Gender, Youth, and Safeguarding Officer

SOS Sahel Ethiopia (SOSSE) jointly with IIRR & MELCA-Ethiopia is implementing MasterCard Foundation funded “Mass Youth Employment in Apiculture (MaYEA) Program”. The MaYEA is in implementation nationwide, focusing on the ground in 135 Woredas (districts) organized in three implementation hubs: National Hub, North and Northwest Hub (Amhara, Afar, Tigray, and Benishangul Gumuz, regions), and Central, South and Southwest Hub (Oromia, Sidama, South, Central, Southwest, and Gambella regions). The program aims to disrupt the apiculture sector and allied value chains and triples the current annual honey production by 2028 by recruiting 300,000 new beekeepers, increasing the productivity of 350,000 existing young beekeeping farmers, and engaging additional 350,000 young people in integrated value chain activities in the apiculture sector.

SOS Sahel Ethiopia, being part of the Central, South, and Southwest Sub National Hub led by IIRR, is implementing the program in four clusters of 36 woredas in Bale, Sidama, Wolaita, and Kembata Zones. Accordingly, SOS Sahel Ethiopia is accepting applications from qualified, experienced and interested individuals for the position stated here under for the implementation under Sidama Cluster.

Gender, Youth, and Safeguarding Officer

Job Purpose / Summary

The Gender, Youth, and Safeguarding Officer is responsible for implementing its respective Cluster MaYEA Program gender, youth, and safeguarding component in selected Woredas of each zones in each region. He / She will work within the wider MaYEA program team and other SOSSE staff. He / She is accountable to the respective cluster coordinator and other program officers within his/her cluster and the other SOSSE cluster office. Moreover, he/she is responsible for the follow-up of the overall MaYEA resource management and communications of the Cluster’s Gender, Youth, and Safeguarding component to adhere to all universal and MasterCard Foundation, SOSSE, Federal and Regional Governments, and program-specific standards and procedures.

Duties and Responsibilities

Program and Partnership Management

• Collaborate with the three cluster officers (Apiculture Development; Enterprise Development, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Officers) and the cluster accountant to support and follow up the Woreda program officers as well as other stakeholders in their effort to properly implement the MaYEA program with the required quality and magnitude in their jurisdiction.
• Ensures quality of program delivery and efficacy of the program resources allocated for gender, youth, and safeguarding activities and establish and maintains closer working relationships with relevant program stakeholders at the regional, zonal, cluster and Woreda level with regard to the gender, youth, and safeguarding component.
• Ensures all program resources of the gender, youth, and safeguarding component (human, financial, material, time, and other resources) are effectively and properly utilized for better impact and fulfillment of the program objectives.
• Nurture and demonstrate team spirit to create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect that motivates program staff to deliver more.
• Ensure all activities of the gender, youth, and safeguarding component of the cluster respects the law of the land and complies with MasterCard Foundation’s and SOSSE’s rules, regulations, and procedures.

Programming, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning

• Based on the program document, with the support of the cluster coordinator, prepare detailed annual implementation plans of the gender, youth, and safeguarding component of the cluster for every fiscal year specified on the contract agreement between SOSSE AND IIRR (the lead agent) and get the plan approved by the concerned.
• Ensure records of the gender, youth, and safeguardingcomponent are well kept, consolidated cluster-level ad-hoc, quarterly, and annual reports are timely produced and communicated to all concerned.
• Ensure gender, youth, and safeguardingcomponent stakeholders, partners, and program participants’ have access to reflect on interventions of MaYEA, and all programmatic and operational learning and results of the gender, youth, and safeguarding component of the cluster are fully documented, shared, and used to facilitate learning, knowledge management, and informed and adaptive management systems across all project components and stakeholders.

Program Implementation

• Build the capacity of the cluster team including the Woreda program officers and ensure that they have a proper understanding of the gender, youth, and safeguarding component and approaches.
• Collaborate and work with the other cluster program officers and the sub-national program hub and others on improving the enabling environment for youth, young women, returnees, internally displaced people, people with disability and other vulnerable groups to participate in the apiculture sector and allied value chains.
• Coordinate with the other technical officers of the cluster to plan, implement and follow up establishment of new youth lead apicultural enterprises.
• Coordinate with the other officers of the cluster to strengthen both public and private apiculture related extension system and encourage private sector engagement to benefit the youth, especially the young women.
• Coordinate with others to create enabling environment for youth-lead enterprise development and intensively work on multi-stakeholders platforms and other coordination mechanisms.
• Coordinate with other technical officers of the cluster to plan, implement and follow up the awareness raising, training and coaching activities of promoting gender equity and equality, and youth engagement.
• Design mechanisms, implement, and follow up implementation by others for genuine and effective engagement of young people, especially young women and other vulnerable groups.
• Coordinate with the capacity building and policy lead of the sub –national hub to plan, implement and follow up all the capacity building interventions of the program with regard to gender, youth engagement and safeguarding.
• Coordinate with the capacity building and policy lead of the sub national hub to plan, implement and follow up all the policy related interventions of the program with regard to gender, youth engagement and safeguarding and support the implementation and enforcement of related policies, regulations, proclamations and initiatives
• Coordinate and support the implementation of the safeguarding policy and procedures.
• Conduct safeguarding induction for newly hired staff and volunteers under the cluster.
• Conduct safeguarding training for staff and volunteers under the cluster appropriate to their roles.
• Ensure that all staff, volunteers, contractors and partners of the cluster understand the code of conduct, are aware of expected behaviors and implications of misconduct.
• Ensure that all staff, volunteers, partners and contractors sign the code of conduct.
• Raise awareness on safeguarding policy in project communities and ensure that community members know what behaviors to expect from staff and how to raise and report concerns.
• Receive safeguarding reports/ concerns and ensure that appropriate steps are taken to address them.
• Provide regular updates regarding reports/ concerns that arise to the cluster coordinator and relevant stakeholders.
• Maintain proper documentation of all reports and the case handling process.
• Support the cluster to implement and monitor the safeguarding policy and report regularly to the cluster coordinator on issues with implementation.
• Make sure every activities of the program are in line with universally accepted safeguarding principles and SOSSE’s and MasterCard Foundation’s safeguarding policies and procedures.

Youth Engagement, Gender Equity, and Inclusiveness

• Ensures an enabling environment is created and mechanisms are in place in the cluster for real and effective engagement of young people in the apiculture and allied value chains, especially those of young women and other vulnerable groups.
• Coordinate with the other officers of the cluster to plan, implement and follow up a youth focused targeting strategy and prioritize young women (at least 80%) and other vulnerable groups (at least 10%) to engage in apiculture based Agro-enterprise.

Networking and Communication

• Ensure that at the cluster level, the program is well networked with all critical gender, youth engagement and safeguarding stakeholders and networks to better contribute to and benefit from networking.
• Actively participate and support effective functioning of Participatory Review and Reflection Sessions (PRRS), Multi-Stakeholder Platforms (MSP), Value Chain Actors Platforms (VCAP), and other arrangements as necessary.
• Ensure the program’s objectives and approaches and standards especially that of the gender, youth engagement and safeguarding component are well communicated to all stakeholders and program participants in the cluster.
• Ensure that all periodical and ad hoc communications of the gender, youth engagement and safeguarding component of the cluster are accurate and timely.
• Ensure that feedback is collected and project gains and progress in the gender, youth engagement and safeguarding component are documented and publicized to concerned stakeholders and the wider audience.

Accountability

• Ensure appropriate reflection mechanisms are in place for stakeholder, partners, and program participant of the enterprise development program to ensure that program interventions in the cluster are effective and downward, horizontal, and upward accountability among the program stakeholders is materialized.

Qualification and Competence

Educational Background

• BA/MBA in Sociology, Gender, Social Works, Law, psychology and other related fields.

Work Experience

• A minimum of 5 years’ experience related to the position. Direct experience on gender, youth engagement and safeguarding are desirable.
• Experience on executing and managing complex programs related to livelihood development, rural finance, agribusiness development, marketing and value chain, youth employment and inclusive development are advantageous

Skills and competencies required

• Proven skill and track record in team work, coordination, partnership building, multi-stakeholder engagement, networking, effective communication & facilitation, problem solving & decision making.
• Ability to meet tight deadlines and work independently
• Ability to think and lead strategically while managing details
• Advanced computer skill.
• Integrity and honesty, hardworking, firm belief in human equality, transparency and respect to others are core values needed.