Project Consultant

Terms of Reference

Project Consultant

Position: Project Consultant
Project: Backstage to the Future and UK/Viet Nam Season 2023
Period of consultancy: September 2023 to July 2024
Location: Hanoi/Ho Chi Minh City

Introduction

About the British Council

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We support peace and prosperity by building connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide. We do this through our work in arts and culture, education and the English language. We work with people in over 200 countries and territories and are on the ground in more than 100 countries. In 2021–22 we reached 650 million people.

About the British Council in Viet Nam

The British Council has a well-developed presence in Viet Nam, with a dynamic portfolio spanning the arts and creative industries, education (higher, vocational and non-formal), and English teaching, learning and assessment, delivering a range of academic and professional UK qualifications. We have 345 staff in Hanoi and in Ho Chi Minh City across nine offices and teaching centres (four in Ha Noi and five in Ho Chi Minh City). Four more centres will open late 2023/early 2024, with ten further centres planned in the coming two years.

We have built extensive networks, connections and partnerships between UK and Vietnamese individuals, organisations and institutions across all areas of our work, and with ambitions to further expand these networks.

Purpose

The British Council in Viet Nam seeks a qualified and experienced Project Consultant to provide project management and implementation support for the Backstage to the Future project as well as projects as part of UK/Viet Nam Season 2023. The successful candidate will work with a range of internal and external stakeholders to ensure high impact and high-quality implementation of all activities, communication and visibility, and monitoring, evaluation and learning.

Project overview

Backstage to the Future

Backstage to the Future is a social action project exploring the use of arts, cultural and creative approaches to assist civil society organisations (CSOs) in making positive social changes, particularly in supporting safe migration in Viet Nam. Nam by ensuring that they have information about the risks of trafficking and safe behaviours, receive support from diverse levels of society and can access public support services. The overall objective of the project is to contribute to enhancing the role of CSOs in Viet Nam’s efforts to combat human trafficking.

The specific objective of the project is that grassroots CSOs employ innovative approaches to mobilise and sensitise all levels of society (public, private, civil) to respond to the problem of human trafficking and unsafe in H?i Phòng, Hà T?nh and Qu?ng Bình provinces.

This is a three-year project co-funded by the European Union and the UK Government, and implemented in partnership between the British Council, Viet Nam Institute for Culture and Arts Studies and the Viet Nam National University Youth Union.

UK/Viet Nam Season 2023

Marking 50 years of UK–Vietnamese diplomatic relations and 30 years of the British Council’s presence in Viet Nam, the UK–Viet Nam Season 2023 will elevate the bilateral cultural relationship, providing new opportunities for UK and Vietnamese individuals and organisations, and contributing to the people-to-people links strand of the UK–Viet Nam Strategic Partnership.

Artists, thought leaders, academics and educators from organisations in the UK and Viet Nam will come together for the UK/Viet Nam Season 2023, creating projects that reflect on the UK and Viet Nam’s past, present, and future bilateral relationship through the Season’s themes: ‘Climate and the environment’ and ‘Shared heritage’.

In celebrating UK–Viet Nam collaboration and creativity across our two thematic areas of ‘Climate and the Environment’ and ‘Shared Heritage’, we look forward to drawing on the results of existing connections, as well as creating new relationships.

The projects be showcased throughout Viet Nam from June to December 2023.

Key Tasks/Deliverables

Programme development & implementation

• Implements project activities (including planning, partner liaison and logistics) to ensure these are delivered to time, budget and quality.
• Operates effective project/programme controls, risk management and monitoring processes to track progress and alert colleagues and partners to issues as they arise.
• Ensures high impact and high-quality implementation of all programme activities by fulfilling the following specific tasks:

1. contributes to the planning of activities, timeline, budget, communication and visibility, and monitoring, evaluation and learning;
2. coordinates inputs by external technical partners, including institutional partners, consultants, advisors, and delivery partners to the planning and implementation of programme activities to ensure technical feasibility;
3. leads on research, communications, monitoring, evaluation, and learning/best practice activities under the scope of the programme;
4. participates in trainings, meetings, workshops, conferences relevant to the programme;
5. working closely with the Head of Arts, oversees implementation of programme activities to ensure maximum impact level of expected outputs/outcomes is achieved;
6. working closely with the Head of Arts, oversees disbursement of programme budget to ensure appropriate resource availability and allocation in an efficient manner;
7. working closely with the Head of Arts, coordinates and oversees all requirements regarding monitoring, evaluation and learning/best practices are fulfilled;
8. creates and maintains comprehensive programme documentation;
9. tracks and manages changes in programme scope, timeline and resources;
10. reports and escalates to senior management to minimize programme risks as needed.

• Undertaking programme-specific data collection as needed. This includes working with colleagues to identify indicators and tools for data collection, quality assuring all data, and undertaking basic analysis.

Relationship & stakeholder management

• Develops good working relationships with appropriate colleagues throughout the British Council and in the relevant sector/subject-related community to facilitate effective programme/project development and delivery.
• As required, represents the British Council at specific subject/sector-related events to ensure appropriate support is given to partners and other stakeholders.

Timeline

The consultancy contract will have a duration of maximum 10 months, starting from October 2023 and ending in July 2024. The Project Consultant is expected to work approximately 37.5 hours per week, with a flexible schedule to accommodate project needs (i.e., travels and events).

Qualifications

The ideal candidate for this role should possess the following qualifications:

• 5 years’ project management experience, from start to finish and familiarity with project life cycles.
• Proven experience of managing project budget and financial procedures.
• Experience of working with multiple partners and stakeholders.
• Confident user of information technology (Word; Excel; PowerPoint), Microsoft 365 functionality.
• Ability to frequently travel to project locations.

How to apply

Please submit a CV with covering letter addressed to the hiring team at [email protected]

Salary is negotiable on application and passing screening requirements. Please indicate your desired daily rate in Vietnamese Dong with your submitted application.

Deadline for applications: 30 September 2023 at 11:59 p.m. (Viet Nam Time)