Senior Gender Specialist

Senior Gender Specialist to lead gender equality and women’s empowerment components of IFES’ current and future electoral and political participation programs. Working closely with IFES regional teams and reporting to IFES’ Vice President of Programs, the Senior Gender Specialist will serve as a member of the Inclusion Team and contribute to program-specific needs and IFES’ strategic approach to enhancing women’s electoral and political role worldwide. The position’s key functions focus on ensuring quality of global gender equality and women’s empowerment programming, production of tools, new business development and external representation.

Job Responsibilities:

The Senior Gender Specialist will contribute to aspects of IFES programming, which will include some or all of the following: 

• Serving as IFES’ global resource person on women’s electoral and political participation programs.
• Integrating and disseminating good practices on women’s electoral and political participation and ensuring consistency in gender programming. 
• Working with IFES’ electoral expertise in the field and HQ to focus on the role of women in elections – as voters, candidates, election administrators, civil society, adjudicators, media etc.
• Generating user-friendly resources to better guide IFES teams in the field and HQ in integrating gender issues into program design. 
• Serving as IFES’ external representative on gender issues with partners and donors.
• Leading program teams in development, knowledge management and dissemination of IFES’ work on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
• Working with IFES regional teams to conceptualize and design proposals to further enhance gender integration into IFES programs.
• Collaborating with program and monitoring and evaluation teams on creation of monitoring and evaluation plans and on collection and tracking of gender data.  
• Travelling to the field to work on gender programming, evaluations or needs assessments, as needed.
• Serving as technical lead for IFES’ gender knowledge management initiative.
• Providing training and guidance to IFES program staff on gender mainstreaming.

POSITION SCOPE: Manage and/or performs technical or complex work, requiring ingenuity and capacity to evaluate and respond to new and changing issues. Develop and implement tools to increase access to the electoral process for persons with disabilities and develop institutional approach to broader inclusion issues. Contribute to program planning and development management.  Performance and outcomes are subject to senior management oversight. 

DECISION MAKING/PROBLEM SOLVING:   Complex decision-making requiring in-depth analysis and consensus-building, subject to management review.  Consult with stakeholders within and outside the organization; identify, propose and build consensus around best solutions. Analyzes and proposes solutions based on knowledge of professional principles and best practices.  

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY: Contribute to budget preparation relating to Inclusion activities.

RELATIONSHIPS:   Maintain collaborative working relationship with team members and all staff within IFES.  Initiate contact with staff in other departments to exchange detailed, substantive information and coordinates activities necessary to achieve work goals.  Represent IFES with external contacts at professional and government levels.  Effectively develops partnerships internally and externally to build and achieve organizations goals. Effectively engage with partner organizations, donors etc.

SUPERVISION EXERCISED:  Supervise, monitor and coordinate the work of entry level and professional staff including consultants to ensure the achievement of program goals.

Qualifications:

Education:  Bachelor’s degree in International Development or relevant field; Master’s Degree preferred. 

Experience:  At least 10 years’ relevant experience in international development or related field. At least 8 years’ of progressive professional experience in the work of gender equality and women’s empowerment across different regional settings. Demonstrated experience working on women’s elections issues preferred.  Gender-based violence experience is a plus.  Demonstrated work in program design and strategy to promote gender equality, especially in complex/high-risk environments.  Ability to lead formulation and evaluation of development programs and projects.  Familiarity with the international donor community and experience as an action-oriented interlocutor with development actors at all levels – grassroots to the highest national and international levels. Knowledgeable and experienced with USAID grant and non-US grants and contract proposals, regulations, and procedures. Experience with managing teams.

Related Skills or Knowledge:  Highly proficient with Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint required. Detailed oriented and organized. Experienced proposal writer and developer with strong writing and analytical skills. Ability to prioritize and meet deadlines, sound judgement, problem solving and decision making.  Strong communicator, both verbally and in writing.  Collaborative, team-oriented individual.

LANGUAGE SKILLS:  English required.  Proficiency in French, Spanish, or Arabic language is a plus. 

TRAVEL:  Travel up to 30% of time.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS/WORK ENVIRONMENT:

Standard office work environment with occasional field travel.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job.