National Gender and Advocacy Officer – Lusaka

SOS Children’s Villages is a child focused organization and an affiliate of the SOS Children Villages International. It is non-governmental, non-political, non-denominational, and non-racial.
Its overall mission is to build families for children in need, help them shape their own futures and share in the development of their communities. To realise the mission of the organisation, SOS Children’s Villages is recruiting for the under listed position.
SOS Children’s Villages holds strict child safeguarding principles and a zero-tolerance policy for conducts of sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse in the workplace and other places where the organization’s activities are rendered. Recruitment decisions will give due emphasis to assessing candidates’ value congruence and thorough background checks and police clearance reference check processes.

NATIONAL GENDER AND ADVOCACY OFFICER (1) – Lusaka

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Gender/Advocacy Development, Community Development or Social Science from recognized university
• At least five years working experience in advocacy development field or gender
  development field
• Full Grade 12 School Certificate
• Computer literate

Reporting Lines

The job holder will report to the National Programme Manager

Role objective

The National Gender and Advocacy Officer has the primary responsibility for managing the mainstreaming of advocacy and developing gender responsive community development programs in all locations. He/she will lead the delivery of the advocacy and gender programs in line with the MA strategic plan. This involves strengthening and facilitating of mainstreaming Gender and advocacy as a process, taking into consideration Gender and advocacy dimensions in the SOS community development programs. He/she shall provide management and support to gender initiatives that contribute to the promotion of justice and human rights among the poor and the marginalized communities in which we work by addressing the root causes of poverty through upholding SOS Children’s Villages Zambia mission, vision and values

Key Competencies

• Good management and facilitation skills.
• Knowledge of Advocacy and Gender Education and awareness raising, policy
  influencing and monitoring and community mobilization.
• Ability to plan, manage, organize & supervise others effectively.
• Ability to work with minimum supervision.
• Knowledge of different community cultures and ability to communicate clearly & audibly
  with different kinds of people.
• Computer skills especially Microsoft Word, excel, power point & the Internet.
• A good command of both oral & written English language skills.
• Basic experience in project M & E practices.
• Be of high moral standing and personal integrity.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide implementation task of the Annual Advocacy and Gender action plan.
• Assist SOS Zambia in building understanding and capacity building of the programme team with regards to gender mainstreaming and Advocacy
• Manage and coordinate overall Advocacy and Gender objectives and initiatives such as Child Rights, gender mainstreaming, promotion of girl child education, HIV/AIDS and policy influencing at facility and national level
• Ensure Child Safeguarding is promoted as gender and advocacy activities are being implemented.
• Coordinate gender and advocacy Monitoring and evaluation and establish
  mechanisms to track implementation of initiatives
• Develop mechanism for identification, documentation and dissemination of Gender and advocacy best practices for learning purposes.
• Facilitate and coordinate Gender and advocacy research, documentation and
  dissemination to inform and influence policy and decision-makers.
• Ensure gender analysis becomes an inherent part of strategic planning, as well as program design, implementation, M& E and institutional learning
• Develop technical strategies and lead the implementation of SOS Children’s Village Program on gender integration and activities.
• Facilitate incorporation of gender and activities into the work program/project of SOS Children’s Village plan.
• Direct Program Development and Location team towards overall technical quality including adherence to technical standards, best practices and donor guidelines for all gender integration and advocacy activities.
• Lead the development of training modules and tools and conduct relevant trainings and workshops for all program team and community-based organization and other partners organizations staff in line with identified capacity strengthening needs.
• Keep abreast of research and trends in gender and advocacy approaches.
• Support Locations to implement individual and community-level gender-sensitive activities addressing gender norms that propagate gender-based violence, as well as serve as barriers to accessing essential services.
• Work closely with states and other like-minded organizations around child advocacy and activism including the Violence Against Children, the domestication of Child Rights laws and the establishment/reactivation of child-friendly judiciary systems.
• Analyse the social, economic, cultural, political contexts and impact of emerging issues and social policies on the gender and advocacy and propose appropriate responses.
• Contribute to efforts towards ensuring that project gender and advocacy activities and approaches used by MA are in line with relevant government policies; contribute to the review and development of new policies, as appropriate.
• Prepare technical briefs and presentations on gender and advocacy to communicate program results and influencing key stakeholders.
• Strengthen and maintain strategic and effective Gender and advocacy policy networks and coalitions with likeminded agencies and organizations i.e. donors, NGOs, government, UN agencies and religious institutions
• Participate in project proposal development to ensure that gender and advocacy are mainstreamed.
• Design scalable, replicable, and sustainable projects in gender and advocacy

Closing date for receipt of applications is Friday 12th July, 2024

You can email your application letter and CV only to [email protected]. Please DO NOT email academic and professional certificates as they will only be required during the interviews to the applicants who will be responded to.

SOS Children`s Villages Zambia is an equal opportunity employer