The
Open Society Initiative (OSIEA) for Eastern Africa
Vacancy: Regional Policy Advisor
The
Open society Foundations (OSF) is supporting UN women’s flagship programme on
“Women’s Access to Land and Productive Resources for Climate-Resilient
Agriculture” and is seeking a qualified Regional Policy Advisor to lead the
initiative in East and South Africa, based in the UN Women Regional Office in
Nairobi, Kenya.
The
position involves high-level advocacy and partnership building, as well as
policy and technical support and advisory functions.
He/she
will lead in developing strategies and methodologies towards programme
outcomes; identify opportunities for engagement with partners and for resource
mobilization; keep abreast of policy research and development practice in
gender and climate-resilient agriculture; ensure knowledge, learning and
innovation in programmatic areas, including through documentation and
contributing to a community of practice on gender and climate resilient
agriculture; handle communications within the region and with the counterpart
Regional Policy Advisory in the UN Women Regional Office in Nairobi and UN
Women headquarter; and represent the programme externally.
Primary responsibilities will include the following:
- Take
the lead in the development of the flagship programme in the region by
engaging with national, regional partners, governments, and other
stakeholders as appropriate.
- Lead
the formulation of the national project documents in the three pilot
counties and other countries that join the initiative, including situation
analyses/baseline assessments, strategy and partnerships, results and
resources frameworks, implementation and management arrangement, and
budgets.
- Provide
technical and policy assistance to the national project teams as needed.
- Support
mobilization of resources for the programmes in the three pilot countries.
- Build
partnership, including through advocacy, in support of the flagship
programmes theory of change.
- Identify
and respond to capacity development needs, in conjunction with national
programmes Identify, develop, and manage relationships with advisors,
technical assistance providers and consultants to support national and
regional programme implementation.
- Work
with regional development banks and other stakeholders to promote gender
responsive financing instruments.
- Identify
opportunities to promote intra-regional trade between women farmer
cooperative and producer organizations and private and public enterprises.
- Support
national monitoring and evaluation, including quality assurance
- Keep
up-to-date with research, policy, and programmatic development on land,
climate-resilient agriculture, financing, etc as related to gender
equality and women’s empowerment; draft policy and programming notes that
inform the wider team on important policy developments or advocacy opportunities
and/or offer suggestions about strategic programme directions and
approaches.
- Manage
knowledge, by collecting and disseminating good practices and successful
approaches at national, regional, and international levels in line with UN
Women’s policy and Communications Divisions, and empowerment.org.
The
Regional Policy Advisor will report to the UN Women Regional Director for East
and Southern Africa.
Qualifications
This
exciting opportunity is for a seasoned international expert with substantial knowledge,
expertise and programmatic experience on gender and climate-resilient
agriculture, particularly in Africa.
The
ideal candidate will have the following:
- Advanced
degree in a relevant discipline, for example, international development,
gender or environmental studies; economic or agricultural economics; rural
sociology, geography or anthropology or agronomy.
- Minimum
of 10 years of professional policy and programming experience.
- Experience
working on climate resilience agriculture and knowledge of its relation to
gender equality.
- Substantial
experience in developing project documents including formulation of robust
results/monitoring and evaluation framework.
- Experience
in knowledge management.
- Ability
to work efficiently under pressure, multitask and to work with minimal
supervision.
- Strong
sense of responsibility, confidentiality and accountability.
- Excellent
organizational, analytical and problem-solving skills with attention to
detail.
- Familiarity
with the UN system.
- Appreciation
of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its
staff.
- Willingness
to undertake extensive international travel.
- Fluency
in English is required; fluency in another language desirable.
How to
Apply
Suitably qualified candidates should mail their resumes and cover letters to jobs@osiea.org by 26th August 2016.
For
more information on the Organization interested applicants may visit:
www.osiea.org.
The position will attract a competitive salary with good benefits package.