The Ugandan Jobline

Job Title:           Gender Specialist – Kanungu Coffee Project

Organization: Farm Africa

Duty Station: Kanungu, Uganda

Reports to: Project Coordinator – Coffee & CSOs

About US:

Farm Africa, founded in 1985, is an international non-governmental organization working in Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania. We drive agricultural and environmental change to improve lives. Our strategy has three pillars: agricultural expertise, management and preservation of ecosystems, and the power of business to drive prosperity. We believe Africa has the power to feed itself and are helping make this happen by establishing and spreading the best farming and forestry techniques so that poor farmers and herders have more food to feed their families and to sell. We help smallholders manage their natural resources sustainably so that they can withstand climate change challenges and shocks and ensure their families have enough food in the future as well as now. Farm Africa works in partnership with communities, government, local and international organizations, and the private sector to innovate, learn and share best practices for maximum impact of our projects.

About Project:

Farm Africa is currently implementing a three-year project supporting coffee farmers in Western Uganda’s Kanungu district. The project comprises of two distinct parts.

The first part, funded by the European Union, is already under way and focuses on building the capacity of Civil Society Organisations (CSO) to create employment and self-employment opportunities within the coffee value chain for 4,800 young women and men Kanungu district. A broad range of CSOs are engaged ranging from coffee growers’ cooperatives to national stakeholder platforms representing both young farmers and coffee farmers. The second part, funded by UK aid, will start in September 2019 and will focus on ensuring that women are empowered and able to fully benefit from support given to coffee farmers in Kanungu, as well as financially benefit from their contributions to the coffee value chain.

Job Summary:  The Gender Specialist is responsible for planning and delivering all the activities under the UK aid component of the project (budget UGX 1 billion over 21 months). S/he will serve as the technical lead, tasked with identifying gender-based constraints facing young women and men in the targeted coffee-farming communities and steering project activities to directly address these issues. The Gender Specialist will take responsibility for advocating for greater attention to gender perspectives, and for providing the necessary technical support to ensure gender integration throughout the wider project. The Gender Specialist will support in ensuring that gender mainstreaming and analysis are well conducted throughout the project period

Key Duties and Responsibilities: The key responsibilities of the Gender Specialist will be:

To plan and manage the UK aid Match project implementation in accordance with the project’s agreed objectives, work plans and budgets. In particular:

·         To play a key role in activity planning and sequencing of activities to ensure maximum impact

·         Work in close consultation with the Project Coordinator (PC) to review and prepare the project’s work plan and budget as part of the monthly, quarterly and annual planning process.

·         Manage monthly, quarterly and annual work plans for project activities and logistics, identifying and responding to the implications of interdependencies between different sub-project work stream activities.

To deliver project activities to a high standard, and in line with Farm Africa and donor guidelines and requirements:

·         Work with coffee cooperatives to establish 160 women-led VSLAs in Kanungu, through mobilisation, assessment, and training on VSLA & financial literacy.

·         Grow female membership of supported cooperatives.

·         Support household gender equitable relations through the GALS methodology and build capacities of GALS champions in Kanungu district.

·         Conduct participatory sessions on household land use agreements for 160 groups, engaging with household members and local authorities

·         Support cooperatives to become more gender inclusive in their governance structures and operations

·         Facilitate awareness raising sessions with CGCs, CGC members, Coffee Sector National Stakeholder meeting to share findings from project studies/evaluation and to champion women in the coffee sector

·         Ensure that planned activities are delivered in accordance with the implementation timetable and within the agreed budget.

To deliver assigned activities in accordance with financial guidelines and within available budgets by:

·         Closely monitoring expenditure on all relevant activity lines, ensuring that availability of funds is confirmed and approved before delivery of an activity begins

·         Supporting the Project Accountant & Administrator (PA&A) and PC with budgeting and reforecasting budgets as required

·         Ensuring that all expenditure incurred is in compliance with and exceeds the basic standards contained in the Farm Africa finance procedures manual.

·         Reviewing budget monitoring reports, and provide timely explanations and corrective actions for any significant variances relating to the UK aid Match project

·         Ensuring that procurement of goods and services is carried out in line with Farm Africa procedures and also follows the terms and conditions stipulated in the donor’s Financial Management Guidelines

Monitoring, evaluation learning & reporting:

·         Contribute to the development and implementation of Monitoring & Learning Plan (MLP) for the project in line with Farm Africa’s guidelines and the donor’s requirements

·         Ensure the project’s log-frame and data collection plans are regularly reviewed and refreshed, and the project is collecting the breadth of indicators required at a frequency and timing in line with reporting purposes

·         Ensure that the project is regularly conducting beneficiary surveys, collecting other data through relevant sources, developing case studies and collating photos

·         Support mid-term, final evaluation and other external evaluations, ensuring that learning and recommendations from those evaluations are explicitly incorporated into the project’s future implementation activity

·         Contribute to internal and external reporting, and annual & semi-annual project performance reviews and workshops

Playing a key role in delivering the wider objectives of the Kanungu Coffee Project including:

·         Undertaking any other duties as reasonably requested by the project coordinator M Support the wider project delivery team to integrate gender approaches within work plans and stakeholder engagements

·         Work in close collaboration with the cooperatives in ensuring that knowledge, findings and tools are shared

·         Maintain regular and effective communications with the wider project team, Uganda Country Office and implementing partners

·         Work in close consultation with the PC, act as an ambassador in promoting the project and the work of Farm Africa, including hosting visitors, speaking at workshops, conferences and meeting donors and other officials as and when required

Play an active role as a member of the Farm Africa Country team:

·         Contribute to the development and implementation of Farm Africa’s strategy, particularly with regards to Gender

·         Identify and explore opportunities to grow and expand the country project pipeline, both in relation to the current project or related to new project opportunities

·         Work with the PC, PM, CD and the UK Programme Funding Unit to prepare funding proposals where requested, ensuring that any lessons learned during implementation are documented and built into future project design

·         Participate in country-level or Pan-Farm Africa programme meetings as reasonably requested

NB: These essential functions are not to be interpreted as a complete statement of all duties performed. Employees will be required to perform other job related duties as required. All work responsibilities are subject to having performance goals and/or targets established.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience: 

·         The ideal candidate for the Farm Africa Gender Specialist – Kanungu Coffee Project job placement must hold a Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent in in a relevant field, such as gender studies, development studies, agriculture, women’s studies, masculinities or similar related field

·         A minimum of three years’ experience working for an INGO or agri-business

·         A minimum of two years’ experience in a gender- focused role

·         Experience of working directly with female smallholder farmers

·         Experience building capacities of cooperatives or farmer groups

·         Experience of delivering activities aimed to empower women within rural households

·         Experience of establishing or strengthening community savings groups

·         Experience of commissioning and/or managing research or studies carried out by external consultants

·         Experience of managing expenditure, and monitoring spend against budget

·         Experience of ensuring compliance with financial and operational policies and procedures in field office.

·         Excellent communication skills, including the ability to communicate with people from a broad range of backgrounds

·         Excellent organisational and planning skills – with demonstrable ability to plan and manage your own workload including writing concept notes for activities and reporting on progress

·         Good working knowledge of Microsoft Office programmes, in particular Word, Excel and PowerPoint

·         Able to work under own initiative

·         Flexible and ‘can do’ attitude

·         Honest and Integrity

·         Team Player

·         Ability and willingness to ride a motorcycle as part of field duties.

Desirable

·         Further relevant academic qualification in the area of gender studies, development studies, agriculture, women’s studies, masculinities or similar related field

·         Knowledge and understanding of the coffee value chain in Uganda

·         Experience of supporting gender mainstreaming across a wider range of activities as part of a rural development initiative.

·         Experience of working in the coffee value chain

·         Experience of using GALS methodologies as part of your role

·         Experience of supporting women to engage more actively in agricultural value chain

·         Experience of delivering advocacy-focused activities

·         Experience of producing content for donor reports.

Duration & Hours: Fixed-term, full-time contract ending 31st May 2021.

How to Apply:

To apply, please send a CV, salary history, and a two-page supporting statement detailing how you meet the person specification to ugandarecruitment@farmafrica.org including ‘Gender Specialist- Kanungu Coffee Project ’ in the subject line. 

 Please DO NOT send additional documents such as certificates and references with your application. Successful candidates ONLY will be required to provide these documents during the referencing process.

First round interviews will take place w/c 19th August at Farm Africa’s country office in Kampala. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

‘Farm Africa is an inclusive employer and welcomes applications from a wide range of diverse people, including women.’

Deadline: 6^th August 2019

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