Senior Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Advisor MarketShare Associates

Who we want:
MSA seeks a talented professional with exceptional experience integrating gender and women’s economic empowerment into development programming to join the team in the position of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Advisor based in Kampala, Uganda. Reporting directly to and working alongside the Chief of Party, the GESI Advisor will play a critical role in the project’s success. The GESI Advisor will provide ongoing support to the Chief of Party, technical teams, human resources, and monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) team for implementation of the Gender Action Plan (GAP).

Responsibilities Include:
• Lead the implementation and review of the Activity GESI Action Plan and manual over the life of the project.
• Design partner-specific technical assistance support to achieve partner-specific GESI objectives and provide technical assistance to FtF IAM MDF partnerships using grants or subcontracts.
• Provide input on the integration of GESI analysis into market systems research plans and instruments.
• Liaise with the MEL team periodically to review targets and results and support them with analyzing the results disaggregated by sex, age, disability, and nationality status.
• Liaise with Area Intervention Managers and Partnership Intervention Managers to provide input in the co-design of intervention strategies, review progress milestones and intervention-specific results ensuring that the GESI vision and objectives are achieved across FtF IAM result areas.
• Provide specific ideas on opportunities for intervention design that would enable the Activity to achieve its GEYSI objectives more efficiently.
• Lead in the capacity-building initiatives for staff, private sector partners as well as relevant market actors in GESI. This will include training and mentorship on the new GESI approaches as well as refresher sessions.
• Lead in the documentation of GESI-related initiatives, including best practices, lessons learned, and success stories.
• In collaboration with project leadership, develop a plan for monitoring and mitigating risks to gender, youth and minority relations that may arise from the proposed interventions.
• Support technical managers and field teams in creating value propositions that support business investments in empowerment.
• Conduct quarterly field visits to project sites to support interventions and recommend ways to enhance the project’s empowerment results.
• Collaborate with the MEL team to conduct applied research on what works for empowerment of women, youth, and other marginalized communities in agriculture and market systems.
• As part of co-design, conduct periodic partners’ GESI assessments using the FtF IAM GESI scorecard support to achieve partner specific GESI objectives and identify the gaps and opportunities of developing inclusive business cases for partners.
• Lead the Activity GBV in MSD response by designing interventions that address the existing inequalities and unintended consequences of GBV in market systems.
• Participate in the Community of Practice at the National and the client level providing updates on FtF IAM initiatives, dissemination of the studies as well as collaborating with other key players in the space.
• Lead the GESI Social Behavior Change and Communication campaigns to address the gendered social norms that inhibit the participation of women and youth in the agricultural market systems.

Required Qualifications:
• Bachelor’s degree in gender studies, economics, international development or other related field and 8 years of related experience or a Master’s degree and 5 years of related experience
• Minimum five years of experience working in GESI and women’s economic empowerment in market systems and agriculture in Uganda
• Strong ability to design and conduct qualitative research that addresses project learning priorities
• A passion for learning, investigation and for working in economic development
• A positive, collaborative attitude
• Familiar with private sector development, market systems facilitation and/or other economic development approaches (e.g., economic strengthening, inclusive business)
• Ability to build the capacity of colleagues and partners in integrating gender and women’s economic empowerment into programming
• Excellent English written and oral communication skills
• Capacity to take initiative and be a self-starter

Desired Qualifications:
• Experience working on the empowerment of youth and marginalized populations
• Experience working on USAID-funded projects or other bilateral or multi-lateral funded projects
• Graduate degree
• Advanced computer literacy, including strong Excel and PowerPoint skills
• A good grasp of the market systems approach to agricultural development

Other Information:
This position will start in August 2023, pending client approval.