DIRECTOR – WOMEN AND GIRL’S EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM At CARE

Job Summary:

The purpose of this position is two-fold: a) to provide leadership to CARE Bangladesh’s program to empower the most socially, economically and politically marginalized women; and b) to build CARE’s capacity in the use of empowerment approaches in all its work with poor and marginalized communities, working primarily with and through others. Along with the team of Program Directors and Deputy Country Directors, this position is responsible for providing direction and oversight to CARE Bangladesh’s programs.

Specifically, the Director- Women and Girl’s Empowerment Program provides direction to the development, resourcing and implementation of the women’s empowerment program for the country office (one of four country office programs). S/he oversees the impact measurement and learning from CARE’s work towards women’s empowerment, and facilitates action learning and research efforts towards testing the program’s theory of change to empower women.

The position also helps develop and learn from empowerment strategies and approaches that can then be applied throughout the Country Office. This happens through action learning, piloting, nurturing innovation and conducting research at grass-roots level; knowledge management; impact documentation; and relationship building. In addition, the position executes line-management responsibility for the coordination of certain CARE projects with a focus on empowerment. This aspect of the job provides a practical “laboratory” in which to test and fine-tune innovative strategies for empowering women, youth, extremely poor people, ethnic minorities, urban marginalized populations, and others subject to discrimination.

The Director – Women and Girls’ Empowerment Program serves as a source of knowledge on the most up-to-date approaches to rights-based programming, as well as best practices for addressing underlying causes of poverty. S/he establishes and maintains contacts with key national and international actors in these fields; collects, presents, and disseminates relevant information; and generates support for CARE’s work by developing and designing new projects. Within CARE, the position works closely with the other Program Directors, the Social Development Unit, the Advocacy Unit, the Gender Equity and Diversity Unit, the Economic Development Unit, the Program Quality Team, and other Program and Program support management staff. The Program Director is part of the Country Office Management Team (COMaT) and with colleagues in this team, exercises leadership to guide the country office to pursue and fulfill the ideas set out in the strategic plan.

Responsibilities:

1. Provide leadership to CARE Bangladesh’s program focused on the empowerment of the most marginalized women and girls.
   • Build understanding across CARE Bangladesh staff of the women’s empowerment program, the analysis that guides it, CARE’s theory of change.
   • Establish clarity of viable strategies that will contribute to achieving key breakthroughs towards the empowerment of women.
   • Provide guidance for new project design that draws on lessons from the past experience of CARE and other organizations.
   • Oversee the management and use of the impact measurement and learning system for the women’s empowerment program and initiate action learning and pilot initiatives to test CARE’s theory of change related to women’s empowerment.
   • Develop, test and disseminate new approaches to monitoring, learning from and evaluating empowerment focused initiatives.
   • Coordinate research efforts related to women’s empowerment and ensure that results are analysed and disseminated.
   • Support project management staff and regional programming teams in implementing and learning from their work towards the women’s empowerment program.
   • Play a leadership role in resourcing CARE’s women’s empowerment program.
2. Provide direction, oversight and performance management for 3-5 projects and processes that represent key components of CARE Bangladesh’s women’s empowerment program.
   • Oversee the hiring and orientation process for staff of the relevant projects.
   • Ensure that all stages of the performance management process are carried out for these teams, including performance planning, dialogue between supervisor and supervisee, professional development, and midterm & annual performance appraisals.
   • Recommend promotions, transfers, disciplinary actions, and terminations, as required, for these staff.
   • Ensure useful, timely and high quality reporting by these projects and initiatives.
   • Manage relationships with project donors and relevant CI members that support these projects and initiatives
   • Facilitate cross learning and collaboration between these projects and other parts of CARE Bangladesh.
3. Collect, analyze, and share knowledge & experience within and outside of CARE on empowerment.
   • Periodically collect/circulate up-to-date resource material on empowerment among the relevant CO projects and units.
   • Review documentation, visit activities, raise issues, suggest new approaches, and share learning of CARE empowerment projects.
   • Contribute to CARE’s global Strategic Impact Inquiry on women’s empowerment and share the results.
   • Ensure useful and adequate orientation of new staff to empowerment approaches and frameworks
   • Facilitate the development of CARE knowledge on the use of community-led approaches to promote empowerment.
   • Explore and share the experience of other organizations considered to be “leaders” in the field of empowerment.
4. Represent CARE’s programming to external stakeholders and cultivate relationships with civil society institutions, businesses, public officials, and donors interested in empowerment.
   • Identify groups that share CARE’s interest in empowerment, and develop a basis on which to collaborate with them over time.
   • Establish mutually beneficial linkages between CARE (programs and Advocacy Unit) and external actors focused on empowerment
   • Organize exercises and events that generate debate on empowerment and raise CARE’s profile in this area.
   • Play a key role in representing and communicating about CARE programs to women’s rights movements, donors, government actors, and other development stakeholders.
5. Identify and oversee preparation of competitive bids relating to empowerment.
   • Stay informed of announcements of new Requests For Applications for Bangladesh from donor agencies worldwide.
   • For those that seem most interesting and appropriate, oversee the proposal development process, recruit partners, assemble documentation, produce the final submission.
   • Work with other CARE Bangladesh staff and CARE-Atlanta to improve capacity in the competitive bidding process.
6. Contribute to CO and regional activities as requested by Senior Management.
   • As part of this role, the job holder will be expected to adhere to and support CARE Bangladesh’s Safety and Security policy and systems as part of their day to day duties, and comply, at all times, to safety & security protocols and directives, including reporting. Staff must maintain situational and self – awareness and be aware of the safety – security related consequences of their actions upon themselves, their team and the organization as a whole.
7. Adhere to and support CARE Bangladesh’s Safety and Security policy and systems.
   • CARE is committed to preventing any type of unwanted behavior at work including sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse, lack of integrity and financial misconduct and expects staff to promote the welfare of children, young people and adults at all times.
   • CARE expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment through our Code of Conduct. We place a high priority on ensuring that only those who share and demonstrate this commitment are recruited to work with us.

Qualifications:

• 12 to 15 years of professional experience in development, three of which were in a leadership position in a program with a focus on the empowerment of the poor and marginalized. At least 8 years experience in a Managerial role in relevant field.
• Masters or equivalent degree in related subjects.
• Clear understanding of issues related to women’s empowerment and knowledge of women’s rights and the women’s movement in Bangladesh.
• Demonstrated skill in managing staff and developing/tracking budgets for complex initiatives.
• Excellent English writing skills, as demonstrated in clear, concise project reports and concept papers.
• Highly developed analytical, conceptual, and critical thinking skills.
• Experience in representation with people’s movements, high-level policymakers, donors, and private sector leaders.
• First hand experience in project design, monitoring, and evaluation.
• Key competencies: Negotiation, Collaboration, Coaching, Operational/Strategic Decision Making.