Senior Associate, Livelihood and Human Rights East and Southern Africa at Rainforest Alliance

Position summary:

The objective of the Livelihood & Human Rights (L&HR) Position, East and Southern Africa (focus on Kenya and Malawi) is to lead and provide input into regional strategies and implementation of programs and certification activities to strengthen livelihood and human rights, including gender equality, in the tea, coffee, avocado and flowers sectors and respond proactively to human rights issues.

Responsibilities: 

• The Rainforest Alliance’s Core Values are Impact, Change, Collaboration, Openness and Trust and as such they form the basis of the behaviours we demonstrate;
• Contribute to program, project, and proposal design and development for the above-mentioned sectors with a focus on livelihood and human rights issues;
• Proactively collect information about L&HR issues and root causes in the different countries and liaise with the relevant local staff and other stakeholders to inform local policies and country strategies;
• Collaborate closely with thematic and advocacy leads to ensure that information, root causes and viable solutions of livelihood and human rights issues are addressed in alignment with thematic and advocacy strategies;
• Coordinate and develop capacity-building and training sessions on livelihood and human rights based on additional training needs of local Rainforest Alliance staff, certificate holders, CB's, government, and NGO partners;
• Identify best practices at the level of tea, coffee, avocado and flower estates, smallholders (out growers) and factories, and support Communications in documenting and sharing them;
• Engagement and support of the certificate holders in the identification and involvement of relevant local and national stakeholders to remediate and prevent human rights issues, including gender inequality on their farm/in their group;
• At the national level, identify and coordinate with key actors in the field of L&HR, including government officials, international organizations, and other civil society partners while actively engaging local colleagues;
• Identify opportunities for collaboration and possible funding proposals;
• The L&HR Position will report to the Director East Africa and will be part of the regional East African team but will participate in and contribute to specific meetings and occasionally, when deemed necessary, to overall theme and partnership team meetings, and
• The time allocation of the L&HR position will be 40% dedication to gender and human rights, 40% to living wage and working conditions and 20% to programs.

Qualifications: 

• University degree in Social or Economic Sciences or related with speciality in gender, human rights or related;
• At least 5 years’ experience in projects or programs dealing with human rights and/or livelihood issues, preferably in the tea sector;
• Excellent knowledge and sensibility of gender issues in the rural areas;
• At least 5 years’ experience managing consultants and multiple projects simultaneously with specific experience working with farmers, workers and/or communities essential, including in private and NGO sector; 
• Experience with participatory methods for learning and planning processes;
• Excellent writing, editing and verbal communication skills; 
• Written and verbal proficiency in English essential;
• Strong organizational skills to manage multiple priorities in a time sensitive manner, and excellent interpersonal skills with ability to interact culturally, linguistically, and diplomatically with diverse internal and external individuals;
• Takes initiative, self-motivated, resourceful, detail-oriented, dependability, strong attention to detail;
• Proficient in Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint, and
• Ability to travel a minimum of 30% per year, in Malawi, Kenya, Rwanda but also to other countries.