2 Positions at Never Again Rwanda (NAR): (Deadline 30 April 2021)

2 Positions at Never Again Rwanda (NAR): (Deadline 30 April 2021)

Youth Engagement Team Leader at Never Again Rwanda (NAR): (Deadline 30 April 2021)

 Position: Youth Engagement Team Leader

Number: 1

Duty Station: Kigali, Rwanda with frequent travel in different districts of operation

Type of Appointment: Fixed term contract (One Year)

Report to: Director of Programs

1.    Background 

Never Again Rwanda (NAR) is a peace building and social justice non-government organization that arose in response to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Guided by a vision of a society that enjoys sustainable peace and social justice, NAR aims to engage society to embrace sustainable peace and social justice. NAR has five core pillars: Peacebuilding, Governance & Human Rights, Youth Engagement, Research, and Strategic Partnerships.

Since its establishment, NAR has placed emphasis on youth empowerment and engagement. A number of projects and programs implemented across the country, aim to empower youth with opportunities to become active citizens. NAR empowers young people with critical thinking skills, public speaking and dialogue skills, governance and democratic values, peace education, participatory approaches, and socio-economic opportunities.

NAR implements varied youth projects and programs, and all initiatives include youth as part of the main beneficiaries. Some projects aim to build the capacities of youth to be more confident and willing to come together to identify, structure, analyze and envision solutions to (policy) issues impacting their lives. Through the different projects and programs, we empower youth to effectively use existing consultative platforms (direct or indirect) to constructively engage government authorities on their concerns, needs, and priorities and hold them to account. It is against this background that Never Again Rwanda wishes to recruit a full-time Youth Engagement Team Leader.

Position summary

Reporting to the Director of Programs, the Youth Engagement Team leader will provide technical leadership and coordination of the Youth Engagement strategic pillar. He/she will coordinate the design, planning, implementation, coordination, monitoring, evaluation, and learning of youth engagement-related projects and activities including participating in the proposal writing process for new projects/programs.  He/she will be responsible to coordinate district youth engagement officers to deliver quality deliverables within a timely manner and with minimum resources. He/she will be responsible for reporting on youth engagement related projects and activities.

2.    Role and responsibilities

Design and planning

• Co-design and implement joint programming strategies with selected partner organisations.
• Provide NAR management with technical and strategic advice on youth engagement strategies, policies, and programs.
• Ensure that projects design under youth engagement pillar are linked with NAR’s vision, mission, and strategic plan.
• Responsible for planning and budgeting for all youth engagement program activities
• Coordinate the projects set up in collaboration with district youth engagement officers
• Lead projects/programs introduction at district and sector levels
• Coordinate the official launch of the projects at the national level
• Contribute to proposal design for new projects seeking additional funding under the Youth engagement pillar
• Hold Quarterly and annual planning meetings for all projects under Youth engagement pillar
• Lead the development of weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual plans for all projects under youth engagement pillar

Implementation and coordination

• Lead and supervise the implementation of projects/activities under Youth engagement pillar
• Supervise the drafting of concept notes, work plans, and proposals.
• Contribute in policy analysis, advocacy, policy briefs development on issues affecting youth
• Coordinate day to day effective and quality implementation of projects under the youth engagement pillar in collaboration with district engagement officers
• Provide technical leadership in identification and selection of project beneficiaries.
• Ensure effective youth engagement in local and national decisions making processes
• Collaborate with district youth engagement officers to conduct feedback sessions with youth beneficiaries.
• Support youth engagement officers to monitor youth independent initiatives in the districts of operation.
• Lead the advocacy process for all documented youth issues at local and national levels
• Map out all youth initiatives, create and update youth clubs and associations database

Research, monitoring, evaluation, and learning

• Collaborate with NAR M&E expert to design user friendly M&E tools
• Support M&E expert to provide capacity building for district youth engagement staff on effective use of data collection and reporting tools
• Support M&E team to conduct baseline and end-line surveys and program assessments.
• Lead the collection and reporting of youth engagement M&E data using the approved M&E tools
• Closely work with a research team to conduct proposed research projects under the youth engagement pillar
• Support the director of programs to organize quarterly and annual review workshops to share progress, lessons learned, challenges and opportunities.
• Actively participate in learning events including peer to peer learning sessions, community of practices, etc.
• Ensure proper data entry for youth engagement related data in M&E database
• Undertake regular visits to projects activities to monitor progress, document challenges and lessons learned, and mentor youth associations/clubs
• Ensure proper physical and online filling system for all youth engagement program data and documents.

Partnership and collaboration

• Nurture and foster good collaboration with local and national level authorities and partners under the guidance from NAR Senior Management
• Participate and represent NAR in meetings organized by partners and donors as requested
• Engage local and national stakeholders that have interest in youth programs
• Establish synergies with other partners working in the areas of youth engagement

Documentation and Reporting

• Support the drafting of timely quality reports in line with NAR and donors’ requirements
• Support the documentation of evidence from the field to inform implementation and new projects design
• Work with M&E expert and communications team to identify and document lessons learnt and good practices
• Ensure timely and quality event /activity reports
• Provide timely supporting documents to the finance to justify funds and other resources used

3.    Qualifications

The Youth Engagement Team leader must have the following qualifications:

• At least a master’s degree in governance, political sciences, democracy, human rights, development studies, or other related social sciences
• Experience working with youth, local leaders, communities, and local partners including coordinating youth projects in areas of governance, democracy, human rights, and behavior change
• Having experience coordinating programs and projects related to CSOs, government and or development partners
• Prior experience in working with donors etc.
• Prior experience in report writing, proposal writing, and research facilitation.

4.    Professional Experience, Knowledge, and Skills

• Technical skills in planning and budgeting
• Familiar with donor requirements in program implementation and reporting
• Technical skills in youth engagement
• Technical skills in advocacy and citizen engagement
• Experience in working with youth from diverse backgrounds
• Skills in gender analysis and mainstreaming
• Previous experience working with multiple stakeholders
• Capacity to engage district and national policymakers and other authorities on matters affecting youth
• Experience working with a range of stakeholders including civil society, government, national organizations
• Strong understanding of Rwanda governance policies and government programs
• Skills in context analysis
• Experience in data collection, data analysis, and report writing
• Excellent written and spoken proficiency in Kinyarwanda and English. Knowledge of French is an added advantage
• Strong planning skills and capacity to manage multiple and tight deadlines
• Excellent IT skills (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) for the latest Windows application

5.    Application details 

For interested candidates, please send your cover letter, updated CV, and other supporting documents electronically via email to: [email protected]  by April 30^th, 2021 not later than 5:00 pm. Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.  Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

Policy Analysis and Advocacy Expert at Never Again Rwanda (NAR): (Deadline 30 April 2021)

Duty Station: Kigali, Rwanda with frequent travel to different districts of operation

Type of Appointment: Fixed term contract (One Year)

Report to: NAR Director of Programs

1.    Background

Never Again Rwanda (NAR) is a peace building and social justice non-government organization that arose in response to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Guided by a vision of a society that enjoys sustainable peace and social justice, NAR aims to engage society to embrace sustainable peace and social justice. NAR has five core pillars: Peacebuilding, Governance & Human Rights, Youth Engagement, Research, and Strategic Partnerships.

As part of its governance and rights pillar, Never Again Rwanda is implementing different programmes and projects aimed to promote participatory governance.  Recently, NAR received funding from the Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) through its Public Policy – Information, Monitoring, and Advocacy (PPIMA) project to implement the programme advocacy component at national level. The role of Never Again Rwanda under PPIMA project is to contribute to policy change through evidence-based advocacy, and empowering PPIMA partners to participate and vibrantly engage with policy makers (policy process) on issues that affect citizen’s lives as they arise from the Community Score Card (CSC) process and other public spaces and fora. NAR will work with all PPIMA partners for a collective consolidation and analysis of the issues raised by citizens across project Districts through Community Score Card, translate its results into complementary advocacy tools and resources and deeper investigate lingering challenges through the Participatory Action Research process as means to elaborate evidence-based conclusions and recommendations to better elevate and advocate for citizen priorities that require attention of national policy-makers.

NAR is expected to assess the policy influencing readiness of PPIMA partner CSOs and help design a joint policy advocacy strategy and action plan that will guide PPIMA policy influencing work through the period 2021-2024. It is against this background that Never Again Rwanda wishes to recruit a Policy Analysis and Advocacy Expert to support NAR’s team in this process.

2.    Purpose of the assignment

The overall purpose of the assignment is to conduct a policy influencing preparedness/ readiness analysis and empower PPIMA CSO partners in that regard and draw an evidence-based policy advocacy/influencing strategy and plan. In addition, the expert will lead and oversee NAR advocacy and policy influencing efforts through PPIMA program, produce the detailed report of advocacy efforts and its impact, design and update the PPIMA Advocacy tracking tool.

3.    Scope of work, roles, and responsibilities

The consultant will do the following:

3.1 Preparatory groundwork

3.1.1 Conduct a quick desk review of programmatic documentation and related reports to garner an understanding of PPIMA design and particularly its new direction towards national policy influencing;
3.1.2  Review organizational documents (corporate policies, strategies, action plans and activity reports) of PPIMA partner CSOs to make sense of their policy influencing mainstreaming practices or approaches and take stock of pending advocacy issues that arose from the CSC process over the last PPIMA phase;
3.1.3 Conduct and facilitate a methodology workshop with NAR & other PPIMA partner CSOs.

3.2. Conduct a participatory assessment of PPIMA partners’ organizational policy influencing readiness:  

3.2. Collect primary data from key resource persons through individual and group interviews (FGDs) with the core staff and management of NAR and other exiting and or new PPIMA beneficiaries as well as relevant programme boundary partners;
3.2.2 Take stock of unaddressed key issues of concern to citizens which arose from CSC process in previous years;
3.2.3 Organize and facilitate cross-learning workshops for partner CSOs to share, prioritize & discuss most pressing yet pending citizens’ issues that arose from the CSC process in past years and explore collaboration and coalition opportunities to advocate citizens’ interests with one voice;
3.2.4  Assess partners’ organizational capacities in (evidence-based) policy advocacy and process documentation.

3.3  Conduct a participatory development of PPIMA policy influencing instruments:

3.3.1  Design and develop a joint advocacy strategy to guide partners’ engagement efforts through the duration of the 4th generation of PPIMA i.e between 2021 and 2024;
3.3.2  Develop a detailed action plan for the implementation of the joint advocacy strategy;
3.3.3  Present both the draft joint advocacy strategy and action plan during pre-validation and validation workshops with partners.

3.3    Advocacy and policy influencing 

The expert will lead and oversee all advocacy efforts and policy influencing efforts for PPIMA program, produce detailed report of advocacy efforts and its impact, design and update the PPIMA Advocacy tracking tool on regular basis. In addition, the expert will also provide technical leadership in design and implementation, monitoring, and reporting of advocacy activities under this program. The expert will provide NAR management with advice on how to better influence policy change through strategic advocacy and coalitions.

4.    Supervision and Working relationships 

The consultant will be an integral part of a team of NAR Policy Analysts who will report to the Director of programs and will work closely with program and research teams.

5.    Qualifications

The desired skills and experience of the expert include the following:

• At least 8-10 progressive working experience in a policy making or policy analysis and or policy advisory role;
• A strong understanding of the Government machinery including national policy-making process and key moments of planning;
• A strong knowledge and understanding of post-genocide Rwanda’s political culture, rules of government system engagement, and governance principles;
• Strong understanding of the Rwandan governance context and policy landscape;
• Previous experience with Civil society Organizations and development partners
• Strong knowledge and understanding the drivers of future growth in Rwanda as well as national vision policies (e.g. Vision 2020, NST1, blueprint Vision 2050) and their relationships;
• Expert skills in policy analysis and issue-based stakeholders’ relationships analysis;
• Sensitivity to details and inclusion issues;
• Ability to write up powerful change influencing materials (policy notes, issue-based policy briefs, background papers, discussion documents, human interest stories, etc.) and to engage high-ranking government policy-makers;
• PhD or Master’s degree in Governance studies, political sciences, development studies, law or other relevant field in social sciences;
• Extensive working experience with civil society or international cooperation in a policy influencing or advisory role;
• Proven record of delivering high-quality professional outputs
• Excellent speaking and writing skills in English
• An ability to work within tight deadlines.

Application details

For interested candidates, please send your cover letter, updated CV and other supporting documents electronically via email to: [email protected]  by April 30^th, 2021 not later than 5:00 pm. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.