by Gordon Nary
Gordon: Please share with us the universities that you attended, your degrees, and one of your favorite memories when you were at Hawassa University
Assema: I attended my MBA studies at Hawassa University and my MA in Community Development at Hawassa University and my BA in Management from Smara University.
One of the major memories was the team work with my classmates, good relationship with teachers and the academic staffs. The course I attended was practical to my daily project work and the research work. I also addressed humanitarian intervention.
Gordon: When and where did you serve as Project Officer Social Accountability and what were your primary responsibilities
Assema: I worked from August 15 2012 to September 2014. My responsibilities were coordinating the social accountability project, the objective of which was to improve accountability between government service providers and service user for community development.
Gordon: When did you teach at Bule Hora University Ethiopia and what courses did you teach?
Assema: from October 2012 to June 2017. I taught business and economics courses including human resource marketing, business management, entrepreneurship, and other key organizational management courses. I also addressed community service training including cooperative management, research work and youth development mentorship.
Gordon: Tell us about your responsibilities when you were a Livelihood Project Officer and where you served.
Assema: I worked as Livelihood Project Officer from July 2016 to March 2017 with People in Need (PIN). My responsibilities were coordinating youth livelihood and women empowerment project activities, including developing capacity of leather production cooperatives, strengthening local government, strengthening family income generation for prevention of illegal human trafficking, and support training and workshops for leather industry development.
Gordon: When and where were you Emergency Officer and what were your primary responsibilities?
Assema: I worked as Emergency Officer for finance administration and logistic affairs for worldwide organizations in Afar regional programs. My role was to coordinate filed office USIAD project finance, administration, and logistic activities.
Gordon: When did you serve as Education in Emergency Cluster Coordinator at the Norwegian Refugee Council and what were some of the challenges that you had to address?
Assema: I served from December 2018 to June 2020. The key challenges were the higher humanitarian needs and shortage of funding, mobilizing cluster members for funding, timely implementation among cluster members, and access to site due to security reasons .In order to solve such challenges. I established and lead effective coordination mechanism among partners of government and Dorn agency for resource mobilization. A lot of children had access to schools as result of my advocacy effort
Gordon: When did you serve as Emergency Project Officer Wash and Shelter at Christian Aid and what were your primary responsibilities?
Assema: I served from June 15 2020 to June 17 2021 with Christian Aid UK at West Guji humanitarian response. My role was to design humanitarian programs, coordinate implementation and mentoring of project implementations, and to strengthen local government and community leaders capacity for implementation of projects
Gordon: When and where did you serve as Senior Humanitarian Program Advisor and what is one of your favorite memories when you were there?
Assema: I served from September 2021 to August 2022 with Hungarian Interchurch Aid. My favorite memories were that I was the only person representing Ethiopia office with a strong commitment. I advocated the humanitarian needs and secured funding. I also implemented four regions with tight schedules with very good project outcome
Gordon: When did you serve as Interim Project Director at Jesuit Refugee Service?
Assema: I worked as Project Director Position at Dolo Ado refugee camp from June 2021 to September 2021 managing a multi-sectorial program with more than fifty program staff covering four refugee camps.
Gordon: When did you serve as Humanitarian Program Consultant UNICEF Ethiopia and what were some of the challenges that you had to address?
Assema: I worked from September 1 2022 to February 21 2023 in UNICEF Afar Region office coordinating humanitarian response for conflict-affected people through cash intervention. One of the key challenges was that there was no organized cash working group, as well as guiding documents for intervention such as regional cash working group coordinator. I developed a regional working group annual operational plan, and lead the regional working group in effective way. As a result of good coordination and technical guidance more than 5000 conflict-affected households had access to humanitarian assistance
Gordon: Please share with us an overview of your service as a Humanitarian Program Consultant UNICEF Ethiopia.
Assema: My service was to coordinate and harmonize UNICEF supported humanitarian cash transfer initiatives, and provide support and technical assistance on humanitarian cash transfer initiatives at all stages from design to production of concrete results. This included both direct support to government and civil society partners as well as support to UNICEF teams working on emergency response. I provided support to strengthening strategic partnerships around UNICEF supported humanitarian cash transfer initiatives
I was a UNICEF resource person with cluster partners on the development of plans enhancing HCT and engaging in opportunities in HCT programming in the NWS context.
I conducted regular operational analysis of the existing HCT programmes, identified potential modalities of payment and Financial Service Providers (FSPs). I also provided quality assurance and identified solutions such as design improvements and additional training and technical support.
I undertook cash feasibility assessments, where relevant, to inform UNICEF cash programmes, and identify implementing partners, and/or contribute to partners design efforts to ensure that HCT programmes are child-centered I conducted risk assessments and propose risk mitigation measures for the use of cash in emergencies in the specific context of the region and prepared programme reports required for management, donor budget reviews, programme analysis, annual reports, etc.
I developed and facilitated training of any UNICEF or partner staff on cash transfers programming. I also participated in market monitoring and contributed to the development and update of the area cash profiles.
Gordon: You currently serve as Field Program Associate at the UN Refugee Agency. What are some of the challenges that you have to address?
Assema: I am working with refugee camps. I was assigned to address and to improve protection service for more than 30.000 refugees. I was tasked to lead both filed coordination and protection monitoring to address gender-based violence case management for survivors, and strengthen government and UNHCR partners capacity for protection solutions. I had to solve refugee relocation from camp to camp and improve the registration service for refugee children. I also monitored human rights of refugees including improving access to legal aid and to local economic inclusion and livelihood opportunities.
Gordon: Thank you for a powerful interview and your exceptional care of refugees.
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