Gender & Women Economic Empowerment Specialist for SWEET Project

The Organization

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls.

We believe in the power and potential of every child. But this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination. And it’s girls who are most affected.

Working together with children, young people, our supporters and partners, we strive for a just world, tackling the root causes of the challenges facing girls and all vulnerable children.

We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood. And we enable children to prepare for – and respond to – crises and adversity. We drive changes in practice and policy at local, national and global levels using our reach, experience and knowledge.

We have been building powerful partnerships for children for over 80 years, and are now active in more than 70 countries.

Please see https://plan-international.org/organisation/strategy for Plan international strategy

Plan started working in Egypt in 1981 and has a presence in ten of the 27 governorates in which the country is divided: two urban (Cairo and Alexandria) and eight rural (Giza, Beheira, Kalyoubia, Damietta, Qena, Assuit, Sohag and Aswan). Plan Egypt’s work focuses on child rights, implementing programmes designed to enable communities to improve the lives of the most marginalised children and their families. Plan Egypt’s Country Strategy focuses on five strategic objectives listed below:

1. Improve the quality of early childhood care & education;
2. Promote economic empowerment of vulnerable young men & women;
3. Facilitate girls in realising their full potential in an enabling and gender responsive environment that protects them from all forms of abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence;
4. Support adolescents and young people, particularly girls to become active drivers of change and lead the way towards more equitable and inclusive societies;
5. Promote adolescents and young people, particularly girls to be empowered to take informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health and live free from gender-based violence

   Role Purpose:

   SWEET (Strengthening Women’s entrepreneurs in Egypt) project asserts that targeted gender-specific action is critical to empower women and girls to amplify their inherent individual and collective agency and create an enabling social and economic environment for them. The SWEET project is a five- year- project that will take a three-pronged, rights-based and gender-transformative approach for women and adolescent girls in the carpet industry in the Giza governorate of Egypt to: expand their knowledge and understanding of the sector, improve their social status, provide them a range of industry-relevant skills, and strengthen governance systems and business linkages to build a supportive social environment and an enabling institutional environment for women and adolescent girls.

   The Gender & Women Economic Empowerment Specialist will be responsible for providing high strategic technical input to the implementation of SWEET project.

   Dimensions of the Role

   The post holder reports to the SWEET Project Manager and is responsible for providing top quality technical advisory and program development approaches in the area of the project which is the Economic Empowerment for women.

   Typical Responsibilities and Accountabilities:

   • Provide technical advisory support to SWEET project team in the area of women economic empowerment.
   • Thorough analysis and research of the social and economic situation in Egypt that affects women economic empowerment and preparation of considerable inputs to the project team.
   • Constant monitoring and analysis of the economic environment in Egypt with proactive suggestions for readjustment of the project interventions if feasible.
   • Giving technical input on the TORs to be developed within the framework of the projects in the areas related to gender and economic empowerment.
   • Provide context input to support the quality assurance of policy services and foster policy innovation in the specific thematic area to enhance project delivery.
   • Conduct field visits to make sure the project activities being implemented are gender-informed and respond to the key women economic issues within the context of the community.
   • Support in identifying the opportunities for the women entrepreneurs to benefit from funds provided by different institutions and the private sector and other donors.
   • Support in building and maintaining close liaisons with relevant donors and other actors supporting women economic empowerment.
   • Support in the implementation of relevant impactful advocacy activities and campaigns with key stakeholders for supporting the realization the project goal.
   • Support the development and implementation of the gender strategy for the project during the planning phase.
   • Develop tools and guidelines to support gender mainstreaming, and ensure cohesion and alignment.
   • Support the project team to build the capacity of partners for mainstreaming gender transformative approaches in their activities.
   • Provide technical input to the development of content and methodology for capacity building trainings on gender and economic empowerment for the project as required.
   • Develop, implement and monitor the capacity building initiatives;
   • Identify good practices and strategic opportunities in women economic empowerment.