Project Officers at Aga Khan Foundation

About us: The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) is an Agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), a group of private, non-denominational development agencies that share a mission to improve the living conditions and opportunities for marginalized communities across some target countries in Africa and Asia. AKF was established by His Highness the Aga Khan in Switzerland in 1967 and AKF work in East Africa started in 1974. In Uganda, AKF operates a multi-sectoral portfolio that includes programming in Education, Economic Inclusion, Civil Society, Health and Early Childhood Development predominantly in the Central and West Nile Regions.

Project Background:

Foundations for Learning (F4L) is funded by Global Affairs Canada with the core objective of equipping a new generation of learners, teachers, school leaders, families, communities, civil society organizations, and government leaders with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values needed to promote more gender responsive and pluralist quality education systems for all in Uganda.

Working with 200 Schools communities in the districts of Arua and Yumbe West Nile, F4L will: Transform unequal gender norms and power dynamics in and through education, Increase access to more gender responsive, pluralist quality educational opportunities for marginalized girls, enhance the professional knowledge and skills of teachers and school leaders to provide more gender responsive, pluralist learning environments and experiences for marginalized girls and boys, foster more gender responsive, and pluralist education systems by designing new inclusive models for education improvement with government schools during the foundational years of learning, engage more families, households, and communities to transform beliefs, attitudes, and practices to actively support gender equity and equality in and through education, Influence future education policies and practices through evidence generation and communications that promote more gender responsive, pluralist education at scale, empower more girls by reducing gender and social barriers to educational access, transition, and performance rates and Connect schools with health and nutrition resources to equip learners, particularly girls, with the knowledge and skills needed to live safer, healthier lives.

AKF is looking for two well-qualified professionals to fill the positions to be based in Arua and Yumbe districts respectively.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Implementation

• Develop annual and quarterly workplans including budgets for implementing project activities.
• Engage and supervise the schools within the district assigned and ensure that all planned school communities’ activities are promptly rolled-out.
• Supervise and support the partner Civil Society Organisations engaged on the project to ensure that they deliver on their mandate.
• Support school communities to establish flexible action fund committees and guide social audit activities for the committees.
• Organise, facilitate and report on capacity building activities for various project beneficiaries in the various assigned F4L clusters.
• Participate in project-wide level and district level regular work planning and review/reflection.
• Maintain good/efficient working relationship with F4L partners including district authorities, CSOs, target schools and other institutions.
• Facilitate COVID-19 Response activities including work with district offices to promote back to school activities for teachers, school leaders, parents and learners.
• Support teacher peer support clusters in the district to ensure they are established and functional.
• Mobilise F4L stakeholders in project communities to work with local language boards to develop relevant gender focused appropriate instructional materials.
• Supports radio messaging and community events.
• Lead delivery/implementation and reporting on all field level activities in the assigned district

M&E Roles

• Provide timely accurate activity reports including lessons learnt, success stories and challenges with implementation.
• Engages with MERL/M&E team during data collection, analysis and dissemination of major ongoing findings.
• Routinely monitors all ongoing project implementation activities.
• Conducts regular post-training support including monitoring and assessments of project performance, and execute continuous remedial coaching and mentoring for teachers, head teachers, parents, community and government field staff.

Partnerships and Collaboration

• Represent AKF and F4L with relevant local authorities including district child protection and education working groups.
• Keep abreast of major district level Government priorities and activities/interventions focused on Education as well as other non-state actor’s interventions in the district and inform /advise the Program Manager and senior management of any actions required.
• Organise, coordinate and conduct field visits for district, internal and external visitors including consultants interested in learning from F4L interventions.
• Attend trainings, meetings or other collaborative events organised by like-minded organisations in the district.

Minimum qualifications and experience

• A recognised degree in social sciences, gender, education, international development or similar.
• At least 3-5 years relevant experience of working on gender mainstreaming and education interventions.
• Familiar with TOT evidence-based models for teachers and other community Change Agents/Resource Persons
• Good at mobilising stakeholders and respectfully work with them to to develop action plans, monitor implementation, document and disseminate findings.
• Experience working with Local Governments to promote education and gender advocacy.
• Experience working in West Nile is preferred
• Experience of working in multi-cultural and diverse teams including experience of working in Refugee Settlement context