The Ford Foundation: Program Officer Women’s Rights East Africa

Summary Description:

The Women’s Rights Program Officer will develop a grant-making portfolio that advances work to protect, promote, and consolidate the enjoyment of women’s human rights, as part of the Eastern Africa Office’s Protecting Women’s Rights initiative.

The overall goals of this initiative are to:

• Support efforts to fully implement national and regional laws and international commitments that address gender inequality and discrimination;
• Build effective women’s networks and human rights organizations that address structural causes of inequalities and gender discrimination;
• Build strong women’s rights movements in East Africa with solid constituencies that will be levers of progressive change; and
• Strengthen the leadership capacity of particularly marginalized women to engage in transformative politics and be effective advocates—articulating the problems that affect their lives, crafting, and where possible, implementing solutions to help solve them.
• Additionally, the Women’s Rights Program Officer will work closely with colleagues leading other initiatives in the Eastern Africa Office to ensure collaborative and integrative grant-making that impacts women’s overall advancement in the region; and colleagues leading a similar initiative in New York to synergize women’s rights issues across the Foundation’s offices.

Key grant making approaches of this portfolio will include:

• Building capacity of key national and regional multi-issue women’s rights groups;
• Developing tools and leveraging resources to support strategic advocacy through national and regional women’s rights funds and women’s priority concerns;
• Supporting national and regional networks and organizations of men for gender equality movements;
• Developing and expanding national, regional and UN instruments and mandates to address women’s issues at the national, regional and global level;
• Supporting training for national and regional women’s rights networks to develop resource pools and identify the next generation of women’s rights activists;
• Conducting research to analyze women’s priority concerns and emergent trends in gender relations;
• Synthesizing research with advocacy, activism and movement building concerns of women’s organizations;
• Building capacity in other initiatives to address the deeply rooted structural causes of inequalities and gender discrimination in all sectors; and,
• Supporting programs at the intersections of women’s rights and economic opportunities.

Specifically, the Program Officer will

• Review the current status of the field and the status of the grants in the Foundation’s existing portfolio;
• Formulate plans to implement grant making in the new program strategies;
• Solicit, review, and respond to grant proposals;
• Prepare recommendations for foundation funding.
• S/he will be expected to provide intellectual leadership in the field of women’s rights and to work closely with other Foundation Program Officers whose work relates to the portfolios’ central missions.
• S/he also is expected to collaborate broadly with scholars, practitioners, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and other donors.
• The Program Officer will contribute both to the office’s strategic direction for East Africa, and to the foundation’s overall goals related to women’s rights worldwide.

Qualifications:

• Over 10 years of professional experience in advocacy of human rights and work in women’s rights networks, think-tanks, or gender equality movements in Eastern Africa and/or other regions of the Global South.(Experience beyond the Global South a plus.)
• Experience conducting action research on women’s rights, and linking new knowledge with advocacy and policy to support of women’s empowerment.
• Demonstrated ability to organize and conduct multi-disciplinary research and development initiatives, and work in interdisciplinary teams.
• A broad understanding of human rights and in-depth understanding of women’s human rights issues.
• Ability to conceptualize and lead project design and build strong partnerships with CSOs, social movements, private sector, and other funding agencies, to implement a project strategy.
• An advanced degree in sociology, anthropology, gender studies, law or other relevant discipline is required. Grant-making experience in women’s rights is an advantage.
• A strong desire to achieve impact;
• A proven track record of achieving change;
• Excellent oral and written communications skills, including a clear ability to convene and drive a group to action; and
• The proven capacity to work in teams.

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

Salary is based on experience and on the Foundation’s commitment to internal equity.

A generous benefits package is provided.

To apply for the position visit www.fordfound.org/employment. The application deadline is July 6, 2010.

Equal employment opportunity and having a diverse staff are fundamental principles at The Ford Foundation, where employment and promotional opportunities are based upon individual capabilities and qualifications without regard to race, color, religion, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation/affectional preference, age, national origin, marital status, citizenship, disability, veteran status or any other protected characteristic as established under law

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