Youth Engagement Lead At Youth Opportunity & Transformation in Africa

No. of Positions: 1

Sector: Program Administration

Employment Category: Fixed term

Employment Type: Full time

Contract Duration: 1 year, renewable annually

Open to Expatriates: No

Reports to: The Executive Director

Start Date: Contingent on award

About us:

YOTA works with partners towards a just and sustainable world where every young person has an equal opportunity to succeed. Our mission is to empower Africa’s youth with social and economic opportunities so that they can escape poverty and transform their lives. Through our Agenda for Youth Transformation, we adopt a people-centered approach to youth transformation that involves increasing youth capabilities to better position them for work and participation in society, expanding opportunities to help youth apply and strengthen those capabilities, and enabling youth to leverage the support of institutions. YOTA understands that youth transformation occurs when youth are empowered – through economic self-sufficiency, social change, voice, agency, and service – to drive positive change in their own lives and in the lives of others. Although based in Ghana, the organization ’s footprints are spreading across Africa, with recent and active experience in western, eastern, and southern Africa.

Purpose of the role:

YOTA seeks an experienced and motivated Youth Engagement Lead for the anticipated USAID-funded Ghana Youth Activity. The program will support rural and urban youth in northern Ghana with a range of sustainable opportunities, tools, and support systems that enable youth to improve their livelihoods, increase their abilities to contribute as both economically and socially productive individuals, promote peace, and become engaged community members.

As Youth Engagement Lead, you will be responsible for coordinating YOTA’s youth engagement efforts across the program. You will be the primary point of contact for our key partners. You will be responsible for networking, identifying, and establishing partnerships with youth organizations and a broad range of stakeholders in the program area. Your role will coordinate peer learning activities with young people through virtual and in-person engagement, digital activities, in collaboration with diverse youth in northern Ghana.

We are looking for someone who is hands-on, motivated by the social impact a youth-led engagement program can achieve and will be driven by a passion to highlight the socioeconomic status of youth in northern Ghana through a youth-led, cross-sectoral approach.

If you believe that young people have a critical role to play both as targets and agents in local and global development, and if you enjoy working in a fast-paced and creative organization, then we would love to hear from you.

Responsibilities:

• Facilitate dialogue and collaboration with key private sector, government, and civil society actors to develop activities that promote youth participation in decision-making, and enhance government services, practices, and policies.
• Ensure the development and delivery of a youth engagement plan, complete with implementation procedures, focusing on working with diverse youth in northern Ghana through youth-led approaches.
• Build youth-led and youth-focused partnerships with local organizations to generate cross-sectoral, positive youth development outcomes, allowing them to make better life decisions and influence policy.
• Facilitate active youth engagement and involvement into the program’s success especially voices of hard-to-reach marginalized populations.
• Lead on youth engagement communications, documentation, and reporting on key program deliverables.
• Coordinate learning and engagement sessions of young people (workshops, group engagements, community meetings, digital activities), volunteering, training and development and opportunities in consultation with young people.
• Oversee implementation of project activities, including tracking progress towards core indicators and learning objectives, and identifying the need for support.
• Oversee financial planning and expenditures and ensure timely payments in accordance with donor regulations and YOTA’s financial management procedures.
• Ensure that all program initiatives benefit from a rigorous MEL system jointly deployed with partners and supervise data collection and analysis as needed.
• Ensure timely reporting according to donor requirements and formats.
• Facilitate continuous learning over the different program activities and ensure that outcomes of learning loops are operationalized across the program.
• Provide guidance, coaching and mentoring to the project team in setting and achieving team goals and individual professional development activities.
• Manage team performance planning and appraisals.
• Perform other duties that may be required from time to time, including responsibilities which require work on weekends and holidays for which time off in lieu (TOIL) may be taken.

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in international development, social sciences, or related fields and a minimum of seven years (or bachelor’s degree and a minimum of 10 years) leading youth engagement or youth-focused programs, communications, and engagement with all levels of government and other stakeholders.
• Knowledge of and experience working with national, regional, and global policy frameworks relating to youth engagement, including youth-led, cross-sectoral approaches, and positive youth development.
• Successful track record of designing, managing, and implementing complex project objectives within donor-funded technical assistance programs (with strong preference for past USAID-funded project management experience).
• Demonstrated success in establishing strong working relationships with youth groups, all levels of government, local NGOs, the private sector, and a broad range of stakeholders to increase young people’s ability to promote social cohesion and mitigate conflict; enhance youth leadership capacity; and strengthen the ability of youth to advocate in community decision making.
• Proven leadership qualities and excellent management skills.
• Thorough understanding of, and connections throughout, the private sector landscape in northern Ghana.
• Prior professional experience in northern Ghana required.
• Strong representational and organizational skills.