Gender Inclusion Specialist – TRANSFORM – Office of Programs

Location:   Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Deadline: March 11, 2024

Job Description

About IFDC

IFDC is a public international organization active in 27 countries in Africa, Asia, and America. IFDC uniquely approaches the global issues of food security and poverty by bridging the gap between research and impact, combining science-based innovations, holistic market systems development, an enabling policy environment, and strategic partnerships to assist farmers and countries to identify and scale sustainable agricultural solutions, including improved nutrient use efficiency.

These approaches are needed to boost soil health and crop productivity while reducing the environmental impact of fertilizer use. IFDC translates research into action by using locally driven, environmentally sound, and impact-oriented solutions. With our partners, we seek to close the yield gap, eradicate global hunger, safeguard the soil on which our lives depend, and generate economic resilience for farming households and the countries in which they live.   

Position Summary

IFDC is currently seeking passionate individuals to join its national team as the organization continues to expand its impact and work towards creating positive change in agriculture and sustainable soil management in Ethiopia. The qualified candidates will lead the Gender Inclusion component of a multiyear program (TRANSFORM) which will be implemented in the Amhara, Oromia and South-Central Ethiopia regions.

The proposed program seeks to transform existing agricultural structures and systems, sustainably increasing the productivity of empowered small-scale food producers while improving the sustainable use of their farmland through the integration of ISFM in extension and research activities. This position is open to Ethiopian nationals. Women candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

In support of these efforts, TRANSFORM is recruiting a Gender Inclusion Specialist and Women Economic Empowerment Specialist to ensure the following project objectives are met:

• Ensure inclusion of women in all project activities;
• Foster women access to productive resources (land, agricultural inputs, finance, productivity enhancing agricultural technologies, equipment);
• Strengthen gender-responsive services from private and public service providers (training, extension, coaching, finance, information);
• Improve women’s abilities to influence decisions, negotiate and control a fair share of benefits accruing from their activities within their household and along commodity value chains;
• Systematically analyze and address gender norms, roles, and relations that impact access to resources, decision-making power, and responsibilities among all genders, including within organizations and businesses.

The Gender Inclusion Specialist will be responsible for steering the Gender Inclusion agenda of the TRANSFORM project. She/he will provide required technical support to the TRANSFORM Team by ensuring women and other actors terms of inclusion are improved and that the project reaches the targets, planned results and impact.

Responsibilities

Working in close cooperation with TRANSFORM team, the incumbent will ensure Gender equity and women empowerment in the following areas of the TRANSFORM project: Soil health Extension and adoption; access to soil health inputs; participatory soil health research; promotion of an enabling environment for soil health and fertility.

She/he will work closely with the project technical specialists in the above-mentioned thematic areas to facilitate the integration of the thematic related strategies in the Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). This will include compiling M&E data, organizing and participating in field activities etc.  

In addition, the incumbent will accomplish the following specific tasks:

• Help build relevant technical skills for women to increase their production and income;
• Prepare training materials and work as a trainer in areas related to gender promotion in all regular training topics;
• Support and facilitate women involvement in all project activities including their active participation in governance meetings;
• Collaborate with the project Communication Specialist to develop outreach materials and capture impact stories;
• Ensure the visibility of the gender thematic area and its development (achievements, challenges, lessons learned) and positioning of women as reliable partners in public private sector partnerships;
• Write and submit timely activity reports, as well as other gender inclusion thematic technical reports and notes;
• Train and support partners to understand and put in place mechanisms for collecting and reporting achievements on M&E data;
• Organize and participate in learning events, governance meetings and field activities for the Partnerships;
• Contribute to development of ToR during the inception phase of the project to conduct a gender assessment to understand social norms that create gender inequalities and challenges, biases and perceptions on women;
• Facilitate involvement of women in the process of Integrated Farm Plans (IFP) which represents the key approach promoted by the TRANSFORM project in implementing soil health in smallholder farmers’ settings;
• Ensure inclusion of women in agri-inputs business development and foster linkages with female IFP producers and female groups in the kebeles to improve input delivery services to women farmers;
• Help stimulate female researchers and small-scale producers to be involved in scientific-led and farmer-led research;
• Promote inclusion and decision making of women in the soil health and fertility platform and facilitate a gender strategy to be included in the national strategic document on soil health and fertility improvement of MoANR;
• Help the project refine and track specific gender indicators to track progress on gender equality;
• Implement other tasks deemed necessary for the success of the program.

Requirements

• Master’s degree/Bachelor’ s degree in Gender or Women Studies, Gender, Social Sciences, Development Studies, Business Studies, Economics Studies, Agricultural Sciences, Agribusiness, or Agricultural Economics;
• At least 5 years’ work experience in entrepreneurship in agro-processing and gender mainstreaming;
• Experience of leading, supporting, managing, inspiring and coaching staff with different disciplines and backgrounds;
• A good understanding of the cultural barriers affecting women efficacy and agency in developing countries;
• Strong interpersonal, leadership, planning and coordination skills;
• Project management cycle knowledge is an added advantage;
• Strong communication (written and oral), presentation and report writing skills.

Reporting and Work Relationships

The Gender Inclusion Specialist is supervised by and reports to the Program Technical Director.  

Location 

This is a national recruitment with a duty station at the IFDC office based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with frequent travel to all program sites.

Benefits  

IFDC’s benefits include annual and sick leave, health and group life insurance coverage, a 13th-month salary, social security and pension contribution in compliance with local laws and end-of-contract benefits.   

Salary grade

The salary grade for this position is BG 9. The proposed starting Salary for this position is the local equivalent of USD 1,779.913 Gross per month.  

The determination of new employee salaries considers various factors. These include the salary range linked to the assigned job grade, the candidate’s qualifications in relation to the job’s responsibilities and prerequisites, internal fairness, the competitive state of the job market, as well as potential organizational and budgetary considerations.  

About Program/Project 

In Ethiopia, IFDC is running 2SCALE program (https://www.2scale.org/) and AFO (https://www.africafertilizer.org/) and SOILS consortium (https://ifdc.org/soils-consortium/) in addition to an initiative to organize a summit focused on African fertilizer and soil health (AFSH) in 2024 with African Union and partners (https://au.int/en/AFSH-2023).

 TRANSORM is a program lead by IFDC with key consortium partners (Stichting Wageningen Research/SWR/ Wageningen Environmental Research /WENR/World Soil Information /ISRIC/, Environment and Coffee Forest Forum /ECFF/, SOS Sahel, Ethiopia) and preferred partners (MoA, EIAR and the Well In Action, TWA).   

The TRANSFORM project approach on the gender dimension is that to be able to transform existing agricultural structures and systems, women must be actively involved, as they are part of the solution.

The main guiding principle of TRANSFORM is to use inclusive, bottom-up, participatory approaches. In all project components, as much as possible, female and young small-scale producers will be consulted, involved, and be part of the process. To ensure all project staff are aware of gender issues and capable and motivated to integrate gender in all activities, the project Gender Specialist will take all staff through a gender capacity building process based on a capacity needs assessment. 

 

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