Member Liaison Officer at African Women’s Development and Communication Network

Ref: FNT-MLO 2018

Functionally Reports to: Head of Administration

Overall Purpose of the Job:  FEMNET is seeking to recruit a suitable person to be in charge of the affairs of her diverse members across the continent and diaspora. Among other responsibilities, the Members Liaison Officer will support implementation of various activities across the various programme areas, nurturing partnerships, monitoring and evaluating, capacity building related activities and other activities meeting the set standards required and agreed upon by the Network in line with the organizational Strategic Plan.

Main Duties include:

• Work with other team members to coordinate FEMNET’s membership to ensure that FEMNET meets its obligations to its constituency in Africa and Diaspora;
• Develop and implement a holistic membership recruitment and retention strategy that ensures none is left behind;
• Revise membership guidelines and policies including the proposed “freemium” membership services;
• Lead in production of information for use in data and analytics relating to membership;
• Maintain and improve the membership database, member administrative systems and maintain a members section on FEMNET’s website;
• Manage registration of new members and renewals and providing analysis of such records quarterly;
• Lead as the interface between the Secretariat and her members, to ensure symbiotic information sharing and communication;
• Source for and share information with members on opportunities for training and fundraising that will be beneficial to members;
• Facilitate cross networking amongst FEMNET members on the one hand and the Secretariat and her members on the other hand;
• Liaise with other staff to support members in identifying and developing best practice stories and sharing them with other members;
• Establish hubs and zones of expertise to boost specialization of the members within thematic areas of the network;
• Interest FEMNET members in the use of social media and other forms of networking tools;
• Work in partnership with colleagues to raise funds in support of the triennial FEMNET General Assembly and Programming Conference;
• Develop and implement innovative resource mobilization approaches that will provide technical support to members;
• Liaise with other FEMNET programmes on member related issues and ensure existing networks and partnerships with projects’ stakeholders and partners are maintained;
• Represent FEMNET at selected meetings, conferences and other relevant events;
• Advise FEMNET on membership issues that the Network would take on arising from the information collected through the capacity building activities;
• Contribute content to the production of communication for web, print, and social media use;
• Fulfilling other duties as assigned.

Person Specification

• Driven with genuine passion and commitment to work for the advancement of gender equality, women and girls’ rights and feminist principles;
• Highly motivated, result oriented and self-driven person with understanding of due process, financial transparency and accountability, equity issues and how they relate to human rights;
• Very good communication skills both written and spoken including public speaking and giving presentations to a variety of audiences;
• Ability to network with like-minded organizations, pooling resources and expertise for greater synergistic impacts
• Well-developed interpersonal skills and experience working with multi- cultural teams;
• A proven team player and promoter of an environment conducive to cooperation, collegiality, consultation and collaboration;
• Willing and able to travel mainly in the Africa region;
• Willing to adhere to FEMNET’s beliefs, values and principles that guide her work and programming framework.

Required Knowledge Skills and Qualifications and Experience

• A minimum Bachelor degree in a relevant discipline from a recognized university, any additional relevant trainings will be an added advantage;
• At least 4 years relevant work experience at international, regional or sub- regional level;
• Experience in handling people of diversity, and multicultural backgrounds;
• Proven experience in, exposure to, and capability for collaborative work, nurturing of networks and alliances and motivate people;
• Knowledge of and experience in advocating for at least two of FEMNET strategic priorities that include women’s economic justice and rights, sexual reproductive health and rights, women’s transformational leadership and governance and ending violence against women including harmful traditional practices, early and forced child marriage and female genital mutilation;
• Sound knowledge on gender and its mainstreaming strategies, leadership development and generally women’s rights issues in Africa;
• Knowledge of strategies for women’s movement building using inclusion principles and feminist leadership including key regional and global women’s rights policy frameworks;
• Experience coordinating pan African women’s movement using on-premise or cloud based IS, IT and innovative strategies is highly desirable.
• Must be bilingual with strong English and French writing skills for report and proposal development.