Gender and Safeguarding Advisor-Kismayo (Open Somali National Only) At CARE

1. Background

CARE is an international NGO working in Somalia. CARE and its partners work with vulnerable communities to address the underlying causes of poverty and promote peace and development, through its strategic goal to reduce poverty by empowering women and other marginalized groups, enhancing access to resources and services, and improving governance.

2. Position Summary

CARE Somalia/Somaliland is implementing the FCDO- Girls Education Challenge (GEC) funded project: ‘Leave No Girls’ Behind (LNGB)-Adolescent Girls’ Education in Somalia (AGES)’ in Somalia. The project is being implemented with support from CARE International UK. The LNGB-AGES is an innovative project which aims to promote education access through tailored, sustainable solutions in order to develop literacy, numeracy and key life skills for the most marginalized adolescent girls in South-Central Somalia. It is a consortium comprising of CARE (lead agency) ADRA, GREDO (National NGO), WARDI (National NGO), KAASHIF and Disability Accountability Foundation DAF (National NGO) for project implementation. LNGB-AGES targets the hardest to reach among out-of-school girls, specifically girls engaged in child labour, married and divorced girls, internally displaced girls, and girls from minority clans, excluded groups and pastoralist families. The project aims to improve access to education, learning outcomes and retention of 42,000 girls from some of the poorest, most vulnerable and conflict affected regions of Jubaland, Banaadir/Mogadishu and South West State in Southern Somalia, and to improve the overall quality of education by building local capacity.

Adolescents are a heterogeneous group with different and evolving needs, depending on their personal development stages and life circumstances. As they transition from childhood, through adolescence, into adulthood, all individuals must be prepared with the knowledge and skills they need to make use of the opportunities and to face the challenges they will encounter in the adult world. These efforts should contribute to building their sense of self-worth and to strengthening their links with the individuals and institutions in their communities. Meanwhile, adolescents need protection from harm on the one hand, and support to make independent decisions and act on them on the other. They need safeguarding services that can contribute to helping them stay well, and prevent them from harm so that they are able to thrive.

The Donor requires all projects implementing with its funds to adhere to its 14 Safeguarding Standards. Therefore, the AGES project and its down-stream partners (DSPs), must put in place robust safeguarding and gender measures in order to be compliant with the grant requirements. The project has a Safeguarding Action Plan that has been produced by the Fund Manager as a result of initial assessment of CARE and its partners at project initiation. The Safeguarding and Gender Advisor will ensure more sustained and projected capacity within AGES.

Responsibilities

The AGES Safeguarding Advisor will have the following responsibilities:

Result Area 1: Technical Support for LNGB AGES and AGES -Expansion Project (70%)

· Provide technical assistance to the Project team and consortium members including CARE Somalia (Lead Agency), ADRA, WARDI, GREDO, KAASHIF and DAF.

· Following up on a regular basis with partners to gather information on complaints/feedback received by partners under the FCRM, action being taken, status of complaint resolution. Liaising with the AGES team on this data.

· Consistently engage with beneficiaries and Community Education Committee (CEC) on awareness-raising about CARE’s FCRM and its gender and safeguarding provisions.

· Work closely with AGES program advisor in particular with the Economic Empowerment &Social Inclusion, Disability Advisor on result 3 and result 5.

· Supporting the CSOM M&E Advisor to create secure databases for sensitive and non-sensitive FCRM entries which are connected into its gender and safeguarding provisions.

· Reviewing AGES protocols for adults when interacting with children, as well as protocols for children to children interaction. Reviewing SOPs for external visitors when interacting with project beneficiaries including children.

· Providing guidance on mainstreaming genders and safeguarding language in proposals and reports.

· Developing TORs and/or protocols for gender and safeguarding to guide implementation at field level for CARE Officers and downstream partners (DSOs), and/or any TORs related to personnel/committees involved in handling cases pertaining to these projects.

· Regularly reviewing project risk registers to ensure safeguarding is integrated and mitigating actions are implementable/monitorable.

· Reviewing existing and new IEC materials both in support of the FCRM but also for wider purposes (for example, education around rights and abuse at girls’ and boys’ empowerment forums), and recommendations for improvement.

· Reviewing Quality Assurance Tool to ensure service provider appropriateness and capacity to provide referral services safely.

· Monitoring gender and safeguarding compliance by contractors and consultants of AGES project.

· Supporting the CSOM M&E Advisor to create secure databases for sensitive and non-sensitive FCRM entries which are connected into safeguarding systems.

· Actively engaging in Protection Cluster and the GBV and Child Protection sub-clusters in South-Central.

· Developing SOPs on case management for Gender and safeguarding

· Developing behavior protocols for adults when interacting with children, as well as children to children.

· Developing SOPs for external visitors when interacting with Project beneficiaries including children

· Providing guidance on mainstreaming gender and safeguarding language in proposals and reports

Result Area 2: Staff and partner Capacity Building (20%)

· Supporting the development of new training modules and reviewing existing modules on various gender and safeguarding components of AGES.

· Provide induction on all new AGES staff including DSP partners on safeguarding and protection principles.

· Supporting and ensure inclusion of Gender and safeguarding components.

· Supporting M&E staff to embed gender and safeguarding within a selection of project M&E tools, in collaboration with CARE USA’s Education Team’s Impact and Learning Advisors.

Result Area 3: Any other duty as may be assigned by supervisor (10%)

Experience and Qualifications

· Extensive technical knowledge of best practices in Gender and safeguarding, as well as the application of the protection principles in humanitarian and development work, preferably with direct experience in case management or handling, ideally with applied knowledge of PFA.

· Over five years work experience in this field or in education programming

· An understanding of DFID’s 14 Safeguarding Standards and other relevant guidance and policies, with knowledge of EiE and the barriers to girls’ education in Somalia a plus.

· Experience in delivering training, inclusive of producing training materials accessible to non-technical staff.

· Experience of developing and implementing safeguarding frameworks for NGOs, including for large complex projects, involving multiple stakeholders, with a focus on practical operationalization of policies and principles.

· Practical experience of project management and/or deep knowledge of the various phases of the project cycle.

· Experience of supporting NGOs and local partners with technical capacity-building.

· Advanced degree in a relevant field such as Gender Studies, Education, Development Studies.

· Ability to produce high quality work within short deadlines.

· Experience of representation of agency at cluster meeting and coordination forums.

· Ability to work within a multicultural team in a collaborative manner, whilst simultaneously being able to self-manage and succeed under pressure.

Authority

The Gender and Safeguarding Advisor will report directly to the Initiative Manager -AGES and will lead the Gender and Safeguarding work under the project.

Contacts/Key Relationships

The Gender and Safeguarding Advisor maintains relations, and works closely with the AGES Program Team and partners including Area Managers, Project Officers, Head of offices, government authorities in Federal and member states other international agencies involved with education work in the region, CARE USA Education Team and CARE UK AGES Team. Periodic contact with the donor is also required.**

Travel

The position is based in Kismayo and requires frequent travel to the project sites for project implementation and technical support.