Regional Gender Specialist

Organizational Setting

FAO Afghanistan is investing across all 34 provinces, in resilience reinforcing actions that focus on protecting agriculture livelihoods and local ecosystems, boosting local production of nutritious foods and cash-incomes, and safeguarding critical agriculture sectoral development gains achieved over the past couple of decades through revitalizing rural markets and economy. In 2024-2026, FAO will continue to implement emergency and longer-term, resilience-building projects and programmes in the context of the UN Strategic Framework for Afghanistan (UNSFA) and the Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan. 

There are a total of three (3) positions, one position in each duty station: Bamyan, Gardez, and Kandahar. 

Reporting Lines

The incumbent will work under the overall supervision of the FAO Representative (FAOR) in Afghanistan. S/he will work under the direct supervision of the Head of the Regional Office, who will be responsible for all day-to-day supervision and under the technical guidance of the International Gender Specialist / Team Leader, Gender. As and where appropriate, the performance evaluation will be done by the direct supervisor in close consultation with the International Gender Specialist / Team Leader, Gender.

Technical Focus

The incumbent will address aspects such as: gender equality and protection in food security, social protection; gender equality in the livestock, protection and gender-sensitive value chains and analysis and use of sex-disaggregated data; gender and protection-responsive disaster risk reduction and resilience; reduction in rural women's work burden; gender and protection mainstreaming in all pertaining projects, including monitoring and reporting; women's land rights; and gender and social protection.

Tasks and responsibilities

•    Deploy a strategic plan in assisting Programming Teams to design and initiate emergency response programs/interventions, needs and resources which appropriately address gender considerations and promote the protection and empowerment of women and girls in rural communities;
•    Respond to requests and provide advice, assistance and solutions to Head of Regional office related to protection, gender equality and women’s empowerment and provide technical recommendation and advice to field projects both in development and humanitarian contexts;
•    Provide technical expertise and guidance to the Regional Office (RO) in embedding gender, protection and accountability to affected people throughout the RO operations, with the aim of ensuring a more participatory, accountable and gender/protection-orientated response.
•    Coordinate capacity development activities involving knowledge sharing, organization of training workshops, awareness raising, seminars and meetings as well as the development of related materials and on-line tools and information kits;
•    In close collaboration with all Regional Gender Officers, develop training materials, provide training and coaching on gender and protection to Implementing Partners (IPs) and FAO’s regional staff;
•    Help and support practices and actions to promote gender equality and the protection, empowerment and voice of women and girls, such as considering gender composition of beneficiaries, supporting capacity development of women, training, and orientation;
•    Initiate and lead gender and protection analysis and assessments to generate regional-specific evidence on gender, protection and other social aspects of technical areas under the FAO mandate and subsequently identify good practices in FAO work and widely disseminate/promote these within the region;
•    Provide on the job training (OJT) and supervise the gender and home economics specialists at district level;
•    Assist the Head of Regional office to develop and improve gender, protection and disability inclusion mainstreaming and awareness and activities including improvement of women and youth conditions and options for smallholders to work with the project enterprises;
•    Directly supervise and guide inclusion of gender and protection surveys and activities across the programme portfolio by providing training and supervision for field staff in data collection and analysis, and in particular the training on improved practices using available and improved food sources. This will include the measurement of gender involvement with women as a specific target group of beneficiaries;
•    Monitor and oversee regularly the activities implemented focusing on women and men in targeted communities, making sure equal access of both men and women, prepare report, including recommendations for remedial actions as necessary and share findings with the Regional Coordinator and Programming Team in Kabul; 
•    Deliver training for women’s groups and training-of-trainer (TOT) on agriculture and livestock packages and production, storage, processing (to reduce also drudgery for women) and introduce and provide training on better technologies and tools for small and medium scale processing and value addition;
•    Provide guidance on the equipment and materials needs to improve gender participation at provincial and district level;
•    Report to the Head of Regional  office and technical report to Head of Gender Action team at CO level on all activities related to the gender aspects of the programme and compile / summarize a monthly report (s) based on IPs’ inputs;
•    Liaise with other relevant colleagues in the Regional Office to ensure coherence and consistence in integrating FAO’s approach to Gender, Protection and AAP in close collaboration with country office gender action team.  
•    Prepare technical and other reports, monthly or as required and develop/maintain gender-segregated data;
•    Engage with local service providers and supervise the gender, protection and inclusion related components of service contracts, service providers and beneficiaries;
•    Assist the Gender Focal point of FAO in Gender plan and Gender Stock Taking Exercise for FAO; 
•    Undertake travel, where needed and possible, in support of the position role.  
•    Perform any other related duties as required. 

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements    

•    Advanced university degree (Master or equivalent) or University degree (Bachelor) in Sociology, Social Sciences, , Law, Agriculture, Human Rights, Economics, Development Economics, Development Studies, Gender Studies or other related disciplines;
•    For Advanced university degree (Master or equivalent) at least four (4) years of professional experience in an area related to value chain development, agriculture, rural development with special knowledge in gender and protection mainstreaming, gender sensitive value chains as well as gender and development, human rights, social affairs, political affairs or humanitarian affairs;
•    For university degree (Bachelor) at least six (6) years of experience in an area related to value chain development, agriculture, rural development with special knowledge in gender and protection mainstreaming, gender sensitive value chains as well as gender and development, human rights, social affairs, political affairs or humanitarian affairs;
•    Working knowledge (level C) of English and local languages (Pashto and/or Dari);
•    National of Afghanistan.

FAO Core Competencies

•    Results Focus
•    Teamwork
•    Communication
•    Building Effective Relationships
•    Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

•    Ability to effectively coordinate a large, multi-stakeholder project with results-based management;
•    Ability to deal with political, technical, and people management challenges, administer budgets and work effectively with all staff and with groups involved in the project;
•    Experience in designing, coordinating, and implementing development progammes and projects;
•    Experience organizing stakeholder meetings or workshops;
•    Ability to identify and resolve problems expeditiously and pragmatically; tact, initiative and sound judgment;
•    Extent and relevance of experience in coordinating and liaising with the relevant stakeholders;
•    Excellent report writing skills;
•    Excellent interpersonal communications and coordination skills, and proven ability to work constructively with a variety of stake holders to achieve common goals;
•    Previous experience with the UN is considered a strong asset; 
•    Strong professional command of Microsoft Office, in particular Word and Excel.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION