regularly
External
Local Promoting Groups Regularly
Project partners Regularly
National authorities Occasionally
Donors Regularly
Research team Regularly
PROFILE REQUIRED FOR THE JOB:
Knowledge
1/ Master Degree
Fields of studies:
- Development
- M&E
- Community Development / Community participation
- Youth participation
- Pedagogy
2/ English is mandatory as all project documentation and reporting systems are in English; French and Vietnamese would be an asset.
Skills
1/ At least 5 years experience in his/her field and/or in coordination;
- Experienced in working in INGO sector
- Experienced in Asian context (particularly in Vietnam)
- Experience in implementation of community based activities and community awareness raising/behaviour change communication
- Experience in working with youth organizations
2/ Others
· Strong coordination and management skills
· Strong experience in project cycle management
· Strong experience in community awareness activities
- Experience of working within a multi-cultural environment
- Experience in working with government, local and institutional partners
- Knowledge in Road Safety is a strong asset
· Computer literate (Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc.)
Personal qualities
- Flexible in terms of mobility (based in Hanoi support office with frequent field visits to projects areas)
- Ability to leave a few weeks in small cities
- Ability to adapt to a Vietnamese and Asian context
- Mature, diplomatic and patient but with a strong will
- Ability to communicate and collaborate effectively with a variety of colleagues
- Dynamic, flexible and creative
- Able to integrate easily and to negotiate effectively with local partners
- Committed to Handicap International mandate
