Job Description

With over 70 years of experience, our focus is on helping the most vulnerable children overcome poverty and experience fullness of life. We help children of all backgrounds, even in the most dangerous places, inspired by our Christian faith.

Come join our 34,000+ staff working in nearly 100 countries and share the joy of transforming vulnerable children’s life stories!

Key Responsibilities:

The Gender Youth and Social Inclusion Advisor (GYSI-A) for the EMERGE program will lead a multi-organization technical team to ensure that assessment, analysis, impact measurement, approaches and interventions are sensitive and responsive to needs experienced by women, youth, disabled persons and other marginalized groups.  They will support the development and roll-out of community, group and household engagement strategies, assessment and analysis tools, and sensitive/responsive interventions and communications, knowledge and learning products.  

The position-holder will develop technical guidance and manage to team to support implementing partners to ensure integration and standardization of GYSI approaches in livelihood interventions, including training to saving groups, vocational skills training, mentorship to entrepreneurs and capacity strengthening to farmers and livestock-keepers. The position holder will lead in the development of gender-transformative training modules to integrate within the framework of individual and group capacity development efforts.   Will champion women, youth and marginalized group engagement and advancement into specific sectors and values-chains, advocating for their rights to participate and expand their influence.  They will mentor implementing partners GYSI focal points, developing working groups to share evolving practices, identify/address program challenges and isolate promising program groups and individuals to spotlight for recognition and to provide additional opportunities.   

He/she will work closely with the MEAL teams to develop context-appropriate methodologies to reach marginalized groups, monitor program quality, measure impact and establish a sensitive complaints-response-mechanisms. The position-holder will support in vulnerability targeting process, ensuring that channels for two-way communication are established with the marginalized to ensure their needs inform program approaches. He/she will develop knowledge management systems to keep-track of women-led businesses and metrics to identify rising stars for recognition.  

The position-holder will undertake frequent travel to the field to monitor and document the effectiveness of GYSI approaches, identify lessons learnt and leading adjustments to program and mentors’ engagement strategies to better empower program participants. They will be the protection focal-point for the EMERGE program, creating awareness of protection issues, ensuring reporting protocols are in place at technical unit, implementing partner and mentor-network levels, draft incident reports and support implementing partners’ linkages to basic service actors for health, psychosocial and justice providers.  The GYSI will support technical review of project and program reports to donors: review member’s reports to ensure alignment with project/program objectives and consortium’s technical approaches, as well as follow-up with members to improve future reporting. The GYSI-L will support the development and review of learning and research products, ensuring learning agenda has a strong GYSI lens.  She/he will support in proposal development process: draft and review technical content, as well as identify partnerships with government, academic and private sector and develop concepts and ways of working with these entities.

The position-holder will lead external engagement and advocacy on GYSI issues on behalf of the EMERGE program with UN and government working/coordination groups in Hudor, Baidoa, and Mogadishu. The GYSI-Advisor will lead engagement with member state and federal government engagement.   They will identify GYSI success stories/challenge/learning stories and coordinate with communication teams to develop content to share with BHA.

Major Job Responsibility
(a) GYSI Technical Support

• Develop/update people-centred, context-appropriate training tools targeting implementing partners and mentor-networks (e.g. May translated);
• Partner with EMERGE, Elman Peace and World Vision technical advisors to identify entry points, additional interventions and advocacy goals to advance the needs of women, youth and disabled in the program;
• Lead layering, sequencing and integration discussions for technical teams and implementing partners in the program’s master Detailed Implementing Plans (DIP) and monitoring teams performance to meeting benchmarks;
• Lead training in GYSI approaches to implementing partners, government and mentor-networks;
• Support implementing partners to analyse opportunities and barriers to program participants to graduate and/or sustain graduation and develop and monitor action plans to address them;
• Establish community-of-practice with implementing partner and government focal points to share learning, identify/address program challenges, spotlight promising mentors and/or specific group/individual success/challenge;
• Working with World Vision Advocacy Advisor and local implementing partners, lead advocacy with local, member state and federal to create enabling conditions for program participants to graduate and sustain graduation;    Program approaches are sensitive and responsive to the needs of marginalized groups and HH;
• Implementing partners apply contextualized and standardized technical approaches;
• Challenges and opportunities to graduate and sustain graduation are identified and action plans in place to overcome barriers and seize opportunities;
• GYSI interventions are layered, sequenced and integrated within the program DIP;

(b) Front to Back GYSI Monitoring Evaluation & Learning (MEAL) System in-place and Functional

• Develop database of women-led businesses supported by the program and identify success-metrics which enabled and/or sustained their graduation;
• Working with the World Vision protection team, serve as the program’s focal point for protection and safeguarding issues, including training to implementing partners and mentors-networks, support to establish referrals to health, psychosocial and justice actors, and reporting issues via Flash Reports and online portal and facilitating investigations as required;
• Support vulnerability-based-targeting process: (i) working with implementing partners to identify/open communication channels to most-vulnerable populations; (ii) identify sensitive vulnerability markers for special groups; (iii) support community engagement and accountability-to-affected population response actions (AAP);
• With EMERGE MEAL, develop program quality checklists to enable routine monitoring, monitor training approach uptake at group and HH-levels and further adapt to evolving circumstances; 
• Support project reporting process through: (i) development of standardized templates with necessary metrics; (ii) first-review of implementing partners’ report (GYSI) section; (iii) support to partners via program EMERGE communications to capture success/challenge stories for GYSI target groups; (iv) after-action reporting feedback to implementing partners to better capture GYSI dynamics;
• Gender, Youth, Disabled Persons-sensitive/responsive accountability-to-affected populations (AAP) mechanisms in place to ensure two-way communication     Marginalized groups have safe/sensitive/responsive accountability-to-affected populations (AAP) systems to enable them make needs known;
• Protection and Safeguarding issues are identified, reported, and support to survivors is provided in a sensitive, discreet and timely manner; 
• Women, Youth and Disabled program participants to the program are identified who are deserving and with the ability to graduate and sustain graduation;
• Effective GYSI-sensitive approaches empower marginalized groups to thrive; 

(c) External Engagement, Coordination and Influence

• Participate in, contribute to and lead UN and government coordination mechanism at federal member state level (e.g. Protection Cluster);
• Participate in, contribute to federal-level working groups to share learning and identify best-practices and develop networks for advocacy and influence; 
• Serve as focal point with program’s primary GYSI government agency at federal and member state levels; 
• Work with World Vision Advocacy teams to identify key moments in EMERGE program to highlight contributions to the ENOUGH campaign, championing EMERGE’s contributions to ending childhood nutrition from a graduation lens;
• Engage other BHA-funded projects in target areas to establish linkages and explore collaborations;
• EMERGE program is perceived as a active participant in Protection space;
• EMERGE shares GYSI learning to inform graduation approach ecosystem; 
• EMERGE program has positive and productive relationships with key government counterparts;

(d) Research and Learning

• Take leadership of GYSI assessment process (i) supporting Scope of Work development, (ii) recruitment of consultants; (iii) review of technical report; (iv) coordination multiple stakeholder tech. inputs into design of assessment process and tools, etc.  
• Continuous identification and development of success/challenge stories to document program’s impact and shape learning agenda priorities;
• Support the EMERGE Strategic Learning Advisor to identify research topics, draft GYSI research products, and support research projects;
• Identify GYSI-specialized Somali entities to support research projects as partners in design and/or as ground agents:  pre-positioning MoUs to enable working together;
• Support SomReP Annual Resilience Measurement (ARM) to identify linkages/onramps for EMERGE program participants and develop standardized measures;
• Identify industry best-practices and program to integrate in future iterations, and develop EMERGE-specific concept notes to pitch additional supports to strengthen GYSI graduation approaches;
• Participate in GYSI forums in-country and externally to learn from others and identify best-practices to integrate into future iterations of the program;    GYSI learning informs research agenda;
• GYSI-specialized research partners, pro-actively identified;
• GYSI learning products influence research agenda;
• New evidence-based approaches inform program adaptations;

(e) Team Leadership     

• Oversee a team with 1 World Vision staff, 4 Consortium Members staff
• Support consortium members to identify program staff through guidance of JD development, shortlisting of candidates, participation in interview process; 
• Co-create performance management framework with consortium members of seconded technical team members, set team and individual priorities, monitor performance;
• Support GYSI technical teams to plan their work schedules to support sequencing, layering and integrating interventions;
• Work with Chief of Party to address performance issues with partners and take remedial actions as required;
• Identify skill building opportunities for technical team and implementing partners to strengthen GYSI team capacity;
• Promote a culture of mentorship towards implementing partners, working side-by-side to identify challenges and opportunities and putting in place co-created action plan to strengthen program.
• Skilled, motivated and pro-active team is recruited and retained; 
• EMERGE GYSI team is seen as an effective and helpful partner by internal and external stakeholders;

Experiences and Qualifications

• A bachelor’s degree in a relevant academic area—e.g., a social science discipline or related concentration.
• Demonstrated communication, creative problem-solving, and management skills.
• A minimum of 5 years of progressive experience in international development in gender, youth, and marginalized group issues;
• Experience in leading and working with large and diverse teams.
• Previous experience with large USAID grants including Resilience Food Security Activity (RFSA), Development Food Security Activity (DFSA), Development Food Assistance Programs (DFAP), Multi-Year Assistance Programs (MYAP) and/or Development Assistance Programs (DAP), Multi-Sector programming is preferred;
• Familiarity with local cultural practices, social networks, and gender and age dynamics
• Excellent organizational, analytical, and oral and written communication skills (in English)
• Demonstrated ability to deliver results and meet all donor deliverables.
• Strong English communication skills, particularly advanced writing skills
• Ability to build relationships cross-culturally.
• Ability to multi-task
• Strong workshop facilitation skills
• Strong networking skills
• Position is based in Baidoa, Somalia

Skills Required

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