Gender Officer at Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF)

Key responsibilities:

Gender activities design, tools development, activities implementation

• Lead the implementation of the gender work under AECF’s portfolio of programmes and funds Investing in Women, and WEE, bringing together AECF’s expertise and resources to support companies to reduce gender gaps across leadership, employment, and entrepreneurship.
• Oversee the seamless implementation of the gender work of all programs in your portfolio, developing and maintaining detailed annual gender activities program management plans for piloting, scaling up gender offerings to selected companies.
• Set up and preparation of materials for gender activities implementation meetings and keep a track of reports on implementation progress across the AECF teams.
• Identify and proactively build relationships and liaise with local partners throughout implementation.
• Oversee gender program budget, monitor, manage and report on financial performance according to projects plan, liaise with donors or investors to deepen collaboration.
• Track performance indicators against the monitoring and evaluation plan, and defined theory of change.Deliver gender-specific advisory services to clients focused on women’s employment entrepreneurship, and other topics to drive inclusion in the private sector.

Partnership, knowledge and impact

• Work with the Manager – Gender and Partnerships to mobilize project resources, including funding by developing fundraising proposals, and identifying potential funding sources and linkages with donors.
• Contribute to thought leadership, representing AECF in GLI and WEE-focused forums and disseminating learnings and insights from your portfolio.
• Oversee and manage sectoral and topic-specific research (including financial services sector, blue economy, processing, insurance, agribusiness and transport, renewable energy, respectful workplaces).
• Draft company case studies that highlight innovative approaches to closing gender gaps in the private sector.
• Work with the communications team to develop innovative communications tactics including use of digital media, documentaries etc.

Internal gender mainstreaming

• Support gender mainstreaming across the institution.
• Work with the Manager-Partnerships & Gender to support portfolio teams with gender flagging against set targets.
• Promote gender knowledge among AECF colleagues through themed events, communications, and timely reporting.

The Candidate:

Suitable candidates should:

• Hold a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Development Finance, Gender Economics, Finance, Business, or any other related field of study.
• Have a minimum of five (5) years of experience in one or more of the following areas: social entrepreneurship, impact investing, management consulting, private sector development, agriculture, agribusiness, SME finance, rural financial services, and/or renewable energy and adaptation to combat climate change.
• Be a seasoned gender lens investing professional with in-depth experience working with the private sector on gender-smart solutions in emerging markets.
• Have experience in establishing the business case for women’s economic empowerment and know how to provide gender-specific advisory services to private sector companies.
• Be able to routinely lead operations and research projects and integrate the work of other (often multi-disciplinary) professional staff.
• Be able to proficiently interact with companies’ senior management, development partners and communicate at the policy level with senior government counterparts and other organizations with confidence on the topic.
• Have technical-operational gender and private sector experience in particular on women’s employment and entrepreneurship.
• Demonstrate an ability to conceptualize, design, and implement multi-sector, multi-stakeholder partnerships, and client engagements and to produce analytical reports for clients and donors.
• Have a track record in managing consultants in a project, monitoring project issues, and tasks, meeting deadlines and setting priorities.
• Have a strong ability to communicate ideas clearly and confidently (including to media), articulate issues, and recommend solutions.
• Have a thorough understanding of the international development agenda, and key stakeholders such as the UN, G-20, private sector partnerships such as the Global Banking Alliance for Women, the Global Compact, etc.
• Be fluent in English. Knowledge of French is an added advantage.