Gender and Youth Specialist (m/f)

Description

• The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) anticipates funding the five-year Promoting Market Systems, Innovation and Resilience (PREMIER) activity in Mozambique. The PREMIER activity will facilitate the development of an inclusive, resilient, and sustainable market system to boost agriculture-led economic growth in the Nacala corridor of northern Mozambique. The activity will use a market systems approach and will focus on minimizing barriers that disadvantage the vulnerable, women and youth and exclude them from economic opportunities within the agriculture sector. This activity is anticipated to cover a combination of staple and high value crops
• The activity will implement solutions including:
• Enhancing access to finance across sectors for the rural poor and SMEs
• Enhancing risk mitigation management
• Building the capacity of smallholder producers and agribusinesses
• Increasing incomes for smallholder farmers
• Establishing strong and transparent relationships between actors
• Expanding employment and entrepreneurship opportunities, especially for youth and women
• The Gender and Youth Specialist will lead the Premier objective to establish inclusive principles to integrate women and youth across all activities, increasing entrepreneurship and profitable self-employment, expanding on-, off-, and non-farm economic opportunities, and facilitating linkages to resources to help them take advantage of those opportunities

Duties

• Work with Premier programs team to ensure that the work plan includes a strategy; activities and targets to reach PREMIERs overall goal to reach 40% female and youth beneficiaries
• Contribute to PREMIERs annual work plans and assure timely implementation of the women and youth targeted work plan activities
• Promote PREMIERs innovation and upscaling grants facility and identify and encourage eligible women and youth led actors and organizations to participate in the grants application process
• Act as account manager for PREMIER beneficiary women and youth led business that successfully applied for grants from PREMIERs innovation and upscaling co-investment facility grant (the Private Sector Investment Fund, PSIF)
• Support the beneficiary actors with the development of scopes of work and ensure strong procurement policies and procedures, as well as product and service quality and cost monitoring required for the grant implementation
• Assure timely implementation of the PREMIER women and youth business grants and signal potential issues and delays and report these to the grants manager and the DCoP
• Advice and support PREMIER portfolio managers with the integration of women and youth specific activities in the project work plan, the grants implementation plans and the organizational Capacity Building Plans
• Include gender awareness training in work plans and grants implementation plans for the Premier team, the premier beneficiary organizations, grantees and businesses and assure their timely implementation
• Identity and communicate the business case for the inclusion of women and youth to agribusiness clients and partners
• Facilitate entrepreneurship training targeted to women and youth that include confidence and skill-building activities that challenge the social norms preventing them from seeking jobs or entrepreneurship opportunities
• Support the beneficiary actors with the development of scopes of work and ensure strong procurement policies and procedures, as well as product and service quality and cost monitoring required for the grant implementation
• Oversee a competitive RFP process to select and build the capacity of local delivery partners to launch and expand new venture incubation and high-touch entrepreneurship programs that incorporate personal effectiveness, life skills, and gender training into curriculums
• Oversee Premier’s training-of-trainer approach that will transfer curriculum to selected local institutions in the corridor and introduce a new Life Skills curriculum for Technical and Vocational Education and Training Institutes (TVETs)
• Encourage media partners and local businesses to highlight entrepreneurship opportunities and benefits (e.g., showcasing successful role models) to help women and youth see themselves as potentially successful entrepreneurs
• Support top graduates to launch “business-in-a-box” agri-SGBs linking women and young people to medium and large agribusiness clients that want to expand reach into first-mile supply chain and last-mile distribution networks
• Work with the Technical Team to build the business case for private sector partners to invest in franchise models for their input and output markets that build trust and relationships with women and youth businesspeople who demonstrate high potential to run a business
• Develop and promote women and youth inclusive management practices. This includes coaching current women and youth employees to take leadership roles and develop the technical skills needed for advancement
• Design internship and young professionals programs for PREMIER and beneficiary organizations for young women and men from local universities to support their professional development
• Support larger agribusinesses and agri-SGBs to improve gender and youth policies and hire them as employees
• Assist the Technical Team in connecting agribusiness partners with local service providers to improve the inclusivity of their recruitment and sourcing policies
• Support financial institutions by conducting gender analyses that examine the needs of women- and youth-owned businesses, demonstrating the business case for expanding client portfolios with women and youth, and raising awareness of unconscious bias effects on client relationships and services
• Facilitate expansion of informal savings for women and youth by supporting financial institutions to conduct gender analyses that examine the needs of women- and youth-owned businesses, demonstrating the business case for expanding client portfolios with women and youth, and raising awareness of unconscious bias effects on client relationships and services
• Facilitate creation of women support and youth support groups by identifying business associations to deliver mentoring programs to women and youth business owners

Requisites

• Minimal Bachelor's level Degree in either Business, Economics, Agriculture, Finance or equivalent
• 5 years of relevant professional experience or Master’s degree with 3 years in Gender related programs with leading Gender initiatives
• Knowledge and experience in conducting gender analysis, delivering gender trainings and developing gender policy in programs in Mozambique and outside
• Knowledge and understanding of issues around women’s economic empowerment
• Able to be thoughtful and practical on ways to engage and empower women
• Experience designing and facilitating participatory and interactive conferences and workshops, using a variety of methods like liberating structures and/or other adult learning techniques
• Experience facilitating change through participatory and inclusive learning and reflection, especially in rural and cross-cultural environments
• Strong private sector market orientation, entrepreneurial and innovative thinker
• Detail orientation, including strong organizational, analytical, and quantitative skills
• Good computer skills in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other administrative applications
• Communicative and open to exchange and learning
• Fluency in Portuguese with excellent oral and written communication skills required
• Proficiency in English is preferred

Notes

• Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted
• We encourage all qualified individuals who share TechnoServe's vision of improving the lives of others through proven business solutions to apply
• With our commitment to diversity, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and affirmative action employer and do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, HIV/AIDS status, protected veteran status, disability and all other protected classes
• We are also proud of our commitment to protecting staff, partners, and beneficiaries from abuse and exploitation and thoroughly vet all final candidates through rigorous background and reference checks
• If you have a disability that affects your ability to use our online system to apply for a position at TechnoServe please contact the Human Resources at recruitment@tns.org