Project Officer: Gender and Advocacy at Practical Action Kenya

The job holder will contribute to delivery of Practical Action’s energy strategy for the East Africa regional office. Practical Action is scaling up its work on women and energy through a three-year project in Kenya. The objective of the project is to leverage on PA’s extensive previous experience working with women in energy enterprises to further solidify women’s participation in and benefit from energy markets and to increase uptake of energy products and services. The project further seeks improve the enabling market and policy environment for gender equality in the energy sector while strengthening Practical Action’s thought leadership in the theme/sector.

One of the key objectives of the project is to improve the enabling market and policy environment for gender equality in the energy sector through enhanced awareness, and gender-responsive actions of public and private sector actors. Practical Action is looking for a Project Officer who will be responsible for the advocacy component of the project.

The role will spearhead the delivery of the gender and energy advocacy and influencing activities including an awareness campaign in order to deliver high quality project outputs.
The main responsibilities of the Project Officer: Gender & Advocacy will include but not limited to the following:

Project Implementation, Reporting and Learning (80%)

•  Take lead in the planning and implementation of the advocacy component of the WEEK phase 2 project.
• Take lead in establishing dialogue, sensitizing, lobbying and support gender mainstreaming in the county energy planning processes including training of county staff on gender and energy nexus with other sectors.
• Establish dialogue with community organisations and partners at local, sub-national and national level to mobilise their support and participation in the project’s advocacy and influencing agenda.

Strengthening Profile-10%

• Represent Practical Action in the project area to local government, local communities, NGOs and other actors when requested to do so.
• Participate in local coordination / networking meetings as required.
• Support effective lesson learning, information management and sharing in close collaboration with the Communication team.

Achieving Change Ambitions – 10%

• Participate as a member in the organizational Gender and Energy sub hub and interact with any other organizational Change Ambition Hubs and working groups, as appropriate and create synergies between our organization-wide change ambitions and our gender and energy work in country.
• Apply a gender focused lens to analyse the nature, causes and scale of the problem we want to address, using a systems approach.
• Support development of fundable project ideas and proposals to raise funds for scaling up the women and energy work in the region
• As an experienced Gender and Advocacy professional, you will be a holder of a Bachelor’s degree in Gender studies, Sociology, Rural development or related studies from a reputable University with at least 5 years working experience with three years in the energy and gender field or relevant working experience in NGO’s on advocacy and leading campaigns. An excellent understanding of gender and energy issues and women economic empowerment, good networking, team building and alliance building skills coupled with experience in integrating gender and diversity and sensitivity to gender and diversity issues are essential.