Gender Lead at Action Aid

Contract: 5 Years

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a form of violence against girls and women, held in place by social norms. It is generally practised as a matter of social and traditional convention and is interlinked with social acceptance, peer pressure and fear of not having access to particular resources and opportunities. The UK Government has a vision of a world free from FGM practice by 2030, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, and has established a programme to contribute to global efforts to achieve that vision. 

The UK government programme is underpinned by four principles that will inform and guide all its activities: 

1. Do no harm 
2. Supporting, enabling, facilitating and strengthening efforts to end the practice that are led from within affected communities and countries 
3. Taking a human right, gender equality and girls’ empowerment approach to ending FGM 
4. Understanding FGM as a form of violence against women and girls, held in place by social norms.

The programme is comprised of three components:  

1. Support to the Africa-led movement (ALM) to end FGM at multiple levels and at scale (Lot 1 – delivered by an Options-led consortium);  

1. Getting laws, policies and systems at multiple levels to work effectively to end FGM (delivered by UNFPA/UNICEF and WHO) 

1. Generating the right data to guide interventions and measure change (Lot 2 – Data and Measurement (DM) delivered by the Population Council). 

This programme will therefore address FGM through three complementary and mutually reinforcing approaches. The intended impact of this programme is a significant reduction of the practice of FGM in the focus country(ies) by 2025. The intended outcome of this programme is the acceleration of positive change in social attitudes towards ending FGM in countries/regions in which the programme is operational. 

Main Duties

1.  Leadership on Gender Rights, Girls Voice, Power (in)equalities and Social norms change
   1. Provide leadership and support the design, development and implementation of the FGM programme on gender rights, power (in)equalities, social norms change and VAWG (incl. FGM)
   2. Champion girls’ voices and rights, maintaining team focus on delivering programming that works with and for girls, delivering transformational impact in their lives
   3. Advise and support the programme on maintaining meaningful connection and collaboration with women’s rights and young feminist organisations, and girl-led groups.
   4. Advise and support the senior management team at policy level and other project staff members at operational level on how to integrate these themes into the day to day running of the FGM programme.
   5. Lead the development of and implement frameworks and guidance for gender mainstreaming in all aspects of the FGM programme; implementation, monitoring, evaluation and research.
   6. Provide strategic direction to all other aspects of the FGM programme; enabling team members to make fair and just decisions.
   7. Ensure all thematic areas of the FGM programme are integrated and delivered with a gender and rights lens.
   8.  Technical guidance and capacity development
   9. Provide technical guidance and produce best practice tools, training and guidance for programming across the consortium
   10. Oversight across programme of minimum standards on safe and effective FGM programming;
   11. Work with colleagues across the programme to identify internal capacity development needs and organise relevant trainings/materials to respond to these needs
   12. Collaborate with the safeguarding team, and provide support to colleagues across the programme, and particularly in national offices, to translate emotional well-being and do no harm principles into relevant programmatic guidance and practice
   13. Work with the wider STTA pool to identify technical guidance needs across the consortium and match with relevant technical specialists from the STTA pool
2. Programme learning
   1. Work with MEL team and Head of Advocacy and Policy to ensure that programme learning is translated into strong policy analysis and documents to influence national and global policy development.
   2. Work with MEL team to support colleagues in national offices to integrate real time MEL findings into programming and support efforts on improving learning, monitoring and evaluation in specialist thematic areas.
   3. Work closely with MEL colleagues, academics, policy institutions and other key stakeholders to lead on impact and other evaluations that contribute to the evidence base for and uptake of research findings on FGM
   4. Work closely with colleagues on evaluation, or external research initiatives to identify consultants or academic partners, ensure appropriate methodology; and to promote sector adherence to ethical and safety standards in the research of women and girls rights.
3. Reporting
   1. Input into the regular reports and deliverables to ensure they are written and presented with a gender rights, power (in)equalities and social norms change lens.
   2. Ensure the programme remains committed to ensuring equity for all stakeholders. 
4. Integrated working on gender equality across the programme team
   1. Ensure coherence of gender equality approach across all functions and levels of the programme, including through the development and chairing of a Gender Co-ordination Group
   2. Coordinate the activities of the team’ across focal countries and with partners to ensure inclusivity and equity throughout.
   3. Mentor, coach, support, and matrix manage where appropriate, staff to ensure they are motivated and performing.
   4. Develop, maintain and disseminate a comprehensive knowledge base on the gender perspectives in work to promote the professional development of staff in this area and provide information as required for different purposes.
5. Other
   1. Represent the programme externally, actively networking and building relationships with government, international bodies, private sectors, I/NGOs, grassroots networks, women’s and girls’ organisations, and others as required.
   2. Support the effective communication of the progamme’s approach to Gender Equality across the organisation, working with colleagues from different departments to engage their support and input.
   3. All other relevant tasks as required.