GENDER AND PROTECTION ADVISOR 260 views0 applications

CARE is an international NGO with local staff and community partners in more than 90 countries. We create local solutions to poverty and inequality and we seek dignity for everyone every day and during times of crisis. These solutions have a broad range, from clean water to access to education; from microfinance to ensuring that everyone has nutritious food; from agriculture and climate change to disaster response. CARE puts women and girls at the center of everything we do because they have proven to be the best hope for creating lasting change in the world. Our staff live where they work, which makes us effective at understanding the challenges they face. We’ve been doing this for over 70 years, since World War II. It started with the world’s first CARE Package® of food for the post-war hungry in Europe. Our work today is as important as ever, we believe that poverty and inequality are historic injustices that we can end within a generation, for good. If you share our core beliefs: poverty is an injustice; poverty is solvable; and together, we have the power to end it, join us, and fight with CARE.

CARE is seeking a Gender and Protection advisor who’ll be responsible for providing the overall strategic direction and performance of the CARE Gender and Protection Sector in South Sudan. The range of duties include playing a critical role in defining the sector’s programs, principles, objectives and operational strategies in line with the country office strategy; setting standards for program implementation, monitoring and evaluation; overseeing project planning and budgeting; giving technical assistance to staff (including recruiting and hiring specialists as needed where required); ensuring collaboration with counterpart agencies; representing the CO to external organizations.

The Gender and Protection advisor shall provide technical approaches, guidance and oversight to field teams during the full length off the project cycle. S/he will be responsible for technical quality assurance for these projects and ensuring that reports from field teams are reviewed and meet the technical requirements and comply with donor guidelines before submission to different stakeholders.

The Gender and Protection Advisor will be responsible for new project development starting with the identification of program initiatives appropriate to both the sector and country office strategies, all the way through submission of quality proposals. The Gender and Protection advisor assures synergy and gender mainstreaming among projects in all other CARE sectors: Health, Nutrition, FSL and Peacebuilding. The Gender and Protection advisor shall represent CARE in all relevant coordination meetings such as the Gender and Protection cluster meetings, donor meetings and line ministry meetings coordinated by the government of South Sudan.

This position is based in Juba, South Sudan with regular visits to other project locations.

RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Program strategy and development

• Develop and lead the implementation of the CARE Gender and Protection sector strategy and portfolio.
• Provide technical leadership and strategic direction to the team in the development of proposals and program planning.
• Proactively lead in identifying and securing Gender and Protection funding for viable humanitarian and development programs in line with CO strategy and the CARE mandate to serve the needs of women and girls.
• In collaboration with relevant sector advisors, ensure mainstreaming of gender & protection in all proposal development, theory of change and budget development.
• Coordinate with program support and finance to ensure adequate budgeting for new initiatives.
• Promote adherence to standards and best practices taking into account the need for local adaptation.
• Ensure that humanitarian Gender and Protection needs are identified by planning and coordinating joint, inter-cluster, initial rapid assessments which are adapted to the local context.
• Contribute to the identification of critical issues that require multi-sector responses and coordinate with other CARE South Sudan sectors, with sector working groups and clusters (where applicable) to develop appropriate responses.
• Provide support in negotiation and review of funding contracts.
• Coordinate external technical assistance and draw on the resources of program support in new program development exercises
• Serve as the focal point for donor liaison, in technical areas of Gender and Protection, in close collaboration with senior management.

2. Technical Leadership and Capacity Building

• Provide technical oversight to ensure the quality of CARE South Sudan’s Gender and Protection programing and workplace culture and promote adherence to global Gender and Protection standards.
• Supervise and support the timely and effective implementation of Gender and Protection projects and activities across operational areas, in line with budgets and work-plans.
• Provide technical support to the recruitment of Gender and Protection-related staff (i.e. JD review based on existing standard JDs, technical short-listing, technical interviews).
• Promote gender equity and diversity in the CO by encouraging a gender responsive work environment and flagging issues and gaps as they arise.
• To lead PSHEA in the country office and ensure effective safeguarding measures are in place and manage any issues swiftly and confidentially with the safeguarding team.
• Coordinate with other CARE South Sudan sectors to integrate Gender and Protection-related activities/ indicators, especially through awareness raising and mainstreaming protection and cash aimed at enhanced well-being and access to Gender and Protection services amongst beneficiaries
• Oversee the production of Gender and Protection-related research papers including advising on research design and methodology in collaboration with the MEAL team, recruiting required expertise where necessary.
• Regularly assess and strengthen the capacity of CARE South Sudan’s Gender and Protection team, ensuring that team members are able to access training and professional development resources appropriate to their capacity gaps/needs.
• Coordinate the dissemination of key technical material and organize trainings with a special focus on standards and best practice.
• Build the technical capacity CARE staff, partners, NGOs and government counterparts as required.

3. External Representation and Communication

• Establish and maintain communications with key Gender and Protection stakeholders (including national, state and county Gender and Protection authorities, national and international organizations and civil society actors) and engage actively with existing coordination mechanisms.
• Represent the organization in relevant working groups, sector fora, conferences, and high-level meetings and both Gender and Protection humanitarian cluster meetings.
• Engage proactively with donors and other stakeholders for the purposes if advocacy and fund raising. Ensure strong donor relations with current and potential donors.
• Lead and support the implementation of positioning strategies for CARE, including the cultivation of partners, events, publications / materials, etc.
• Coordinate with CARE’s Global and Regional Gender and Protection Technical Advisor(s)/teams and other technical and operational staff. Supply necessary information to ensure timely reporting and communications with CI members, donors, government and other key actors.
• Seek support and technical assistance from relevant technical units at CARE USA or other CARE international partners, as needed
• Support and work effectively in coalitions, networks and social movements, forming and nurturing strategic partnerships for advocacy, research and resource mobilization with peer INGOs, NNGOs, Academic institutions etc.

4. Monitoring and Reporting

• Work closely with the MEAL team in the monitoring of Gender and Protection interventions; ensuring the collation, analysis and sharing of data related to project activities and broader South Sudan Gender and Protection context for the purposes of designing new interventions, donor advocacy and fund raising.
• Support the development of needs assessments, rapid gender analysis, gender marker screening and conduct in-depth analysis of the data collected through the use of these tools.
• Support the MEAL team and field teams in ensuring that robust monitoring systems are in place and that reviews are undertaken periodically.
• Lead on the review of Gender and Protection components of project reports – contributing both in terms of narrative reporting and data analysis.
• Ensure timely submission of quality donor reports within the Gender and Protection portfolio in collaboration with the MEAL team
• Regularly review and improve Gender and Protection programming (emergency response and long-term Gender and Protection programming) performance and assess coherence with prevention and mitigation components in other programs/sectors
• Conduct monitoring visits to project locations, develop field reports and follow up on critical issues in a timely manner.
• Participate in grant start-up and close out workshops to ensure collegial understanding of donor expectations and integration of learning from projects in subsequent designs.

5. Research Innovation and Learning

• Lead on the development of Gender and Protection related position, policy and research papers relevant to the CARE South Sudan context.
• Lead in identifying and documenting, lessons and promising practices from CARE’s portfolio for
• Lead in identifying themes for operational research within CARE programming focus and opportunities for collaborative research with other partners.
• Participate in “communities of practice” to remain abreast of latest development and professional norms, upcoming project models, standards, tools and methodologies within Gender and Protection sector for inclusion in program development and sharing with Gender and Protection teams.

QUALIFICATIONS

1. Master’s Degree in Gender Studies, Social Work, International Relations, Conflict Transformation, Development Studies, or related discipline.
2. A bachelor’s degree will be acceptable only if the candidate can demonstrate sufficient experience in gender and protection programming in conflict settings.
3. Gender and Protection program design and development, most notably for USAID, DFID, ECHO, UN Agencies and other multilateral donors
4. Technical writing for Gender, GBV and Protection proposals and reports.
5. Design and implementation of Gender and Protection programs in fragile states and for refugee and IDP populations.
6. Gender and Protection programming in emergency, protracted crisis, and development settings in the following sub-sectors: prevention, response and mitigation interventions for GBV, gender mainstreaming, gender transformative programming, rapid gender analysis
7. Eight years’ experience working on Gender and Protection programming in humanitarian contexts, including experience of field-level management of complex humanitarian response and resilience programs with proven experience donor-funded projects
8. Five years’ experience in a coordination role requiring provision of support to multiple offices/locations/teams
9. Two years’ experience working in a fragile state like South Sudan or similar context
10. Proven experience of successful capacity-building of humanitarian field staff and partners, with experience in remote training
11. Proven experience supporting project teams on full project cycle technical needs (design, implementation, M&E, lessons learned), experience in emergency. or protracted crises setting.
12. Excellent communication and writing skills in English
13. Strong networking capability