Senior Specialist - Women and Youth at TechnoServe

TechnoServe works with enterprising people in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses, and industries. We are a non-profit organization that develops business solutions to poverty by linking people to information, capital, and markets. Our work is rooted in the idea that given the opportunity, hardworking men and women in even the poorest places can generate income, jobs, and wealth for their families and communities. With more than four decades of proven results, we believe in the power of private enterprise to transform lives.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Senior Specialist - Women and Youth

Requisition Number: SENIO004888
Location: Abuja (FCT)
Employment Type: Full-time
Job category: Programs
Project: Skilling Adolescents and Young Women for Entrepreneurship and Employability (SAY WEE)
Reports to: Program Manager

Job Summary

• The Senior Specialist, Women and Youth will work closely with the project team, implementing partners, and key stakeholders to support the implementation of activities that create economic opportunities for adolescent girls and young women in Nigeria. 
• This includes technical support and capacity development for program staff, implementing partners, and other key stakeholders. 
• The Senior Specialist will also direct the management of activities to drive economic opportunities for the program’s target group, support monitoring, reporting, and knowledge management activities, and provide overall support to advance Technoserve’s Economic Opportunities for All Policy.
• Additionally, the Senior Specialist will be responsible for the protection of all individuals engaged with the program from all forms of harassment, abuse, and violence. This includes ensuring appropriate policies and procedures are in place, fostering a safeguarding culture, integrating safeguarding measures and activities into the SAY WEE program, and monitoring the effectiveness of safeguarding mechanisms.
• The Senior Specialist, Women and Youth will report directly to the Program Manager with a dotted line to the Nigeria Gender Manager and will work closely with the Global Practice for Women and Youth.

Primary Functions & Responsibilities
Technical Support:

• Identifies, develops, and supports the deployment of women and youth-responsive activities to meet the needs of clients, including activities that promote safe and inclusive economic opportunities and safeguard against risks of exploitation, harassment, and abuse.
• Ensures safeguarding measures are integrated into program activities, protecting beneficiaries, staff, and partners from harassment, exploitation, and abuse.
• Builds local capacity among project staff and partners for women and youth integration and facilitates women and youth economic empowerment-related training for staff, including training on safeguarding principles, complaint mechanisms, and survivor-centered response approaches.
• Supports the development of accountability systems that ensure staff and implementing partners adhere to safeguarding policies, including complaint and feedback mechanisms.
• Provides strategic advice to program leadership and staff on women and youth integration approaches, priorities, and compatibility with program aims and resource constraints, ensuring adherence to safeguarding policies and procedures to prevent harm to beneficiaries.
• Conducts assessments and facilitates meetings, as needed, with key stakeholders and clients to identify measures to improve inclusiveness, especially for women and youth within the project scope, and to ensure safe and ethical participation in project activities.
• Monitors and assesses implementing partners’ adherence to safeguarding policies through regular check-ins, reporting requirements, and compliance reviews.
• Supports monitoring of women integration and youth activities and inclusion in program reports, ensuring data collection includes safeguarding risk assessments and that reports reflect safeguarding compliance.

Training, Capacity Building, and Safeguarding Integration:

• Delivers TTT to staff and partners on women and youth-focused training and workshop modules, including safeguarding training related to the Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA), safe recruitment practices, and survivor-centered approaches.
• Supports the dissemination of TechnoServe’s safeguarding policies and organizes annual refresher training for staff, implementing partners, and volunteers.
• Builds local capacity among project staff and partners for women and youth integration, including strategies to prevent and respond to safeguarding violations.
• Works with community-based protection mechanisms to strengthen safeguarding capacity and provide training on ethical reporting and response.
• Collaborates with Human Resources to integrate safeguarding into recruitment practices, ensuring safer hiring processes and policies are in place.

Reporting, Accountability and Compliance:

• Supports monitoring of women integration and youth activities and inclusion in program reports, including tracking safeguarding risks, responses, and compliance with policies.
• Ensures safeguarding violations are reported through established complaint and response mechanisms and takes appropriate measures to ensure safety and protection of survivors, whistleblowers, and subjects of complaints.
• Supports planning, budgeting, implementation, and reporting on safeguarding activities.

Other Responsibilities:

• Participates in regular meetings with the Global Practice for Women and Youth and program leadership.
• Participates in the Gender Champions Network and contributes to global learning on safeguarding best practices within gender and youth programming.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in International Development, International Affairs, Sociology, or related areas from an accredited college or university with 5 years’ experience in accountability/safeguarding/child safeguarding/PSEA or experience in a similar field (e.g., child protection and/or gender-based violence protection in humanitarian National/international settings or Master's Degree + 3 years’ experience.
• Candidates should have at least one years’ experience in planning and facilitating on accountability and safeguarding on a range of the organizational levels.
• Experience track record of supporting operational change and/or the rollout of new policies and strategies.
• Experience in delivering training programs and supporting organizational capacity building in women’s economic empowerment and safeguarding/protection.
• Background in leading/participating in corruption/PSEA/child safeguarding investigations.

Preferred Qualifications:
Additional qualifications that would make a candidate more desirable:

• Experience in working in Nigeria with an INGO

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Strong belief in human rights, gender equality, and safeguarding.
• Good interpersonal skills including the ability to gain trust and build relationships.
• Good diplomatic and persuasion skills.
• Ability to work effectively with people at all organizational levels.
• Strong ability to work independently.
• High standard of spoken and written English required.
• Good computer skills, experience with Google Drive.
• Ability to adapt quickly to changing environments.

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.