Asean Act Country Manager

Job Brief

The Country Manager - Thailand is a senior program position and the main liaison point between the program and senior Thai stakeholders with a role in countering trafficking.

ASEAN-Australia Counter Trafficking (**ASEAN-ACT**) continues Australia’s long running collaboration with ASEAN and its Member States to end human trafficking in the region. The program is a ten-year investment principally working to strengthen the justice sector response to trafficking in persons, while advancing the rights of victims. The program has established new partnerships with allied government agencies, civil society, and business. We engage with all 10 ASEAN Member States in some capacity and have national-level programming in Cambodia, Lao PDR, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. We are establishing programming in Indonesia, and it is currently on hold in Myanmar.

***About the Role**

The Country Manager - Thailand is a senior program position and the main liaison point between the program and senior Thai stakeholders with a role in countering trafficking. This position will represent at the country level as the ‘face’ of the program in meetings and consultations, providing strategic advice to wide-ranging regional and national partners, including government and non-government. This includes support to a flagship bilateral initiative to establish a new Counter Trafficking in Persons Centre of Excellence - the first training facility in the region with a dedicated focus on countering trafficking in persons. The Country Manager - Thailand will have overall responsibility for the management of country activities, leading and managing the country team with adept planning, budgeting, monitoring, and reporting.

The role is best suited to a highly motivated and collaborative individual who is interested in a dynamic regional program, with national projects geared towards strengthening governance and influencing policy change. We are looking for an individual with a passion for delivering positive change, responsive to the needs of our donor and partner government, and with an understanding of international development.

***Specific Duties**

***Networking and Relationship Building**
- Develop and maintain strong networks and working relationships with all stakeholders, including national committee members based on mutual accountability and respect.
- High-level representation with government partners, civil society, international organisations and DFAT officers in meetings, dialogues and committees in the area of trafficking in persons.

***Program Management and Reporting**
- Work collaboratively with regional ASEAN-ACT team to incorporate technical inputs into national-level activities across all program pathways; share experiences with other ASEAN-ACT Country Managers; provide country/political economy analysis to the ASEAN-ACT program team on a regular basis.
- Contribute to technical review and comment on studies and reports conducted under ASEAN-ACT and identify approaches to integrate findings and recommendations into program activities.

***Organisational and Operational Management**
- Empower the ASEAN-ACT Thailand country team of three staff on program, financial, and administrative functions; ensure that staff feel valued and supported, are able to practice a healthy work/life balance and are given opportunities to develop their professional capacities.
- Champion good governance, gender equality, disability, social inclusion and victim rights and child protection and promote a working culture based on a values-based approach.
- With the Deputy Team Leader, manage opportunities and risks that may impact the program, respond to incidents (e.g. security, safety, fraud, reputational, etc), and ensure compliance and adherence to DT-Global safeguards, processes, procedures and duties as a senior national member of ASEAN-ACT.

***Selection Criteria**
- Postgraduate degree or similar experience in development, public policy and organisational leadership, with at least 5 years’ management level experience in governance or public policy programming.
- Established networks with relevant partners in the justice sector, civil society, private sector or government.
- Deep understanding of the cultural and political context in Thailand and how to navigate these dynamics for effective governance programming.
- Understanding of human rights and rights-based approaches in development.
- Familiarity with the local and regional context in relation to human trafficking, including national legislation and the roles of the justice sector, civil society, private sector and allied government institutions preferred.
- Demonstrated leadership and management skills, including the ability to provide timely and reliable advice to program managers and counterparts.
- Knowledge of development principles and approaches, including developing the skills and capacity of counterparts; monitoring, evaluation and learning; and main