Gender & Nutrition Officer at Oxfam

Location: Bauchi (with possibilities of travels to other states)
Internal Job Grade: D
Contract type: Fixed Term (One year renewable)
Reporting to: Project Manager
Staff reporting directly to this post: None
Key relationships/interactions: PMU Staff, Other Project Managers & Country Office Gender Team

Team Purpose

• To promote agriculture-driven economic growth and improve the living conditions for 10,000 rural farmer households (60% women) with a specific focus on women and youth.

Job Purpose

• To ensure gender considerations and women’s empowerment forms an integrated core of the LINE implementation. To also provide technical expertise on nutrition and other nutrition related functions to improve the livelihoods of 10,000 poor women and men farmers in Bauchi State.

Job Responsibilities
Technical (Gender):

• Provide advice and support to the Project Manager and the Technical Officers working within the respective field offices in the implementation of the key gender components across the LINE Project.
• Provide technical support to the project team to ensure gender mainstreaming in all activities in line with the project’s gender strategy.
• Provide specialist advice on gender sensitive planning and mainstreaming to all Project officers and other staff.
• Support, coach, mentor and advise Partners’ technical staff to implement and mainstream gender into project activities.
• Liaise with project partners and other stakeholders in the project location to facilitate and enhance their contribution towards the implementation of the gender equality agenda.
• Support advocacy activities on gender matters to key stakeholders in collaboration with partners and other interest groups that are relevant to the LINE project
• Improve networking and coordination with key stakeholders to ensure the promotion of gender equality in the project locations and across the state.
• Represent LINE project in gender-related meetings and consultations that are relevant and would add value to project implementation.
• Assist in the development of case studies, best practices and key learning on gender mainstreaming and integration into LINE project including generating success stories related to project and project developments as they relate to gender equality issues to feed into the linking and learning objectives of Oxfam.
• Aid in data collection, compiling lessons learned, establishing indicators to support knowledge sharing.
• Support in updating and sharing with staff recent developments and knowledge tools in the areas of interventions.
• Analyse and ensure interventions are gender-sensitive and factor in issues of inclusion of normally socially excluded groups.
• Provide regular brief updates on the development of gender related issues in the project areas.
• Ensure regular and comprehensive monitoring for reporting on the gender-related indicators in the project areas in consultation with the Project Manager and in line with donor requirements.
• Perform other work-related outputs as requested by the Project Manager.

Technical (Nutrition):

• Coordinate the Nutrition component of project development activities for the LINE project.
• Provide professional services, mentoring and counselling advisory services to partners on developing and implementing training on food diversification, preservation and preparation for better family nutrition especially for women and children.
• Organise and support nutrition promotional activities through partner staff involved in the implementation of project activities.
• Organise and lead key project development activities to ensure quality planning and implementation are carried out within the framework of the project.
• Ensure effective engagement and relationship management with project partners, community leaders and groups, government institutions and other relevant, strategic/key sectoral actors for effective and sustainable delivery of the Nutrition component of the project delivery.
• Assist the Project Manager in recruiting and line managing private consultants for specific short-term assignments related to Nutrition including facilitating the development of their work plans, monitoring their fieldwork and organising debriefing sessions with consultants.
• Maintain effective communication on the progress of the project and ensure project learning in relation to Family Nutrition is documented for communication with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders in consultation with the Project Manager.
• Carry out periodic monitoring visits to project partners and project implementation sites, verify outputs indicated in progress reports submitted to Oxfam by partners and produce project activity and progress reports. Support the production of reports for the donor as well as reports for wider circulation within Oxfam in consultation with Project Manager – as appropriate.

Other:

• Eager and able to adhere to Oxfam’s principles and values (click here) as well as the promotion of gender justice and women's rights (click here).
• Understanding of and commitment to adhere to equity, diversity, gender, child safety and staff health and wellbeing principles.

Job Requirements
Education & Experience:

• Degree in Gender Studies, Law, Political Sciences, Social Sciences, Nutrition Studies or related fields with minimum of five years relevant experience working in gender-related projects in Northern Nigeria.
• Working experience in supporting development programmes, specifically nutrition-related interventions - preferably within the NGOs sector.
• Comprehensive understanding of international, regional and national legal frameworks and policies related to advancing gender equality and promoting women’s rights.
• An understanding of the Gender Action Learning System (GALS) will be highly desirable.

Skills & Abilities:

• Ability to generate and communicate gender-related information for a variety of audiences to enhance understanding of gender integration and mainstreaming goals of the LINE project
• Experienced in generating new ideas and approaches, researches, best practices and proposes new, more effective ways of promoting gender equality in patriarchal communities and especially in Northern Nigeria
• Contributes to results through primary research and analysis
• Able to formulate written information clearly and persuasively
• Able to establish effective client relationships
• Possesses a proactive, problem solving and result oriented attitude.
• Good reporting and writing skills.
• Excellent computer skills and experience using office software packages.
• Fluency in written and spoken English and Hausa language.
• Ability to demonstrate sensitivity to cultural differences and gender issues, as well as the commitment to equal opportunities.
• Ability to demonstrate an openness and willingness to learn about the application of gender/gender mainstreaming, women’s rights, and diversity for all aspects of development work.
• Commitment to Oxfam’s safeguarding policies to ensure all people who meet Oxfam are as safe as possible.

Organisational Values:

• Accountability – Our purpose-driven, results-focused approach means we take responsibility for our actions and hold ourselves accountable. We believe that others should also be held accountable for their actions.
• Empowerment – Our approach means that everyone involved with Oxfam, from our staff and supporters to people living in poverty, should feel they can make change happen.
• Inclusiveness – We are open to everyone and embrace diversity. We believe everyone has a contribution to make, regardless of visible and invisible differences.

Key Behavioral Competencies

• Decisiveness: We are comfortable to make transparent decisions and to adapt decision making modes to the context and needs.
• Influencing: We have the ability to engage with diverse stakeholders in a way that leads to increased impact for the organization We spot opportunities to influence effectively and where there are no opportunities, we have the ability to create them in a respectful and impactful manner.
• Humility: We put ‘we’ before ‘me’ and place an emphasis on the power of the collective, nurture the team and play to the strengths of each individual. We are not concerned with hierarchical power, and we engage with, trust and value the knowledge and expertise of others across all levels of the organization.
• Relationship Building: We understand the importance of building relationship, within and outside the organization. We have the ability to engage with traditional and non-traditional stakeholders in ways that lead to increased impact for the organization.
• Listening: We are good listeners who can see where deeper levels of thoughts and tacit assumptions differ. Our messages to others are clear and consider different preferences.
• Mutual Accountability: We can explain our decisions and how we have taken them based on our organizational values.  We are ready to be held to account for what we do and how we behave, as we are also holding others to account in a consistent manner.
• Agility, Complexity, and Ambiguity:  We scan the environment, anticipate changes, are comfortable with lack of clarity and deal with a large number of elements interacting in diverse and unpredictable ways.
• Systems Thinking: We view problems as parts of an overall system and in their relation to the whole system, rather than reacting to a specific part, outcome or event in isolation. We focus on cyclical rather than linear cause and effect. By consistently practicing systems thinking we are aware of and manage well unintended consequences of organizational decisions and actions.
• Strategic Thinking and Judgment: We use judgment, weighing risk against the imperative to act. We make decisions consistent with organizational strategies and values.
• Vision Setting: We have the ability to identify and lead visionary initiatives that are beneficial for our organization and we set high-level direction through a visioning process that engages the organization and diverse external stakeholders.
• Self-Awareness: We are able to develop a high degree of self-awareness around our own strengths and weaknesses and our impact on others. Our self-awareness enables us to moderate and self-regulate our behaviors to control and channel our impulses for good purposes.
• Enabling: We all work to effectively empower and enable others to deliver the organizations goals through creating conditions of success. We passionately invest in others by developing their careers, not only their skills for the job.  We provide freedom; demonstrate belief and trust provide appropriate support.