Equity Lead at Palladium Group

Job ID: req10761

Project Overview and Role

• Global Prosperity Fund’s ‘Skills for Prosperity’ is a £75m DFID programme, which seeks to improve the cost-effectiveness, access, quality, relevance and equity of skills through innovative approaches in 9 Middle-Income Countries around the world, including Nigeria.

In Nigeria, the Skills for Prosperity (S4P) country programme will work in three targeted states to:

• Improve access to quality Higher Education and TVET for youth and young women, with a focus on improving access to and the quality of apprenticeships, and supporting training institutions to deliver demand-driven, competency-based training,
• Strengthen education-to-employment linkages, and
• Build the capacity of training institutions to improve outcomes for vulnerable women and people with disabilities.
• Apprenticeships, training, and capacity building interventions will focus on identified high growth sectors of the economy (Agriculture/Agribusiness/agro-allied industries; Creative and Entertainment, and Information and Communications Technology sectors).
• S4P aims to directly benefit youth, vulnerable women and People with Disabilities (PwD) in targeted states of Kaduna in the north, Benue in the central belt, and Lagos in the south. It will also establish learning and peer sharing mechanisms across other states, including Kano, Enugu and Edo.

Background

• S4P requires an Equity Lead with a relevant track record, and interest or experience in the private sector and skills training.
• The Equity Lead should have the drive to tackle new and complex challenges and work with us to learn, adapt and deliver sustainable benefits for Nigeria.

Responsibilities
The Equity Lead will be expected to deliver the following:

• Manage the ‘Equity’ component of the programme, responsible for strengthening the capacity of government institutions to improve outcomes of vocational economic empowerment programmes for vulnerable women, youth and persons with disability (PwDs)
• Leverage state resources to support empowerment and inclusion programmes for women and vulnerable groups, while building target states capacity to better manage them
• Drive gender equity and social inclusion within the programme, both from a technical and management perspective, to ensure an increased participation of women and vulnerable groups in all skilling programs in close consultation with the Skills and PSD Leads
• Work closely with the Skills and PSD Leads to ensure the Access, Quality and Relevance components and their interventions are socially and gender inclusive
• Conduct mapping and needs assessments of opportunities for women, vulnerable groups and PWDs across the target states
• Deliver vocational empowerment programmes for 3,000 vulnerable women, youth and PwD across the 3targeted states in collaboration with state governments.
• Oversee and facilitate capacity-building and support to relevant state government institutions, private and non-governmental actors to increase skills and knowledge in designing and delivering functional vocational programmes targeting vulnerable women, youth and PwDs
• Provide technical support and capacity building to responsible state institutions for the development of enrolment and safeguarding framework and guidelines for vulnerable women, youth and PwDs participating in vocational empowerment programmes.
• Create and oversee marketing collaterals, awareness campaigns, roadshows etc. for knowledge dissemination about improving gender equity and social inclusion in TVET and skills interventions
• Participate and drive stakeholder consultation workshops, roundtable discussions, information dissemination workshops and virtual sessions
• Provide continuous feedback incorporation and learning from programme implementation

Reporting:

• The Equity Lead will report directly to S4P Nigeria’s Team Leader.

Specific Deliverables:

• Lead in the implementation of the Equity component (Output 3) overall strategy, as outlined in the Output 3 strategy. This will include providing capacity building and training to identified institutions at state level, improving their ability to deliver positive TVET results for marginalised groups, improving TVET curricula and training materials, and overseeing the implementation of pilot and scaled TVET interventions.
• Lead in delivery and implementation of cross-cutting GESI strategy, working closely with Skills Lead, PSD Lead and State Leads
• Work with MREL Manager to ensure timely and accurate communication of results under the Equity Component. This includes supporting baselining activities for programme interventions.
• Supporting projects to generate secondary benefits where possible, in line with the programme’s Secondary Benefits Plan.

Required Qualifications

• Proven track record in driving successful and wide-scale equity and social inclusion interventions in large donor-funded programmes
• Outstanding communication skills and demonstrable ability to deliver effective training to multi-stakeholder audiences
• Excellent and appreciable collaboration, relationship-building and influencing skills
• Experience in promoting and improving GESI in TVET and skills development programmes, preferably in Nigeria
• Brings a strong existing network in Nigeria among major relevant stakeholders
• Previous working experience and excellent knowledge of cultural and religious norms that lead to the exclusion and marginalisation of vulnerable groups, including women and PWDS, especially in northern Nigeria.