Senior Gender and Youth Advisor at TechnoServe: (Deadline 26 July 2023)

Job Details

Description

Senior Gender and Youth Advisor, ReGenerate Rwanda

Kigali, Rwanda

About TechnoServe: 

TechnoServe is a leader in harnessing the power of the private sector to help people lift themselves out of poverty. A nonprofit organization operating in 29 countries, we work with enterprising men and women in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses, and industries. By linking people to information, capital, and markets, we have helped millions to create lasting prosperity for their families and communities.

Founded over 50 years ago, TechnoServe has been named the #1 nonprofit for fighting poverty by the ImpactMatters charity rating agency.

Program Overview:

TechnoServe is working with a major bilateral donor to design and implement a multi-year program that aims to break the cycle of vulnerability, poverty, and gender inequality in some of Rwanda’s poorest and environmentally fragile districts in the Western and Southern Provinces. The program will use market systems approach to catalyze systemic changes that result in sustainable, increased incomes for tens of thousands of poor people, particularly women, living in Western and Southwestern Rwanda. ReGenerate Rwanda will apply an environmentally sustainable/regenerative business lens to reduce economic, environmental, and social barriers that keep poor women, youth, and men trapped in poverty and unlock opportunities for their full engagement in and benefit from economic opportunities.

To achieve its objective, ReGenerate Rwanda will work in close partnership with a diverse range of market actors to support a portfolio of interventions within priority sectors or cross-cutting market functions. The focus of these portfolios will be identified over the course of a six-month Inception Phase, expected to begin in early 2022.

Job Summary:

TechnoServe seeks a highly qualified Gender and Youth Lead that will be responsible for leading the mainstreaming of gender and youth inclusion considerations within all aspects of ReGenerate Rwanda. With support from program leadership and technical team members, s/he will be responsible for the development and progressive implementation of the program’s Gender and Youth Action Plan, articulating the program’s strategy for effectively identifying and targeting women and youth to ensure they benefit from ReGenerate Rwanda. The Gender and Youth Lead will work closely with program staff, partners, and stakeholders to ensure that gender dynamics and cultural barriers, particularly for poor women and youth, are increasingly understood and locally developed solutions are fully integrated into the program design, including staffing, participant recruitment, program activities, research studies and monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL); all interventions will be designed leveraging best practices in conflict management, following Do No Harm principles.

Based in Kigali with frequent travel to Western and Southern Rwanda, the Gender and Youth Lead will play a key role in ensuring that the program meets gender- and youth-specific targets; ReGenerate Rwanda expects that 30,000 poor women and youth will benefit from sustainably increased incomes, household assets, and employment. To this end, the position’s responsibilities and job functions include but are not limited to the following:

Primary Functions & Responsibilities:

• Provide overall guidance and inputs to all workstreams to ensure gender and youth inclusion is consistently and thoughtfully mainstreamed.
• Develop and update, as needed, the Gender and Youth Action Plan and ensure strategies translate into the work plan and are considered during periodic results review meetings
• Contribute to MEL workstreams, particularly in the development and refinement of relevant gender and youth-inclusive indicators and priority Learning Agenda questions.
• Lead ReGenerate Rwanda Gender and Youth Inclusion Training and relevant onboarding for new staff and partners to develop “Gender Smart Teams”; serve as ongoing coach/mentor and technical resource for staff and partners to strengthen capacity and commitment to reach poor women and youth with benefits of the program.
• Engage with program partners and stakeholders (in coordination with Market System Managers) to identify participants and support gender- and youth-positive action.
• Lead and/or support potential program partner assessments to understand their business practices, policies and action areas for becoming more inclusive and gender-responsive.
• Seek and maximize opportunities for synergy (and referral where appropriate) with other programs working on gender and youth inclusion, GBV prevention and response and youth-friendly programming in Western and Southern Rwanda.
• Lead the development of program gender and youth inclusion related knowledge management and communications materials, such as synthesized learning, technical reports, blogs, social media posts and success stories, etc.
• Liaise with and secure on-demand, strategic STTA from TechnoServe’s global Gender Practice, as needed, to leverage expertise and programmatic learning to strengthen ReGenerate gender and youth inclusion approaches and broader team capacity.
• Employ various capacity building and advocacy approaches to position gender and youth inclusion as critical to meeting Rwanda’s development goals.

Basic Qualifications and Competencies:

• Bachelor’s Degree + 4 years experience, Master’s Degree + 2 years experience in Gender and Development, Social Sciences, Public Policy or other relevant field.
• At least 3 years’ professional experience leading gender and youth inclusion technical assistance within the private sector and/or development assistance programs.
• Prior experience collaborating closely with MEL teams or relevant stakeholders in the development, refinement and monitoring of gender and youth inclusive indicators and interventions; experience developing gender and youth inclusion indicators and interventions that track/support systemic and social norm changes that result from women’s economic empowerment considered desirable.
• Demonstrated understanding of – and commitment to challenging – barriers that disadvantage the vulnerable, women and youth and exclude them from economic opportunities.
• Ability to identify what drives behavior at an individual level; experienced in conducting social research or anthropological studies that target decision-making and social and individual behavior change.
• Prior experience designing pragmatic, practical and cost-effective gender and youth inclusion approaches and monitoring the progress of gender and youth inclusion interventions, using field observations and results management data to update program assumptions.
• Demonstrated experience leading and coordinating consultative planning processes that involve securing input from a range of sectoral experts and stakeholders toward filling knowledge gaps and strengthening gender and youth inclusive programming within priority sectors.
• Senior expertise in facilitating goal-driven discussions, workshops, meetings and training for internal and external stakeholders.
• Prior experience co-creating/co-developing gender and social inclusion interventions that local partners can independently lead and own.
• Ability to work both persuasively and diplomatically in a team-based environment with a high degree of complexity and ambiguity, including professional poise and strong negotiation and interpersonal skills to effectively persuade, motivate and influence others to adopt new strategies and practices.
• Strong program management skills including the ability to anticipate demand and manage multiple tasks and programs while meeting tight deadlines.
• Excellent oral and written communication and presentation skills and good computer skills in business software (Excel, MS Project, and PowerPoint); prior experience presenting content in a participatory way at conferences, forums, and workshops and a history of publishing articles/papers or developing blogs considered desirable.
• Prior work experience in East and Southern African countries; Rwanda experience strongly preferred. Local candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• Fluency in English.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience using statistical analysis software (Stata or similar).
• Proficiency in Kinyarwanda or French

Required Languages:

• Fluency in English with excellent oral and written communication skills required.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Detail orientation, including strong organizational, analytical and quantitative skills.
• Results-oriented, with demonstrated experience achieving program targets.
• Proven team player with strong interpersonal and cross-cultural skills.
• Excellent computer skills in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other administrative applications.

Supervisory Responsibilities: 

• Coordinate input from a range of program staff and partners. Experience working with multi-disciplinary teams desired.

Please note that this opportunity is contingent upon final donor approval.

We encourage all qualified individuals who share TechnoServe’s vision of improving the lives of others through proven business solutions to apply.

With our commitment to diversity, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and affirmative action employer and do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, HIV/AIDS status, protected veteran status, disability and all other protected classes.

We are also proud of our commitment to protecting staff, partners, and beneficiaries from abuse and exploitation and thoroughly vet all final candidates through rigorous background and reference checks.

If you have a disability that affects your ability to use our online system to apply for a position at TechnoServe please contact the Human Resources at recruitment@tns.org or call +1 202 785 4515.