Gender Advisor

The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), is a private, non-denominational, international development agency established in 1967. It seeks sustainable solutions to long-term problems of poverty, hunger, illiteracy and ill-health with special emphasis on the needs of rural communities in mountainous and other resource poor regions, primarily in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Its main areas of focus are education, health, rural development, environment and strengthening civil society.

Background

The overall objective of the action “Accelerate Prosperity in Central and South Asia” (AP Asia) supported by the European Commission (EC) is to contribute to the enhanced equitable economic well-being of women and men in rural Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic. The specific objective of this Action is to improve self-employment and employment of women and men in supported enterprises. The Action will achieve this through two intermediate outcomes:

·         Increased growth of supported enterprises; 

·         Increased trade between supported enterprises, producers and clients in targeted areas. 

The creation of new start-up enterprises, the growth of small businesses, and a focus on youth and women led ventures will be critical. The Action aims to contribute to positive trends in Gross National Income and Gender Development Index scores.

The Aga Khan Foundation (Pakistan) is seeking a highly qualified candidate to fill the position of Gender Advisor, based in Islamabad, Pakistan.  The Advisor will serve as a technical advisor for the EC funded action “Accelerate Prosperity in Central and South Asia”, providing targeted expertise to ensure that gender equality as a cross-cutting theme is considered and addressed throughout project implementation. She/ he will guide the implementation of the project gender strategy and act as a resource to support AKDN implementing partners in improving gender equality policies and practices relevant to the project mandate. Specifically, the Gender Advisor will support the integration of gender equality issues across a complex, multi-partner, multi-country regional project in Central and South Asia. 

Main Duties & Responsibilities:

• Develop and execute gender equality strategy for AKF in liaison with global and local program and project teams.
• Help program teams analyse and integrate gender lens across all project activities and programs.
• Providing regular analysis on gender equality issues as they affect the project, synthesize and articulate the lessons, challenges, and risks for project related to gender, and apply these to on-going project planning and implementation.
• Analysing current policies and practices within entrepreneurship ecosystems in all countries in liaison with country-specific gender teams, in order to identify existing barriers that inhibit equal access to business opportunities and provide practical recommendations to the implementation teams and partners to address these barriers within the project scope. 
• Working with the PMU Manager, Country program and MERL teams, and implementing partners to integrate gender equality issues within all project planning, M&E systems, project implementation and reporting. 
• Assist Country Managers of Accelerate Prosperity in adopting gender lens investing in their financing portfolio in each country.
• Assisting the implementing partners’ teams to identify specific activities to integrate gender, and provide support for their implementation.

• Providing remote training, supplementary learning materials, and technical assistance to program and project staff across the partner countries in liaison with country specific gender  teams, to build their understanding of gender.
• Working with the PMU and implementing partners to ensure that the Promoting Learning Agenda integrates gender equality issues. 

·         Providing technical support and capacity building to the partner institutions as needed.

• Liaising with other relevant AKF/AKDN personnel on need basis.

Required Qualifications

Education

• (Required) Master’s degree in a relevant discipline such as Gender, Development Studies, Social Sciences such as sociology, anthropology or related field.

Experience

• (Required) At least 7 years of relevant experience in similar role in a developing country context.
• (Required) At least 3 years of experience applying gender analysis for designing and implementation of development projects, preferably related in entrepreneurship, business development, SMEs etc.
• (Preferably) Experience with EU supported projects.
• (Preferably) Good familiarity with broad objectives of the AKDN, and a sound background of conducting gender analyses and implementing gender equality activities in international development projects.
• (Preferably) Experience of results-based monitoring and evaluation with particular attention to assessing gender equality results.
• (Preferably) Experience in the Central Asian Development context will be an asset.    

Technical Knowledge

• Knowledge of various gender integration/ inclusion methodologies and best practices.
• Excellent writing and reporting skills specifically for donor funded projects.
• Computer literate (Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc.).
• Good knowledge of project management cycle.

Soft Skills

• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English and Urdu.
• Highly proactive and passionate about work.
• Capable of producing high quality results within often tight deadlines.
• Ability for multitasking and working under pressure.
• Ability to distill large volumes of data in short periods of time.
• Intellectual curiosity and demonstrated record of professional development/growth.
• Strong problem solving skills and the ability to work through complex models to determine the key assumptions, implicit caveats and limitations.
• Demonstrated ability to work cooperatively with all level of management.

AKF(P) offers a competitive remuneration package and conducive working environment. AKF(P) recruitment and selection policy and procedures reflect our commitment to equal opportunity and the safeguarding of children, beneficiaries, partners, community members and employees in accordance with AKF(P)’s Safeguarding policy.

Kindly note that this is not an expatriate position. The deadline for applications is 19th February, 2020. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.