Career opportunities

BTC offers many employment opportunities both at headquarters in Brussels and in the partner countries, where it is active.

Opportunities in Brussels

At its headquarters BTC hires experts who are highly specialized in the priority themes of Belgian cooperation. BTC also employs people with broad field experience for the supervision of projects per country (geographical desks). Also educators and experts in international trade are hired for the projects in Belgium, such as Annoncer la Couleur/Kleur Bekennen, the Information Cycle or the Trade for Development Centre.

We often need other competencies, which are essential for the functioning of BTC as an organisation. Think, for instance, of human resource management, financial management, public contracting, logistics, communication, IT, translation or administrative work.

Opportunities overseas

Work in the projects

More and more, BTC calls for competencies in the field of institutional and organisational capacity development: To develop policies in the fields of public health, national education, energy and the environment, decentralisation, justice governance or law-enforcement, etc. These positions are generally located within the governmental institutions of the country.

In many projects, the presence of an 'International Technical Assistant' (ITA), who works at the side of local actors, makes the principle of exchange of know-how between Belgium and its partner countries concrete. These are technical cooperation experts in themes covered by BTC. These experts work in the capital or in sometimes remote and isolated areas, depending on the project.

An international expert does not only have proven technical competency and actual administrative skills, but he/she must also be able to work together with colleagues who come from very diverse cultural backgrounds. The ITA is a facilitator. His/her talent is to orchestrate, organise and plan. Enthusiasm, a spirit of enterprise and persistence increase the chances of success in cooperation.

Junior Programme

Through the Junior Programme, BTC gives European youth a chance to acquire a first professional experience in international cooperation.

Work in a BTC country office

BTC has a country office in each of the 18 partner countries. The support of the cooperation programme is made concrete at the country office through the Resident Representative, who is supported by a multidisciplinary team. This team consists of international and national collaborators.

The Resident Representative represents BTC’s management at local (national and international) bodies, and especially towards the DGD cooperation attaché and at the Belgian Embassy.

The administrative and financial manager is responsible for administrative, financial and logistics management of the country office and the projects. He supports the projects from the start to the end.

The programme officer monitors the projects and programmes of BTC and supports the technical assistants who are assigned to the projects. He manages the planning and the monitoring of the projects.

Opportunities for local staff

To successfully achieve BTC’s mission in the partner countries, many national staff members are recruited locally, by the country office or by the projects.

They directly contribute to the implementation of the projects (programme officers, national technical assistants) and to support activities (finances, accounting, logistics, administration, drivers, gardeners…).

By coaching them and by providing training opportunities, BTC contributes to local capacity development in the partner countries.

The country office or the project recruits local staff members and manages their contract.

Opportunities for consultants

Often BTC calls for consultants for very diverse and punctual needs, such as (not an exhaustive list):

• Participation as a specialist to formulation missions of new projects;
• Execution of monitoring and evaluation missions of projects (ongoing project or project conclusion);
• Intervention, as a short-term expert, on an aspect of a project;
• Participation to a selection jury;
• Training.

The consultants are not recruited via 'Job openings' because they are not paid by BTC payroll.

BTC calls for consultants through public contracting. In the 'Tenders’ section of this Website, you can find the public contracts that have been launched by headquarters.

Depending on the definition of the needs and the resources of the contract, consultants may be recruited on the international market or among the national experts of the country concerned. For the latter, often publication is only done through media of the country concerned.