Ending Child Marriage (ECM) Specialist

1. Job Purpose

Provide technical leadership and quality assurance for ending child marriage, gender-transformative programming, community and social-norm change, girls’ agency, safeguarding-sensitive prevention and survivor-centred multisectoral referral pathways. The Specialist will translate evidence and formative inquiry into practical tools, coach program staff and partners, assure technical quality, and document learning for government engagement, sustainability and scale-up.

2. Key Responsibilities

A. Technical leadership on child-marriage prevention

• Lead technical design and adaptation of child-marriage prevention approaches across school, family, community and government-system interventions.
• Guide formative inquiry to identify harmful and protective norms, influential reference groups, risks, credible messengers and locally appropriate rights-based approaches.
• Ensure approaches address the links between school exclusion, poverty, gender inequality, domestic workload, violence, disability, displacement, pregnancy/motherhood and child-marriage risk.
• Keep interventions girl-centred, age-appropriate, culturally relevant, disability-inclusive and non-stigmatizing.

B. Community and social-norm transformation

• Provide technical guidance for 800 structured intergenerational community dialogues reaching at least 40,000 people.
• Support establishment/strengthening of 40 community child-marriage prevention platforms with clear terms of reference, membership and accountability arrangements.
• Develop/adapt training and coaching content for 400 faith leaders, traditional leaders, boys, men and youth champions.
• Guide use of positive-deviance approaches, community theatre, radio, faith-based and community platforms while monitoring backlash and unintended effects.

C. Safe schools, girls’ agency and inclusion

• Integrate child-marriage prevention into school safety, inclusion, retention and School Improvement Plan processes.
• Provide technical input to training/coaching for at least 400 teachers and school leaders on gender-responsive education, inclusion, early marriage prevention, safeguarding and psychosocial first-line support.
• Guide girls’ clubs, mentorship and girl-led mechanisms on rights, life skills, negotiation, leadership, financial literacy, career guidance and help-seeking.
• Ensure meaningful participation of married girls, pregnant girls, young mothers, girls with disabilities and girls affected by conflict/displacement.

D. Survivor-centred referral and systems strengthening

• Lead technical mapping and strengthening of multisectoral referral pathways linking education, health, social welfare, justice, police, civil registration and other relevant services.
• Develop/adapt referral protocols and job aids covering informed consent, confidentiality, documentation, information sharing, referral completion and case escalation.
• Support tabletop simulation exercises and quarterly reviews of referral timeliness, completion, service quality and safety.
• Coach government officials/frontline actors on gender-responsive planning, coordinated response and ending child marriage.

E. Technical quality, learning and evidence

• Develop/adapt technical guidance, facilitator materials, SOPs, checklists and coaching tools and verify their appropriate use.
• Conduct field observation, mentoring and technical quality reviews and provide actionable feedback to Woreda Program Officers and partners.
• Work with the Impact/MEAL team to interpret child-marriage, social-norm, agency, referral and safeguarding data and use findings for adaptation.
• Document effective messages, messengers, platforms, implementation lessons and scalable practices for policy engagement and learning products.

3. Key Performance Areas / Expected Results

• Technically sound ECM approaches are consistently applied across all four woredas.
• 800 community dialogues and 40 prevention platforms meet agreed quality and safeguarding standards.
• 400 community/faith/traditional/male/youth champions are appropriately trained/supported and their advocacy is tracked.
• Referral pathways in four woredas are mapped, tested and periodically reviewed using survivor-centred standards.
• Teacher/school leader capacity-building and girls’ agency mechanisms incorporate child-marriage prevention and gender-transformative content.
• Technical learning is documented and used in quarterly adaptation, policy engagement and scale-up discussions.

Key Working Relationship

• Internal: CIFF Program Manager; Program Director, Chief Program Officer, Woreda Program Officers; Operations, Impact/MEAL; GESI; Safeguarding; Education/Program teams; Communications.
• External: Education and protection authorities; Women and Social Affairs; health/justice/police/civil registration; schools; faith/traditional leaders; community platforms; specialist service providers.

Safeguarding Commitment

Imagine1day has zero tolerance for violations of Child and Adult Safeguarding, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, and the Code of Conduct. In the process of recruitment, selection, and appointment, Imagine1day implements a range of procedures and actions, including Criminal Background Checks/ International vetting/Certificates of good conduct to ensure children and vulnerable adults are safeguarded and abuse is prevented.

Education and Experience

• Master’s degree in gender studies, sociology, social work, public health, education, child protection, development studies or a related field; equivalent relevant experience may be considered under organizational policy.
• Typically, 6+ years of relevant technical experience in international and national NGOs in child-marriage prevention, adolescent-girls programming, gender-transformative programming, social-norm change or child protection.
• Demonstrated knowledge of survivor-centred referral, safeguarding/PSEAH, community engagement and gender equality programming.
• Experience developing/adapting training materials, coaching field teams and working with government and community structures in Ethiopia.
• Strong analytical, facilitation, documentation and English communication skills; relevant local-language capacity is an advantage.

Core Competencies

• Technical expertise in ending child marriage and gender transformation
• Social and behaviour/norm change design
• Survivor-centred and safeguarding-sensitive practice
• Facilitation, coaching and adult learning
• GESI and intersectional analysis
• Evidence use, learning and technical writing