Consultancy – Gender Expert, Uganda

Project Overview and Role:

The Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE) is a 7-year and €134 million programme funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that aims to create a prosperous future for 230,000 young women and men in the Middle East, North Africa, Sahel & West Africa, and Horn of Africa regions. The Fund will be supporting initiatives in 12 focus countries that will offer youth, in particular young women, opportunities for work that is demand-driven and productive, offering a stable income and safe working conditions, and that is contributing to their personal development and social protection.
The portfolio of projects is selected from business cases that were proposed by private sector, civil society, and knowledge institutions. Each business case has outlined scalable solutions for creating more and better jobs and income generating opportunities for youth. Solutions in particular focus on an integrated approach that addresses the shortcomings on the demand side (jobs) and supply side (skills) and bridging the mismatch between these two in the labour market.

Assignment Overview:

A selection of CFYE Implementing Partners (IPs) in Uganda, spanning sectors such as waste management and recycling, business support and financial services, community healthcare, and agribusiness, require targeted support to improve the recruitment, selection, and retention of young women in their businesses. The appointed expert will play a pivotal role in identifying specific gender related barriers unique to each IP (Implementing Partners) and across sectors. They will also evaluate and document existing interventions and guide the IPs in the development of gender responsive solutions, which will be systematically implemented, monitored, and evaluated through a Gender Action Plan which the expert will develop together with the IP.
In collaboration with CFYE, the expert will provide strategic advice and coaching to the IPs as they implement the gender responsive solutions to ensure the achievement of their gender targets and contribute to harnessing valuable gender related insights for the fund.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities: 

Overarching Goal:

To support the CFYE Uganda IPs to adopt effective gender inclusive practices that enable them to attract, select and retain female youth.

Short term objectives:

1) Preparatory Actions:

– Review the and gender performance indicators from their outputs and outcomes from their quarterly reporting.
– Review the CFYE Gender Tools including Diagnostic & Gender Action Plan, in coordination with the CFYE Gender Advisor, and make Country Specific Adaptations to the tools where necessary.
– In direct collaboration with the Uganda Country Team, develop a workplan indicating key milestones of the assignment.
– Compile & share monthly assignment progress reports with key achievements, challenges, and learnings.

2) IP-Specific Actions:

– Conduct and document gender diagnostics for each of the selected IPs and analyse their challenges and barriers at an individual and sector level.
– Review and assess the efficacy and shortcomings of previously implemented gender responsive/mainstreaming interventions, including associated documents, policies, workplans, and training tools, specifically examining the strategies for recruiting and retaining females.
– Consult with the IP’s female employees and beneficiaries to gain insights into stereotypes, biases, motivations, and challenges in specific job, and sectors.
– Develop and advise on the contextualized Gender Action Plans to offer customized solutions for improved recruitment, retention, inclusive policies, and organizational culture transformation.
– Provide advisory support in consultative meetings with IPs leadership to promote gender inclusiveness and youth (especially women) participation in project implementation and towards meeting the IP’s CFYE project gender targets.
– Provide coaching to the IP to facilitate implementing the Gender Action Plan (including “Gender smart” interventions).

Key Deliverables:

Country Portfolio-Level Deliverables:

– A brief report on Gender learnings and/or key insights, including successful approaches, best practises, tools that work and case studies in the different sectors.
– A workplan for the assignment and monthly progress reports on the activities.
– An adapted gender diagnostic tool and Gender action plan relevant to the country context and the IP sector.

IP-Specific Deliverables:

– A Gender Analysis report from the diagnostics for each of the IPs with individual and sectoral insights out of the challenges identified among participating IPs.
– Gender action plans for each of the participating IPs developed, including tested and proven recommendations on how IPs and effectively attract, select, and retain females into employment under their CFYE projects.

Level of Effort:

The Technical Assistance (T.A.) role will span over a period of 3-6 months, from April 2024, and may be amended as necessary depending on the CFYE needs and after discussing with the consultant. The total days for the assignment are 26 days.

Reporting:

You will report to the Deputy Country Lead and work alongside other relevant staff including the Social Impact representative and the Gender experts. The IPs will provide the technical oversight and deliverables must be approved by both CFYE and the IP.

Expenses:

The contract will include a budget for travel costs from the expert to and from IPs’ field locations. This will be added on top of the budget for fees.

Required Qualifications:

– Applicants must have expertise in Gender Equality & Social Inclusion (GESI) support in the private sector in industries including waste recycling, financial inclusion, and refugee response.
– Applicants must have demonstrable experience implementing successful decent work strategies for women and youth that drive more female youth participation and retention.
– Demonstrate experience supporting programme partners to develop, implement, monitor, and evaluate GESI processes and tools in informal settings.
– Working knowledge of issues and opportunities related to GESI and decent work in the country and how these should be captured and applied in results measurement plans.
– Strong interpersonal skills and proven ability to develop and maintain effective working relationships across teams and organisations.
– Applicants must have experience using both qualitative and quantitative data collection/research techniques and use their findings to inform knowledge platforms.
– Attention to detail and ability to perform multiple tasks, balancing competing priorities effectively and efficiently often within a required period. 

Deadline: 26 March 2024