Gender Coordinator at Aga Khan Education Service, Kenya (AKESK)

Position Summary

As part of the AKF Kenya Coast Team in Mombasa, reporting to the Coast Region Programme Manager, the Gender Coordinator will be responsible for implementing activities and interventions to advance gender equity, provide technical support to the broader AKF Coast Region Team and AKDN sister agencies to ensure gender equity is mainstreamed across all education and civil society activities, review documents and materials to ensure these are gender sensitive, and ensure gender integration across all aspects of the project cycle.

Roles and Responsibilities

• The specific roles and responsibilities of the Gender Coordinator will include:
• Lead the design of AKF gender related activities in the Coast Region as directed by project designs and the Gender Equality Strategy (GES).
• Assume an active role in supporting integration of gender into education and civil society programme activities and, where required, lead in aspects of these activities explicitly designed to advance gender equity.
• Ensure the effective implementation of the GES and associated action plans in the Coast Region and ensure these are compliant and contributing to the national policy frameworks.
• Ensure the AKF gender policies are relevant and aligned to the country.
• Provide technical support to the Coast Region Team to enable the integration of the GES and actions into all aspects of AKF’s education and civil society programming and project cycles (design, budgeting, recruitment, etc.)
• Identify capacity gaps and support needs of the Coast Region Team to inform the design and delivery of a strategic internal capacity development process. Ensure this is aligned and contributing to existing internal gender mainstreaming efforts.
• Review education and civil society programme documents to ensure all materials developed and used are gender sensitive and actively contributing to promoting gender equity.
• Develop positive and close working relationships with partner civil society organisations (CSO), government (as well as through technical working groups), AKF Regional teams and AKDN education sister agencies.
• Contribute to the CSO organisational and Government capacity assessment processes to ensure these adequately and effectively assess and plan for the integration of gender equality across these institutions.
• Provide technical support on the implementation of gender equality capacity development plans with CSO and government as part of their broader institutional capacity development plans.
• Collaborate with AKDN education sister agencies to provide technical support to improve the gender responsiveness of their professional development courses and materials.
• Synthesis gender data analysis to incorporate learnings into the broader Coast Region programme review meetings and processes. Develop recommendations and follow-up on agreed actions.
• Ensure gender learning is effectively integrated and communicated in all relevant AKF learning events.
• Lead the effective and timely implementation of gender assessments and AKF Gender Scorecard.
• Prepare AKF colleagues to effectively communicate AKF’s GES, progress, impact, and learning. Represent AKF as requested and required.
• Lead on reviewing communication materials to ensure gender equality and AKF/AKDN’s learnings are effectively captured.

The requirements

Qualifications and experience:

• A bachelor’s degree in Gender Studies, Social Sciences, Sociology, Development, or related field. A master’s degree is an advantage.
• Minimum of five years of experience working to promote gender equality and inclusive social development.
• Clear understanding and commitment to delivering strengths-based approaches to advance gender equality.
• Clear evidence of delivering impactful, evidence-based, gender responsive interventions and projects. Evidence of demonstrated impact within education and/or civil society is an advantage.
• Evidence of developing and delivering high quality gender capacity development and learning opportunities, both internally and externally
• Demonstrated understanding of country level gender related issues related to education and civil society strengthening.
• Demonstrated understanding of the changing country context and the opportunities and challenges this offers to advance gender equality.
• Ability to develop strong, collaborative working relationships in diverse teams located across multiple offices, organisations, and geographies.
• Excellent analytical, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills in a cross-cultural context.
• Excellent written and oral communications skills in English; ability in Kiswahili is an asset.
• Excellent ICT skills.