Vacancy Announcement :

Position: Baseline Assessment Team Leader - Integrated UXO Action (IUA) Project

Required in Khammouane from 11 January – 20 February 2010

World Vision Lao seeks Baseline Assessment Team Leader to facilitate assessment of the Integrated UXO Action (IUA) Project (2009-2014), funded by AusAID and World Vision Australia.

The objective of this baseline assessment is to determine the extent and nature of poverty and vulnerability (especially to UXO risk) in participating households and villages. The project will be implemented in 24 villages in Mahaxay District, Khammouane Province. The assessment will take pre-project measurements of the status of participants and conditions in target villages based on indicators that are linked to project outcomes of poverty reduction, UXO abatement and livelihood development. This information will be tracked through activity monitoring later in the project so that changes achieved can be compared to baseline measurements/findings. The assessment also will give stakeholders an opportunity to reflect on the baseline process and findings, mining their experience for lessons to improve practice.

Required Scope of Work

• Review project- relevant documents and reports.

• Refine assessment design, instruments and protocol for data collection and analysis.

• Train a stakeholder team in understanding design and data collection instruments and protocols.

• Supervise field-level collection and analysis of data in groups; facilitate group reflection on results; generate findings from village interviews and household survey.

• Produce a draft assessment report within two weeks of finalizing data collection, followed by a final report that incorporates stakeholder feedback on the draft.

Timeline

Proposed total duration of project: 30 days from 11 January – 20 February 2010. Time

available for data collection: 15 days in 12 villages of Mahaxay District, Khammouane Province. Availability for these dates and ability to turn in draft report by 20 February essential.

Qualifications

• At least eight years’ experience designing and carrying out professional baseline assessments in village contexts, with emphasis on poverty reduction, UXO abatement and livelihood development. Experience building community and NGO staff capacity for doing baseline assessments with methodological rigour.

Preferably this experience will have been in Lao PDR; familiarity with the local developmental context, government policy and cultural conditions (especially needs and conditions of ethnic groups) preferred.

• Familiarity with assessment design frameworks, approaches, and tools for data

collection and analysis that can produce user-friendly and credible measurements of initial project conditions calibrated to enable practitioners to address, monitor and evaluate project-specific outcomes.

• Demonstrated experience leading and coordinating diverse stakeholder groups

including community members, the government, NGO staff and international donor organizations.

Interested candidates are invited to submit their CV to Human Resources Department, World Vision Lao PDR, 333 Nongbone Rd, Box 312, Vientiane, or by e-mail to: wvlaopdr_applicant@yahoo.com . Tel: 021 452 100 Fax: 021 452 101. Closing date: January 15, 2010.

NOTE:

1. As a child focused organization, World Vision is committed to the protection of children and does not employ staff whose background is not suitable for working with children.

2. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted for interview.