Eurasia Programme Officer to Civil Rights Defenders

We are in an expansion phase, which has opened up many interesting job opportunities.Are you an expert on the political and human rights situation in Eurasia? Do you want to use your strategical skills to contribute to the advocacy work of Civil Rights Defenders? Then you might be the one we are looking for.

About the role
As Program Officer you will work directly with the Department Director and Senior Program Officer to manage and follow up on the programme and long-term partnerships with human rights organisations in the Eurasia Region. You will be responsible for setting programme priorities and tracking political developments in the Eurasia Region with emphasis on Russia and Ukraine.

The Eurasia Programme Officer reports to the Eurasia Department Director

The role offers great variety, including work tasks such as:

- Follow and analyse the human rights situation in the Eurasia region, with emphasis on Russia and Ukraine
- Manage a portfolio of grants assigned by the Department Director
- Travel frequently in the region (approximately 30 days/year)
- Identify, assess, and propose new partners and activities
- Conduct human rights activities together with partners
- Initiate and participate in lobbying and advocacy actions
- Monitor, evaluate and report on partnerships and activities
- Be a capacity building resource for our partners
- Provide the management with draft editorials and supportive documents for debates, etc, and write articles, appeals and statements for our website and media
- Establish and maintain contacts with relevant decision makers
- Identify fundraising opportunities, write concepts notes and applications for funding
- Mentor junior staff/interns, when applicable


About you
As a person, you like to take initiative and generate activity. You collaborate with others and make sure to contribute to reaching common goals and you understand that responsibilities as well as rewards should be shared within the team.

Furthermore, you see the long-term significance and further consequences of things and can accept and tackle demanding goals with enthusiasm and flexibility to fulfil our mission and vision.

It is fundamental for you to resist undue pressure in decision-making and to communicate key points and ideas with clarity. If you also understand how background, culture and group affiliation affects oneself and others and have the ability to take this into account when making decisions, you will be successful in this role.

We assume that you share our values.

To be suitable for this role you have:

- A Bachelor’s degree in Law, Political Science, International Relations or similar, including education on international human rights mechanisms
- At least 3 years of relevant working experience
- In-depth regional expertise about the political and human rights situation, in particular in Russia and Ukraine
- Good knowledge of civil society actors in the region
- Documented experience of NGO-work, project management and/or advocacy work
- Experience from working with freedom of speech
- Solid written and verbal communication skills in English and Russian
- Strong reporting skills
- Strong IT skills, including good knowledge of Microsoft 365 (Teams, Outlook, Excel, PPT, Word)


Knowledge of the Swedish language is a strong merit.

About the employment
This is a full-time permanent employment with 6 months probationary employment, starting according to agreement. As an organisation, we strive for diversity and we see your background, experience and personality as a contribution to the organisation. You will be based in our headquarters in Stockholm.

Please apply as soon as possible, as we recruit on an ongoing basis.

Local union representative (Unionen) Lia Hen: lia.hen@crd.org.

About us
Civil Rights Defenders is a politically and religiously independent international human rights organisation. We defend people’s civil and political rights in some of the world’s most repressive regions. We partner with and support human rights defenders in more than 200 organisations in 30 countries on four continents. Through advocacy, legal processes, and public campaigns, we advance people’s rights globally. Together with our partners, we hold those in power accountable when people’s civil or political rights are violated. We also act as Sweden’s civil rights watchdog.

At our headquarters, located on Södermalm in Stockholm, we are about 50 employees working in various functions towards our vision - a world of democratic societies in which we all enjoy our civil and political rights. Learn more about our work at crd.org (https://app.teamtailor.com/companies/quKUlp2-vJo/jobs/1031785/edit/www.crd.org).