Technical Advisor – Economic Empowerment 279 views0 applications

Sightsavers implements projects in over 30 countries in Africa and South Asia working to eliminate avoidable blindness and promote the rights of people with disabilities. We are looking for a Technical Advisor to provide technical advice on disability inclusive economic empowerment in new and existing projects.

Title: Technical Advisor Economic Empowerment

Location: Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe

Contract: Two-year fixed term contract

Salary: Local Terms and Conditions apply

About the role

Sightsavers believes that it is vital for people with disabilities to be empowered and financially independent. We help people with disabilities gain independence by providing vocational training and skills. The Technical Advisor Economic Empowerment will provide technical support on economic empowerment in our programmes within a cluster of countries, principally (but not exclusively) in East Africa. This new role comes at an exciting time as we accelerate our work with local and national partners to support the inclusion of people with disabilities in economic empowerment programmes. Key duties will include:

• Providing technical advice and support on disability inclusive economic empowerment in new and existing projects
• Ensuring that Sightsavers’ economic empowerment programmes are informed by best available evidence and good practice, and effectively designed, implemented, and evaluated
• Strengthening Sightsavers commitment to disability inclusive, gender equality and the rights of women within economic empowerment programming
• Contributing to new funding opportunities, strategic initiatives and fostering innovative approaches in disability inclusive economic empowerment
• Contributing to the research, innovation, policy, advocacy, and communications agendas
• Contributing to the refinement and operationalisation of technical and thematic toolkits and guidance materials
• Identifying capacity strengthening requirements of country staff and partners and facilitate training and other initiatives
• Strengthening collaboration between other regional development and humanitarian actors
• Undertake representation of Sightsavers as an expert in disability inclusive, gender responsive economic empowerment

This is a highly varied and involved role and the above is not an exhaustive list of duties or required professional skills. Please see the Job Description for full details.

About you

To succeed in this role, you will need to be an analytical thinker with the ability to plan strategically. You will have excellent leadership, communication, networking and influencing skills, with the ability to represent the organisation and build collaboration and develop partnerships with external stakeholders, especially in consortia.

You will also have:

• A postgraduate qualification or equivalent experience in a relevant field (social work/social inclusion, disability studies, economics and public policy, financial inclusion, social protection, international development etc.)
• Significant and demonstrable experience of working in international development in the region and/or elsewhere
• Good knowledge of current issues and best practice in economic empowerment, livelihoods, social protection, and financial inclusion
• Extensive programming experience of a range of economic empowerment approaches in developing countries, that address some or all of the following: livelihoods, training, market-based interventions, inclusive and responsible supply chain management, poverty reduction strategies and private sector engagement
• Experience of designing/managing disability inclusive and gender responsive programmes designed to facilitate the inclusion of marginalised groups and promote their empowerment at district, national or international levels, particularly in economic empowerment
• Experience in developing and adapting programme guidance tools and other resource materials
• Experience in collating, synthesising, and disseminating best practice guidance and programme learning
• Experience of supporting capacity strengthening initiatives and programmes with people with disabilities in low-resource settings
• Willingness or experience in using participatory methodologies for planning, evaluation, or research
• An understanding of, and commitment to, equality of opportunity for people with disabilities and the inclusion of marginalised groups
• Experience of representing an organisation and providing an influencing role
• Excellent oral and writing skills in English
• French or Portuguese language skills would be an advantage
• The ability to travel for up to 16 weeks a year (regional and international)

As an equal opportunity employer, we actively encourage applications from all sections of the community. Sightsavers is a Disability Confident Leader and qualified people living with a disability are particularly encouraged to apply.

Sightsavers is an employer that does not tolerate any form of harassment and has zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse. All potential candidates will be subjected to rigorous background checks and controls.

We anticipate that remote interviews will take place from 14 December 2022 onwards and the evaluation process will include a written or presentation task.