The New Zealand – Maluku Access to Renewable Energy Support (NZMATES) phase 2

Mercy Corps Indonesia (MCI) is a local Indonesian non-profit organization, which will implement humanitarian, and development assistance programs throughout the country. MCI’s mission is to empower people in Indonesia to become healthy, productive, and resilient communities. Resilience means an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.

Program Summary

The New Zealand – Maluku Access to Renewable Energy Support (NZMATES) phase 2 aims to accelerate renewable energy (RE) development to improve access to energy in Maluku and North Maluku provinces. The five-year program is funded by the New Zealand Government through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and is implemented by renewable energy company GHD. in partnership with Mercy Corps Indonesia. NZMATES is working towards promoting and accelerating the identification of renewable energy projects and increasing their attractiveness and viability, social and environmental assessments, technical considerations, and triggering and facilitating investment and funding from government, private sector, or other donors.

NZMATES has partnered and collaborates closely with PLN, EBTKE, Dinas ESDM, and BAPPEDA on increasing the use of renewables and improving energy access through grid-connected and off-grid RE projects. The NZMATES Team is based in Ambon and provides support to fill gaps in knowledge, resources, and research, and that projects are aligned with the Government of Indonesia and community development framework and objectives. The proposed support for RE projects includes assistance with project identification and appraisal, technical and social assessments, finance matching, and project design to strengthen long-term sustainability. NZMATES is also intended to enhance local public and private sector capacity and offer opportunities for direct training, technical exchange programmes, and interaction between Maluku and North Maluku educational institutions and NZ renewable energy specialists.

Ambon, Indonesia

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT OFFICER (CEgO)– NZMATES 2.0

General Position Summary

The Community Engagement Officer (CEgO) is a critical, field-facing execution role within the NZMATES 2.0 program structure. Operating directly on the ground in target villages across Maluku regions, the CEgO is responsible for building immediate trust with communities, conducting rigorous socio-economic baseline surveys, and facilitating public forums. This position serves as the primary grassroots bridge between partner communities and the program, ensuring that local voices, village capacity, and customary traditions directly shape technical renewable energy designs. The role requires high emotional intelligence, outstanding grassroots facilitation skills, and the physical resilience needed to operate independently in remote island settings with limited infrastructure.

Essential Job Responsibilities

1. Field Execution of Social Assessments & Engagement Tools

• Administer Field Assessment Instruments: Deploy and facilitate primary data collection at the village level using standard tools designed by the coordinator, including household survey questionnaires, Focus Group Discussion (FGD) guidelines, and Key Informant Interview (KII) structured templates.
• Conduct Social Mapping & Stakeholder Profiling: Map village-level stakeholders to identify local political structures, kinship networks, customary leadership, sacred sites, and potential social risks that could impact community acceptance of renewable energy (RE) projects.
• Gather Socio-Economic Baselines: Collect, verify, and document village demographic indicators, primary livelihoods, household energy expenditures, and conduct detailed field analyses on community willingness and capacity to pay for electricity services.
• Identify Productive Uses of Energy (PUE): Assess and document local economic opportunities arising from post-project electrification, such as household-level agricultural or fisheries processing industries, ice-making facilities, or shared community equipment.
• Field data quality assurance and verification: The CEgO ensures data quality at the field level, covering data completeness and consistency, respondent verification, adherence to consent and protocols, timeliness of data submission, anomaly identification, and the execution of back-checks or revisit visits when necessary
• Field reporting and Documentation: The CEgO documents activities, findings, issues, commitments, and follow-up actions.
• Community Follow up and Action Tracking: The CEgO ensures that engagement outcomes are followed up on at the community level

2. Local Stakeholder Facilitation, Social Inclusion & Mobilization

• Organize and Facilitate Public Forums: Manage field logistics, extend community invitations, and lead inclusive village-wide meetings to socialize NZMATES program objectives, timelines, and community commitments transparently.
• Guarantee Gender Equity & Marginalized Inclusion: Enforce the active participation and meaningful representation of women, youth, and vulnerable demographic clusters (at least 30% representation) in all consultative forums and local decision-making bodies.
• Support Village Governance & Board Formations: Guide village councils, local champions, and village-owned enterprises (BUMDes) in drafting administrative documents, local energy regulations (Peraturan Desa / Perdes), and project proposals.
• Cultivate Local Champions: Identify and mentor proactive community individuals (youth or women leaders) to build long-term local capacity to advocate for the operation, maintenance, and protection of the renewable energy infrastructure.

3. Socio-Technical Alignment, Logistical Coordination & Accountability

• Secure Customary Clearance & Field Logistics: Coordinate directly with traditional leaders (e.g., Raja, Village Chiefs, or Kewang in the Maluku context) to secure entry permissions, arrange field transport, and brief community leadership before technical engineering teams arrive for site surveys.
• Bridge Socio-Technical Design Gaps: Collaborate daily with Renewable Energy Technical Specialists (RETS) to translate social data baselines into engineering design parameters (e.g., aligning system output and tariffs with local affordability constraints).
• Manage Field CARM Mechanisms: Distribute educational feedback materials, maintain physical suggestion boxes at program sites, and objectively document and escalate community complaints or requests into the Community Accountability Reporting Mechanism (CARM) system managed by the Coordinator.
• Provide Translation & Interpersonal Facilitation: Deliver consecutive interpretation between local dialects, Bahasa Indonesia, and English during field deployment and high-level evaluation visits with international donor representatives (NZ MFAT) or technical experts.

4. Risk Management, Health & Safety, and Policy Compliance

• Adhere to Field Movement Safety Protocols: Maintain 100% individual compliance with Mercy Corps Indonesia Health, Safety, and Security (HSS) guidelines, demonstrating readiness to navigate demanding physical field conditions (e.g., long boat transits and hours of jungle trekking).
• Uphold Institutional Safeguarding Standards: Ensure all community mobilization activities follow “Do No Harm” protocols, strictly maintain participant data confidentiality, and proactively mitigate safeguarding risks in the field.

STRATEGY AND PLANNING

• Support on measurement and analysis of community engagement indicators to inform strategic decision making.
• Manage and administer NZMATES community activities in coordination

REGIONAL SYSTEMS AND SUPPORT FUNCTIONS

• Review and support country team adherence to Mercy Corps and donor policies and procedures.
• Capture and disseminate best practices on operations, finance and HR systems across country teams to ensure highest quality and standards.

HUMAN RESOURCES

• Support Mercy Corps global and regional initiatives for human resources, including safeguarding and talent development.
• Collaborate with the people team to promote staff access to high quality learning opportunities, with a special emphasis on national team member development.
• Assist with the on-boarding of senior team members, ensuring they are set up for success and familiar with agency systems, procedures, and protocols.

RISK MANAGEMENT

• Engage and support countries across the region to ensure that adequate risk management systems are in place.
• Collaborate with country leadership to support preparedness and response to major disruptive events.
• Engage with country teams in the internal audit process to track findings and ensure country team compliance with IA findings and recommendations.
• Engage with country level Ethics and Assurance managers as well as the global Ethics and Assurance department to track and analyze trends and needs across countries.

SAFEGUARDING RESPONSIBILITIES

• Actively learns about safeguarding and integrates it into their work, including safeguarding risks and mitigations relevant to their area of work.
• Practices the values of Mercy Corps, including respect for the dignity and well-being of participants and fellow team members.
• Encourages openness and communication within their team; encourages team members to submit reports if they have any concerns through reporting mechanisms, e.g., the Integrity Hotline and other options.

Knowledge and Experience

• Education: University degree (S1) in Socio-economic Development, Sociology, Anthropology, Community Development, Public Policy, or a related social science stream. Equivalent extensive field-based work experience in lieu of a formal degree will be evaluated.
• Professional Experience: Minimum of 3 to 5 years of progressive, hands-on experience in community mobilization, rural development programming, or social impact assessment execution. Direct prior experience working within an international humanitarian or development organization (NGO/INGO) is highly desirable.
• Field Research & Assessment Skills:
  • Demonstrated track record and mastery in conducting primary qualitative and quantitative data collection, including administering household surveys.
  • Proven capability in organizing, managing, and facilitating Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and structured Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) independently.
  • Familiarity with executing energy needs assessments, gathering willingness-to-pay or capacity-to-pay metrics, and mapping community-level productive uses of energy (PUE) is a major asset.
• Contextual & Cultural Mastery:
  • In-depth understanding of the local context, traditional governance structures (Pemerintahan Negeri), and customary norms (Adat) in Maluku and North Maluku provinces.
  • Proven experience navigating local village networks, obtaining customary clearances, and building productive working relationships with village chiefs (Raja), youth groups, and religious leaders.
• Social Inclusion & Advocacy: Deep operational commitment to gender equity and social inclusion (GESI). Proven ability to actively engage, secure representation from, and amplify the voices of women and highly vulnerable or marginalized sectors within a community.
• Language & Communication Skills: Professional fluency in Bahasa Indonesia is required, along with a strong command of local Ambonese or Maluku dialects. Good conversational English writing and speaking skills are necessary to provide consecutive translation for international specialists during community visits.
• Technical & Digital Literacy: Proficient in standard office software (MS Word, MS Excel for data entry, PowerPoint) and utilizing mobile data collection tools (e.g., KoboToolbox, CommCare, or Google Forms) in offline field environments.
• Work Temperament & Soft Skills: Highly flexible, open-minded, creative, and comfortable handling programmatic ambiguity in an iterative project cycle. Proven ability to work independently with minimal supervision, meet strict field reporting deadlines, and collaborate productively within complex, multi-disciplinary teams (such as blending social data with technical engineering goals).
• Extreme Mobility Requirements: Full physical fitness and total willingness to travel extensively (up to 50% of the time) to remote, isolated island locations. Candidates must be fully prepared to endure challenging field transit conditions, including long boat journeys in open waters, trekking long distances (6-8 hours per day) through jungle terrain, and operating in areas with restricted telecommunications or basic amenities.
• Equal Opportunity Statement: This position is open to all qualified applicants. Women and individuals native to Maluku are especially and highly encouraged to apply.

Desired and added-value capacities

• At least five years of experience working with communities on renewable energy projects desired;
• Experience in conducting energy needs assessments is desirable and will be highly valued;

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

The position is based in Ambon, and it requires up to 50% travel to support country programs, which may include travel to insecure locations where freedom of movement is limited and areas where amenities are limited.  Field trips include trekking long distances in the jungle (6 – 8 hours walking per day), long boat rides, and limited access to communications. Housing for this role is in individual housing and staff will have access to good medical services and the living situation is of a high standard.

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Team Engagement and Effectiveness 

Achieving our mission starts with how we build our team and collaborate. By bringing together individuals with a variety of experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives, we strengthen our ability to solve complex challenges and drive innovation. We foster a culture of trust and respect, where every team member is valued for their contributions, empowered to reach their full potential, and motivated to do their best work. We recognize that building a strong and effective team is an ongoing process, and we remain committed to learning, improving, and growing together.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion or belief, national origin, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristics protected under applicable law.

Safeguarding & Ethics

Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC and have signed on to the Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to Mercy Corps Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct elearning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.

As an applicant, if you witness or experience any form of sexual misconduct during the recruitment process, please report this to Mercy Corps Integrity Hotline (integrityhotline@mercycorps.org).

How to Apply

Interested candidates are invited to submit their CV and a cover letter explaining how their qualifications and experience align with the responsibilities of this position through the following link:

https://bit.ly/3SVdL7z

By applying for this position, applicants attest that they have never violated any policy related to sexual misconduct, sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), child safeguarding, or human trafficking, and have never been disciplined for violating an employer’s code of conduct.

Applications will be accepted until 18 September 2026. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for the next stage of the recruitment process.

We encourage qualified candidates who are interested in this opportunity to apply and look forward to receiving your application.

Thank You,

Human Resources Department

Mercy Corps Indonesia