Gender Advisor, Kenya at Catholic Relief

Department: Kenya

Supervisor: DFSA Deputy Chief of Party

Area of Interest: Gender, Program Quality

Location: TBD, Kenya

FLSA: Exempt

Note: This position is contingent upon grant and candidate approvals by the donor.

Job Summary

The purpose of this position is to design, manage, strengthen, and provide strategic direction to the Kenya DFSA's Gender Strategy, ensuring a holistic and robust approach to address the needs of men, women, boys and girls in CRS' food security and nutrition interventions. S/he will work across CRS and consortium staff to build capacity of all project staff in gender sensitive programming. S/he will contribute to the Country Program's (CP) efforts toward quality design and implementation of gender initiatives to 'promote the right relationships' among targeted 'families and communities'. The Gender Advisor will take primary responsibility to advocate for greater attention to gender perspectives, by providing the necessary technical support and leadership to gender mainstreaming throughout CRS' programs and operations. The Gender Advisor will be responsible for coordinating and supervising the integration of gender across all activities, particularly during times of emergency, and assessments required for learning and adaptive management to address the changing and unique needs of men, women, boys and girls. The Gender Advisor will work closely with CRS program teams and partner staff to develop high quality contextually appropriate gender approaches. S/he will also take learning needs into account and develop and conduct capacity building for all program staff, with support of the Chief of Party (COP), Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP) and Senior Technical Advisors (STA) for Gender.

The DFSA Gender Advisor is expected to have a high level of self-initiative and use critical thinking skills to identify and fill gaps. S/he should have the ability to work sensitively and positively with the DFSA team and promote an inclusive development environment -- success of the post relies on this.

Primary Responsibilities

Coordination

• Lead, in collaboration with the COP and DCOP, the DFSA Gender Strategy engagement of men, women, boys and girls to promote female empowerment and access to economic opportunities.
• Lead the DFSA Gender Analysis Plan roll out as set forth in the program design documents, approved by USAID/FFP, in Year 1 of the intervention.
• Act as a contact person in gender and youth integration with other stakeholders and provide guidance on gender perspectives in all aspects of the CRS DFSA award.
• Support preparation of reports, issues-papers and case studies on gender and youth perspectives with the help of other CRS colleagues to help ensure synergies as the basis for efforts to promote gender and youth integration and achievement of common goals.
• Assist technical staff in setting indicators for assessing progress with gender and youth integration, adapted to the various DFSA interventions.
• Assist the DFSA team in ensuring that CRS and partners are in compliance with gender and youth related USAID/FFP requirements.

Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL)

• Ensure gender and youth-based indicators are covered in the DFSA MEAL system.
• Review DFSA reports and ensure they capture required level of gender and youth disaggregated data and gender specific success stories;
• Support programming staff in incorporating gender and youth issues in project MEAL systems (performance questions, indicators, sampling methods, procedures, etc.). Assist in gender sensitive participatory planning and support implementation.
• Arrange the dissemination of information from MEAL data on the degree to which gender and youth-related objectives are being achieved and the gender-differentiated impact of the project.

Partnership

• Provide leadership and technical support to local partners in developing effective gender and youth-focused project strategies.
• Assist partner staff to communicate information from the field to the appropriate decision-making forum on the gender integration in activities undertaken in all components, processes and impacts.
• Provide support, coaching, mentoring and technical guidance to partner gender officers.

Capacity Building and Supervision

• Identify relevant training and learning opportunities for CRS and partner staff to advance knowledge and skills in gender and youth; and manage a gender and youth DFSA learning agenda for staff to follow in alignment with CRS Learning policies and procedures.
• Coordinate with the COP and the DCOP on the inclusion of gender and youth learning agenda as part of CRS Kenya staff's annual Learning and Development Plans.
• Supervise and mentor CRS Kenya project specific Gender and Youth Officers through a matrix management model, through shared project and partner visits, coaching sessions, and coordination with the Gender and Youth Officers' direct line supervisors.
• Develop capacity building plans and strategies.
• Roll out agency-wide gender policies.

Representation

• Attend important and relevant events on gender and youth and the substantive areas covered by CRS to disseminate information on progress made in gender mainstreaming as necessary.
• Represent CRS at workshops and events on gender and/or youth integration.
• Performs other related duties as required.

Supervision and Coaching/mentoring Responsibilities

The DFSA Gender Advisor directly supervises project-based Gender staff and participates in the hiring and supervision either directly or indirectly of future Gender staff. Additionally, s/he will provide support in mentoring all Gender-focused staff across the consortium.

Agency-wide Competencies (for all CRS Staff)

These are rooted in the mission, values and principles of CRS and used by each staff member to fulfill his or her responsibilities and to achieve the desired results.

• Serves with Integrity
• Models Stewardship
• Cultivates Constructive Relationships
• Promotes Learning

MEAL Competencies

• Monitoring: Implementing monitoring activities, including timely collection of quality data, set up and maintenance of databases, facilitation of participatory reflection on monitoring results, and submission of timely progress reports.
• Evaluation: Supporting project and program evaluations and reviews by ensuring the quality of evaluation methods, tools, and data and facilitating the use of evaluation results to inform decision-making and enhance learning.
• Accountability: Improving our accountability to a range of stakeholders through increased participation, transparent communication, responsive feedback mechanisms, and adherence to internal and external quality standards and requirements
• Learning: Promoting excellent knowledge management and collaborative learning processes at the project, program and institutional levels, generating robust evidence for project and programmatic learning that leads to action, decision-making and influence

Key Working Relationships

Internal: CR, HOP, COP, DCOP, Project Technical Leads (e.g. MEAL, Health and Agriculture), Project Managers, Project Gender Officers, CP Gender and Youth Technical Manager, HQ-based Gender Advisor, CRS Gender Community of Practice

External: USAID and other donors, international and local partners, other Kenya DFSA implementers

Qualifications

• Master's degree in international development, human rights or other relevant subject with a strong rural development background.
• Minimum five years of progressive management and technical responsibility, including supervising and mentoring multi-sectorial teams, for humanitarian and development assistance, preferably with an international NGO; preferred experience in youth workforce development, youth entrepreneurship, or youth peacebuilding; USAID experience preferred. The candidate must have experience in leading the Gender Strategy of a large project.
• Experience working with large donors, USAID/FFP and/or USAID/FTF preferred.
• In-depth understanding of gender, age and other socio-cultural factors in food security context.
• Demonstrated capacity to lead the collection, analysis and utilization of information from a broad range of sources in order to ensure effective integration of gender and youth concerns throughout the project's duration. Experience leading participatory analytical processes and learning required.
• Ability to foster commitment and build capacity among activity staff and in-country actors to gender integration and empowerment.
• Demonstrated capacity to understand and advise on critical technical and operational issues related to gender and youth: education, job skills, employment creation, social cohesion, health, psycho-social wellbeing, HIV prevention.
• Knowledge of the Principles of Positive Youth Development and ability to assist CP staff and partners to understand, articulate and apply these principles in their work with youth.
• Prior experience working with MEAL development and integration in programming to capture gender and youth project-specific information to monitor change and outcomes, with experience in quantitative and qualitative data analysis highly desirable;
• Ability to self-manage and succeed in matrix management model, with demonstrated proactive and flexible nature in resolving problems and leading a productive, committed team;
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills and the ability to work effectively with groups;
• Knowledge of program quality standards, MEAL standards, Catholic Social Teaching and the justice lens preferred.
• Experience with facilitation, capacity strengthening and partnership building through formal and informal training, with the capacity to empower staff through opportunities for professional growth and development.
• Detail-oriented and excellent time management skills with the ability to meet deadlines and deliver required results in a timely and quality manner.
• Cultural sensitivity, patience, flexibility and ability to work well in a multi-sectoral and multi-cultural team and to work closely, understand and support local Church partners.
• Ability to work in a challenging and stressful environment with unexpected challenges.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English required.
• Ability to travel for field missions for 30-50% level of effort as needed.

Disclaimer: This job description is not an exhaustive list of the skill, effort, duties, and responsibilities associated with the position.