Project engineer

The Pacific Island countries of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Tuvalu have agreed to utilise “National B Envelope” funds, made available by the European Union, through a multi-country project aimed at reducing countries’ vulnerability to natural disasters and to build their resilience.

For this project, SOPAC has established a Project Management Unit under its community risk programme to be responsible for the implementation of this project comprising of a Project Manager, a Project Engineer and administrative support personnel. The overall objective of the Project is to contribute to disaster risk reduction by providing access to safe drinking water or through the provision of emergency communications and emergency operation centres in the participating countries.

Applications are invited for the position of Project Engineer, Disaster Risk Reduction in Pacific ACP States, at the Secretariat of the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC), located in Suva, Fiji Islands.

This is a new position within the SOPAC Community Risk Programme and the Project Engineer will report to the Project Manager of the EU EDF 9 B Envelope Project under the Community Risk Programme. The Project Engineer is to provide specialist engineering advice and support to Pacific ACP States to facilitate the construction of facilities in line with the Country Implementation Plans of the EU EDF B Envelope Project.

In addition to the provision of specialist engineering advice the Project Engineer will also directly supervise the procurement of materials, and also ensure that the construction of all facilities in accordance with rules and guidelines established for this purpose by SOPAC. Furthermore the incumbent may also be required to contract relevant parties to provide any support as may be required for project implementation.

Applicants should possess the following knowledge, skills and experience:

1. A degree in civil engineering
2. At least ten years experience in the design of capital infrastructure projects, procurement of materials for projects and the contracting of service providers to assist with the construction of capital infrastructure projects ,
3. Good understanding of the cultures and the working environments of the Pacific and/or SOPAC member countries and the ability to be proactive in developing new ideas to serve and to address the needs of member countries
4. Good understanding of issues related to disaster risk management and water security in the Pacific
5. Fluency in written and spoken English is essential to communicate with member country governments and other regional and international organisations. Knowledge of other languages and demonstrated work in multicultural environments is an asset.
6. Very strong PC based computer skills, all Microsoft platforms, MS Office, and MS Project.
7. Demonstrated ability to take initiative and work under limited or no supervision.