Project Officer, Gender and Inclusion - Turkana at Plan International

ABOUT THE ROLE 

The Project Officer, Gender and Inclusion will be responsible to drive the gender transformative approach of both projects so that they challenge and address gender-related barriers for sustainable and rewarding change.  The gender and inclusion officer will support and work with project teams and partners to provide technical guidance and support to analyse and apply the elements of gender transformation in project activities, including capacity building of the teams and partners. Additionally, the role of the gender and Inclusion officer is to ensure that the gender marker application is managed throughout the project cycle for Plan Kenya project activities. With support from the line manager, the Gender Officer will closely work with teams in both the Climate Proofing WASH services and Nurturing Futures for synergy and integration of project interventions in Turkana.

ACCOUNTABILITIES AND MAIN WORK ACTIVITIES

Planning and Implementation (40%) 

• Ensure the projects maintains gender-sensitivity in all project activities. These include but not limited to, addressing gender norms directly, improving agency, promoting positive masculinity, and fostering an enabling environment where possible and appropriate.
• Work towards enabling projects to achieve the highest standards of gender transformation to address power and gender inequalities that undermine responsive nutritional and food security outcomes for children and women, adaptive climate change, improved economic self-reliance and community resilience and water, sanitation, and hygiene.
• Facilitate meaningful engagement, consultation, participation and feedback to ensure gender transformation is on track.
• Facilitate and support localization and implementation of Gender equality and Inclusion strategy into all the components of project cycle. They will work towards promoting gender equality, women's empowerment, and social inclusion in the project's activities, strategies and outcomes. 
• Inform community led beneficiary targeting processes and reporting on interventions being undertaken from a gender and inclusion perspective.

Reporting and Influencing (15%) 

• Mobilization and participation of women in climate governance and weak collective action among women's rights organizations (WROs) and youth-led organizations (YLOs) in diverse project activities.
• Promote participation of children, girls and communities in project cycle to explore and challenge gender norms.
• Contribute to gender sensitive responses/intervention through continuous data collection during project implementation. 
• Contribute to project periodic reports in line with the laid down donor requirements and Plan standards.

Monitoring, Evaluation and Quality Assurance (20%) 

• Manage the application of the gender marker across the projects
• Review and input into the projects MERL plans and framework, data collection tools and M&E guidance to ensure that MERL practices are gender sensitive and the project is expertly capturing gendered outputs and outcomes.
• Participate in baseline/end-line and other qualitative and quantitative evaluation activities (i.e. methodology and tool development and data analysis) to ensure a gender lens is applied.
• Monitor and advise on the actions that promote gender transformation as defined in the marker, across all project phases.
• Support and present in project reviews from a gender and inclusion perspective and identify areas where we are excelling with gender and areas where we can improve.

Working in Partnership (10%) 

• Provide support and capacity building to partners in the consortium. 
• Understand the partnership context and inform the GEI aspects that affect the project implementation
• Actively participate in partnership sessions and support to drive GEI
• Build and strengthen working relations with local structures (local administration, schools among others) and ensure their participation from a gender and inclusion perspective
• Support the delivery of trainings on gender equality and inclusion for stakeholders and partners. 
• Assess local partners’ capacity gaps in delivery of program work with attention to GE&I and develop capacity building plans for mutual development.

Risk Management (5%) 

• Contribute to development of the project risk assessment on matters GEI.
• Continually advise on local context in advancing gender transformation.

Safeguarding Children and Young People (Safeguarding) and Gender Equality and Inclusion (GEI) (5%)

• Understands and puts into practice the responsibilities under Safeguarding and GEI policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), ensuring that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.
• Leads the orientation of programme staff to ensure that they are properly inducted on and understands their role in upholding Plan International’s safeguarding and GEI policies;
• Ensures that Plan International’s global policies for Safeguarding Children and Young People and Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded in project design, during implementation and as principles applied in day-to-day work of Programme team; 
• Ensures that Plan Kenya contributes to Plan International’s global efforts to ensure safeguarding and GEI, including making sure that relevant reporting and data are submitted.  

Other Duties (5%)

As assigned by the line manager.

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE, SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE

Qualifications/ experience essential: 

• Bachelor's Degree in Gender and development, International development, Sociology and other related studies.
• Technical knowledge of Gender Equality and Inclusion in general, and as it relates to relevant sectors, especially WASH, Nutrition and Parenting.
• At least 3 years progressive experience in Gender Transformative and Rights based Approaches into project design, implementation and M&E 
• Direct project implementation experience, reporting and capacity building, preferably in the field of either nutrition, natural resource management, community development, and climate change adaptation.
• Hold personal values, ethics and attitudes which are in alignment with the principles of the Plan’s values
• Experience working with refugee communities, host communities and/or pastoral communities.

Qualifications/ experience desirable: 

• Experience working in Turkana
• Strong report writing skills 
• Documentation of project impact stories of change
• Community facilitation, networking, partnership development and management skills 
• Good communication, negotiation and advocacy skills 
• Good interpersonal, relationship and team working 
• Conflict Management skills 
• Ability to understand the cultural context of the coastal communities.
• Experience in program phase out management
• Motorcycle riding skills and experience

Languages required:
Excellent written and verbal communication skills in Kiswahili and English. Northern dialects are considered an asset.