Senior Gender Officer At Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund

The AECF is a leading development finance organization that supports businesses to innovate, create jobs and leverage investments to build resilience and sustainable incomes for rural and marginalized communities in Africa.

The AECF’ s goal is to bridge the investment gap between early-stage enterprise and business maturity for entrepreneurs serving the poorest communities. We provide patient capital to new and innovative business models in the agribusiness and renewable energy sectors across Sub-Saharan Africa through various financing instruments. To supplement finance, we also offer advisory services, investment support, and knowledge and insights.

The AECF has successfully implemented programmes across 26 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, supporting over 343 enterprises, raising US$ 392 million in funding for programmes, that have created 25,000 jobs and impacted 28 million lives.

The AECF is headquartered in Kenya, with offices in Côte d’Ivoire and Tanzania.

The Senior Gender Officer will be part of the Partnerships and Gender team leading AECF’s work in social finance and gender lens investing. This role will work as part of a team that will collectively be developing the AECF’s Gender Lens Investing approach and independently own and deliver projects in the Gender Lens Investing work stream. The Senior Gender Officer will work extensively with AECF’s programme teams to define AECF’s value proposition for the gender lens investing market. The Senior Gender Officer will be critical in the design and implementation of AECF’s Gender Lens Investing approach. The Senior

Gender Officer must be an individual who thrives in ambiguity and is able to pivot and iterate based on new findings.

Key Responsibilities: Program Management

Lead the implementation of the gender work under the Investing in Women in the Blue Economy program bringing together AECF’s expertise and resources to support companies to reduce gender gaps across leadership, employment, and entrepreneurship in Kenya.

Lo**c**a**t**i**o**n**:** This position is based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Re**p**o**r**t**i**n**g** to**: Manager- Partnerships and Gender

Oversee the seamless implementation of the gender work of the program, developing and maintaining detailed annual program management plans for piloting, scaling up gender offerings to selected companies

Ensure the effective coordination of efforts and work streams being implemented by other AECF teams under the Investing in Women in the Blue Economy program.

Set-up and prepare materials for program implementation meetings and keep a track of and report on implementation progress across the AECF teams.

Identify and pro-actively build relationship and liaise with local partners throughout implementation. Oversee gender program budget, monitor, manage and report on financial performance according to project plan.

Track performance indicators against the monitoring and evaluation plan, and defined theory of change.

Manage the selection and performance of consultants for the program to effectively deliver the program and gender-smart solutions to companies.

Work with the Manager-Partnerships and Gender to mobilize project resources including funding by developing fundraising proposals, identifying potential funding sources and linkages with donors.

Technical Assistance Delivery

Develop a business development plan and activities that stimulate the demand for and maximize firm-level delivery of gender-smart solutions.

Deliver gender specific advisory services to clients focused on women’s employment entrepreneurship, and other topics to drive inclusion in the private sector. Oversee and manage sectoral and topic-specific research (including financial services sector, blue economy, processing, insurance, agribusiness and transport, renewable energy, respectful workplaces). Play a significant role in client and partnership management, including AECF representation for the Investing in Women in the Blue Economy program.

Internal gender mainstreaming

Support gender mainstreaming across the institution. Work with the Manager-Partnerships & Gender to support portfolio teams with gender flagging against set targets.

Promote gender knowledge among AECF colleagues through themed events, communications, and timely reporting.

Communications & Knowledge Management

Work closely with the communications team to build the profile and visibility of the Investing in Women in the Blue Economy program internally and externally. Manage, implement, and monitor a tailored communications plan with the objective to raise awareness of the business case for women’s full participation in the private sector.

Draft blogs, press releases, speeches as appropriate around outputs of the program.

Draft company case studies that highlight innovative approaches to closing gender gaps in the private sector.

Work with the communications team to develop innovative communications tactics including use of digital media, documentaries etc.

Develop relationships with the media and develop a plan to build the capacity of journalists to report on gender and economic inclusion issues.

Ensure donor visibility across all communication activities.

Suitable candidates should:

Be a seasoned gender lens investing professional with in-depth experience working with the private sector on gender-smart solutions in emerging markets.

Have experience in establishing the business case for women’s economic empowerment and know how to provide gender specific advisory services to private sector companies.

Hold a bachelor’s degree qualification in Economics, Development Finance, Gender Economics, Finance, Business, or other relevant discipline required.

Have a minimum of eight (8) years of experience in one or more of the following areas: social entrepreneurship, impact investing, management consulting, private sector development, agriculture, agribusiness, SME finance, rural financial services and/or renewable energy and adaptation to

combat climate change.

Have technical operational gender and private sector experience in particular on women’s employment and entrepreneurship.

Demonstrate an ability to conceptualize, design and implement multi-sector, multi-stakeholder partnerships, client engagements and to produce analytical reports for clients and donors.

Have a track record in managing consultants in a project, monitoring project issues and tasks, meeting deadlines and setting priorities

Have a strong ability to communicate ideas clearly and confidently (including to media), articulate issues and recommend solutions

Have a thorough understanding of the international development agenda, and key stakeholders such as the UN, G-20, private sector partnerships such as the Global Banking Alliance for Women, the Global Compact etc.

Be fluent in English. Working knowledge of French is an added advantage.

Be able to routinely lead operations and research projects and integrate the work of other (often multi-disciplinary) professional staff.

Be able tp proficiently interact with companies’ senior management, development partners and communicate at the policy level with senior government counterparts and other organizations with confidence on the topic.