Gender Investment Officer at African Development Bank - AfDB

Reference: ADB/17/240
Location: Côte d’Ivoire
Grade: PL5
Position N°: 50091794

The Complex

• The Vice Presidency for ‘Agriculture, Human, and Social Development’ is a Sector Complex focusing on the Bank’s TYS High 5s priority of “Feed Africa” and “Improve Quality of Life for the People of Africa”.
• The complex objectives are:
  • To develop, policy and strategy;
  • Provide deep sector expertise to the Regions by gathering pool of experienced individuals who can be consulted to provide sector expertise on complex transactions;
  • Develop new financing instruments;
  • The VP will act as the spoke person to represent the Bank with external stakeholders on aspects of “Feed Africa” and Improve Quality of Life for the People of Africa”.

The Hiring Department

• The role of the Gender, Women and Civil Society Department (AHGC) is under the Agriculture, Human and Social Development Complex focusing on the Bank’s TYS High 5s priority of “Feed Africa” and “Improve Quality of Life for the People of Africa”.
• Furthermore, “Improve Quality of Life for the People of Africa” will be operationalized with focus on Gender, Women and Civil Society.

The Position

• The Gender Investment Officer  is responsible for the promotion of women’s entrepreneurship and integration in public and private sectors across the High 5s, , as well as to other relevant flagships. He/ She will contribute to the implementation of the Gender Strategy by providing support from a gender lens to the implementation of AfDB strategies and operations.
• He/ She will work with other complexes and regional departments to ensure that Bank operations, policies and guidelines reflect the Bank’s commitment to gender equality in order to promote gender results in Regional Member Countries.
• He/ She will provide strategic gender advice and implementation support to develop an operational approach to gender mainstreaming that supports increasing the number of women beneficiaries and the number of grantee companies with women in key decision-making positions.

Duties and Responsibilities

• The overall objective of the Gender Investment Officer is to promote the mainstreaming of gender issues in the Bank’s operations by providing support and contributing to the origination, development and implementation of public and private sector projects, as well as to country strategic papers, country papers review and economic and sector works, to ensure they adequately address gender concerns.
• Contribute and guide in the review and provision of operational inputs for the mainstreaming of gender equality in Bank’s projects to improving inclusive business opportunities and development outcomes;
• Contribute to the generation, structuring and evaluation of related projects, with a particular focus on potential gender impact of proposed projects;
• Build institutional partnerships on gender equality and mobilize co-financing to implement related projects.
• Contribute to policy dialogue and advocacy activities on universal financial inclusion, economic opportunities, empowerment and leadership, trade and integrated value chains;
• Collaborate with cross-department members to support the development and implementation of innovative gender mainstreaming strategies and incentives towards financial and economic inclusion in Bank’s operations.
• Assist in the collection, analysis and dissemination of information and sex-disaggregated data on gender in relation to skills and entrepreneurship, financial and private sector development;
• Participate in project and country strategic papers teams (from identification to concept, appraisal and supervision) to influence on gender activities and outcomes;
• Provide top quality analysis and substantive inputs to Bank strategic documents, peer reviews and economic and sector works as it relates to financial and economic inclusion for gender equality and contribution of women in private sector development;
• Initiate and lead on knowledge products on the business case for investing in women to enhance the quality of gender mainstreaming in the implementation of the High 5s and key selected flagships;
• Contribute to Analysis/Briefs/Case Studies of Bank’s projects to showcase gender mainstreaming and gender equality results;
• Organize and/or attend technical trainings, seminars and policy summits in related areas.

Selection Criteria
Including desirable skills, knowledge and experience:

• At least a Master's Degree or its equivalent in International Development, Development Finance, Economics, Gender Studies or related areas, relevant qualification in development project management and project finance
• Have a minimum of five (5) years of professional experience on gender issues in the development finance space and experience in project management, with track record in investment structuring and in developing gender financing products is an asset.
• Good command of undertaking comprehensive due diligence, including financial and economic analysis of clients (financial institutions, Small and Medium Enterprises and larger enterprises); Experience in developing gender financing/financial inclusion projects in Africa; previous experience in gender mainstreaming, working with women entrepreneurs at all levels of the business life-cycle,
• Financial and investment policy engagement experience, particularly in relation to inclusive finance and women’s access to credit;
• Demonstrated good knowledge of applying a variety of investment instruments such as debt, equity, guarantees, and other complex financial deal structuring, specifically responding to the needs of the ultimate beneficiaries; Experience in designing/implementing capacity building and skills development projects, in both public and private sectors,;
• Advocacy and policy engagement experience at all levels, particularly in relation to inclusive finance and women entrepreneurship.
• Demonstrate knowledge of the role of the private sector, entrepreneurship and of women in business in development;
• Demonstrate understanding of regional social and economic issues, analysis and policy formulation; knowledge of the practices of major bilateral and multilateral partner development agencies in African countries is an added advantage.
• Demonstrate strong communication and organization skills, dealing with various stakeholders with different background and capacity to perform in complex situations.
• Appraisal assessment tools (financial modelling, financial and economic returns analysis, etc)
• Communicate and write effectively in French or English, with a good working knowledge of the other language.
• Competence in the use of standard Microsoft Office applications (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint); knowledge of SAP is desirable.