The purpose of Specialist-Gender & Accountability is to lead the planning and implementation of activities designed to enhance resilience for women at household and community level through increased knowledge, understanding and contribution to changes in social norms. S/he provides capacity building and technical assistance related to gender issues and women’s empowerment under the project: “Promoting Resilient Livelihoods in Amhara” for affected communities, project staff, partner organizations, and key stakeholders. The incumbent is also responsible to ensure a robust M&E system to evaluate the impact of program interventions aimed at women’s empowerment and challenging social norms and barriers as well extract, document and share good practices within the organization, stakeholders and its partners. Furthermore, the position holder will assist in refining the program design and implementation of all components of the project related to the intersection between gender issues, women’s empowerment, and resilience in the target communities. The Gender & Accountability Specialist will work closely with other technical specialists and program staff to ensure program quality and impact in line with the goals and objectives of the program. 

Responsibilities and Key Result Areas 

Provide Technical Assistance/ Program planning and implementation (35%)

• Provide quality Technical Support to communities and the project team on the following components of Gender & Accountability:
• Lead in the design and implementation of activities focused on the intersection of gender, women’s empowerment and resilience intervention.
• Lead in the development of a detailed implementation plan (DIP) for activities focused on the intersection of gender, women’s empowerment and resilience intervention.
• Support Development of SAA manual; implementation of SAA approach and monitoring for challenging and transforming positively gender and social norms in favor of women’s empowerment.
• Facilitate formation, implementation, monitoring and capacity building for VSLA intervention and closely work with relevant woreda government sector offices.
• Facilitate VSLA group transformation to legal entity and cooperative
• Support development of gender awareness platform at woreda level;
• Support for joint assessments and monitoring visits with woreda and zonal authorities on gender issues such as SAA, VSLA, IGA---.
• Support woreda-level learning events on gender issues.
• Ensure measurable impact of gender-related activities and a robust M&E system is in place.
• Ensure quality of activities designed to reduce the vulnerability of women in drought-affected households/communities to external shocks through increased knowledge, understanding and contribution to changes in social norms.
• Coordinate and support the development of implementation strategies, methods, and guidelines for sustainable linkages between the Bureau of Women, Youth & Children’s Affairs and the Food Security Task Force (woreda level) to ensure gender issues are raised and addressed in the target areas.
• Monitor progress and provide ongoing feedback and recommendations to the project management.
• Participate, as required, in the gender and gender-related assessments carried out in project operational areas.
• Advise and ensure program initiatives are consistent with women’s empowerment and food security.

Capacity Building and Technical Support (20%)

• Establishes staff and key partner induction and ongoing training processes on gender and women and girl’s food security program quality.
• Conduct capacity assessment and based on the results, prepare plans and advise program staff on key learning competency and skill requirements in staff and partners pertinent to gender and women and girl’s food security.
• Leads the development and facilitation of trainings for partner and staff development on gender and women and girl’s resilience intervention related initiatives.
• Develops and implements follow-up coaching plans to sustain staff expertise and commitment to apply new skills.
• Continuously updates staff and partners on emerging gender and women’s and girl’s food security issues to enhance and sustain conceptual clarity and awareness of partners and others’ best practices in gender and women and girl’s food security related interventions.
• Works with the relevant government structures to facilitate gender and women and girl’s food security-related activities and monitoring in the operational areas.
• Documents and shares lessons/results of gender and women and girl’s food security-related work and strategies in program operational areas.
• Designs and leads gender and women’s and girl’s food security surveys, analyzes results and writes reports.
• Advises and helps promote appropriate community awareness strategies around gender, food security and changing social norms.
• Documents and shares lessons/results of gender and women and girl’s food security work and strategies in program operational areas.
• Actively participates in the capacity needs assessment and development of strategies related to gender and food security;
• Participate and represent the project in various gender and food security forums at various levels; and
• Work with Learning, Monitoring and Evaluation, PQL and other relevant units to ensure quality programming and Monitoring and Evaluations systems related to gender and women and girl’s food security are in place.

Partnership and Networking (15%)

• Ensure CARE’s input into gender and women and girl’s resilience intervention ty programming with government counterparts in the target woredas/kebeles/communities.
• Represent CARE Ethiopia at all key government and inter-agency gender and women and girl’s food security-related forums as appropriate.
• Establish and maintain productive relationships with partner organizations working with CARE.
• Establish and maintain productive relationships with government offices, non-government organizations, and expert institutions and draw different experiences to be shared with project staff;
• Develop and maintain productive relationships with other NGOs and UN agencies working on gender and women and girl’s food security in the target woredas;
• Work to progressively improve CARE’s engagement in gender and women and girl’s food security programming;
• Actively participate in gender and women and girl’s food security forums to facilitate learning and scaling up of gender and women and girl’s food security good practices; and
• Establish and maintain productive relationships with all levels of government offices, stakeholders and partners.

 Learning, Documentation and Sharing (15%)

• Identify/extract good practices and learning related to gender and women and girl’s food security interventions for further program quality improvement;
• Record and document lessons from program processes and achievements;
• Share good practices and learning with CARE staff, stakeholders and partners;
• Organize forums and experience sharing visits to extract/share success stories and challenges;
• Identify partners with good and relevant practices for potential experience sharing;
• Prepare and maintain up to date information on the gender and women and girl’s food security situation in each operational area;
• Prepare reports as deemed necessary.  

Leadership and Representation (10%)

• Contribute to transparent and participatory management and decision making.
• Coach the field level staffs to build their technical and function capacity in gender and women and girl’s resilience building.
• Actively participate and support programmatic coordination and synergy.
• Contribute to healthy work environment.
• Promote transparent and accountable system.
• Participate in project management meetings and be a team player and team builder.
• Represent project/CARE and contribute on gender and women and girl’s food security-related forums and discussions at different levels.
• Exhibit model behaviors consistent with principles, values, vision and mission of the organization.
• Identify and promote learning and lessons for scale up of good practices.
• Bring issues and feedback to the attention of the project management.
• Implement decisions made by the project management.

Perform other duties as assigned (5%)

Job Requirements

Education/Training

Required:

• Bachelor's Degree in Gender/Women’s Development, Development Studies, social sciences, or related field of study

 Desired:

• MBA/MSc Degree in Gender/Women’s Development, Development Studies, social sciences, or related field of study

Experience:

Required:

• 5 years of progressive experience for BA and 3 years’ experience for MA that is related to gender/women’s empowerment framework in rural areas, including experience with challenging social norms, particularly as it relates to food security/emergency response programs and rural development.
• Ability in interpersonal relationship, proposal development and team work is required

 Desired:

• Previous experience working in emergencies in gender and women and girl’s food security with international NGOs and UN agencies;
• Emergency response experience
• Strategic and operational planning experience
• Experience in undertaking capacity building initiatives.

Technical Skills

 Required:

• Proficiency in computer (Word, Excel)
• Expertise in gender and women’s empowerment program design and management
• Good knowledge of written and spoken English
• Project design, monitoring and evaluation skill
• Effective interpersonal skills, maturity, initiative, tact and a high sense of responsibility
• Ability to work harmoniously with people of different educational and cultural backgrounds;
• Ability to analyze technical issues, to write clear and concise reports and make effective oral presentations;
• Solid understanding of gender and women’s empowerment frameworks and tools; and
• Good analytical, communication and organizational skill.

 Desired:

• Expertise in gender and women’s empowerment analysis and profiling;
• Proven training and facilitation skills;
• Computer skills in database management.
• Gender/women’s empowerment assessment, analysis and report writing

Competencies: CARE core values (respect, accountability, courage, and excellence), building partnerships, and managing performance for success, initiating action, interpersonal skills, contributing to team success, pro-active problem solving and organizing.

 Problem Solving (Thinking Environment): All the three levels of problem solving apply to the incumbent. But category number two and three is most applicable to this position because, the incumbent must use interpersonal skills to pick and choose the right strategy to address a given problem and also has to deal with variable solutions, which need analysis, problem definition and development of alternative solutions.  

Contacts/Key Relationships:

The incumbent is expected to establish and maintain good relations with all staff and partners in at all levels. S/he will also be expected to have productive and professional relations with various technical and operation staff in the organization.

CARE Ethiopia is committed to preventing all unwanted behavior at work. This includes sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse, and child abuse. We expect everyone who works for us to share this commitment by understanding and working within the CARE Safeguarding Policy and related framework. CARE Ethiopia has a zero-tolerance approach to any harm to, or exploitation of, a vulnerable adult or child by any of our staff, representatives or partners.

CARE Ethiopia reserves the right to seek information from job applicants’ current and/or previous employers about incidents of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment the applicant may have been found guilty to have committed or about which an investigation was in the process of being carried out at the time of the termination of the applicant’s employment with that employer.

By submitting the application, the job applicant confirms that s/he has no objection to CARE Ethiopia requesting the information specified above. All offers of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and appropriate screening checks. 

How to Apply

If you are interested to be part of our dynamic team, exciting work environment and contribute to CARE Ethiopia’s mission and vision, please send your CV (not more than 3 pages) and cover letter (not more than one page) through CLICK HERE

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted. Passionate and dedicated candidates who meet the requirement are strongly encouraged to apply, especially women! CARE seeks to improve the lives of the most marginalized, particularly women and girls. Our diversity is our strength. We encourage people from all backgrounds and experiences to apply.