Strategic Learning Advisor (SLA) – USAID/Somalia Resilience and Food Security Activity (RFSA) -Mogadishu, Somalia

TITLE:  Strategic Learning Advisor (SLA) – USAID/Somalia Resilience and Food Security Activity (RFSA)

TEAM/PROGRAMME: PDQ

LOCATION: TBD

GRADE: TBD

CONTRACT LENGTH: TBD

CHILD SAFEGUARDING:

Level 3:  the role holder will have contact with children and/or young people either frequently (e.g. once a week or more) or intensively (e.g. four days in one month or more or overnight) because they work in country programs; or are visiting country programs; or because they are responsible for implementing the police checking/vetting process staff.

ROLE PURPOSE:

Save the Children is seeking a Strategic Learning Advisor (SLA) for an anticipated five-year USAID-funded Resilience Food Security Activity (RFSA) in Somalia. The goal is to improve food and nutrition security and resilience among poor and chronically vulnerable households and communities in a sustainable manner. The estimated implementation timeframe for the RFSA is 2024 – 2029. Hiring is contingent upon successful award of the program and USAID approval of the candidate.

The proposed program will be an integrated, multi-sectoral food and nutrition security intervention. The SLA will work closely with all staff to ensure principles of Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA)are recognized and acted on as core elements of RFSA programming. This staff member will ensure active, intentional, and adaptive learning within and across interventions, and will play a critical role in incorporating refinement activities and learning into implementation. Additionally, the SLA will improve community engagement; peer-to-peer learning; knowledge capture, sharing, and application; activity-based capacity strengthening; and evidence and data utilization. The SLA, working with the COP and technical staff, will also ensure appropriate and continued coordination and joint-planning with other relevant USAID Bureaus and Missions and other relevant donor activities, host-government initiatives, and private sector actors

SCOPE OF ROLE:

Reports to: TBD

Dimension of Role:

Save the Children operates across 17 out of 18 regions in Somalia/Somaliland and currently has three main area offices and additional 11 field offices. Programmatically Somalia is a large Country Office with more than $110million annual budget turnover, more than 70 active awards at any time and over 650 staff.

Number of direct reports: None

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

Ensure that women, youth, and other vulnerable populations are integrated into all program activities, including technical implementation, monitoring, learning, operations, policies, and procedures by designing activities that target these groups within the scope of the program. The GYSI Lead will ensure that inclusivity considerations, as well as social dimensions of food security and community resilience, are effectively addressed across all activity components, at all levels, throughout the entire award period.

Gender and Youth Assessments and Strategy (35%)

·         Ensure the use of participatory and collaborative problem-solving approaches to develop strategies and action plans for gender and youth integration and promotion of social inclusion for marginalized groups within program plans, Theory of Change (ToC) processes, monitoring and learning plans, and implementation guidance.

·         Lead the collection, analysis, and utilization of information from a wide variety of sources to inform the program’s gender, youth, and social inclusion approaches.

·         Lead the design and implementation of the Gender Analysis, Youth Analysis, or similar gender/youth/social inclusion analyses during the program’s Refine period and utilize the findings of these analyses to formulate an effective gender strategy and youth strategy and inform the Collaboration, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) plan for the program.

·         Train and mentor team members, partners, and stakeholders on the development of the strategy in the context of program implementation plans.

·         Contribute to refined period formative research and data collection, and related program strategies to ensure gender integration.

Project Implementation (50%)

·         Stay abreast of donor and host government gender, youth and social inclusion policies, programs and best practices, ensuring coherence and coordination with the same.

·         Provide gender and youth-related related technical support on an ongoing basis to thematic team leaders, participating in thematic team planning processes and the implementation of program activities as required.

·         Provide support on the implementation of the Social Behavior Change Strategy (SBC) and SBC communications.

·         Provide technical support (as needed) to community mobilization, social cohesion and capacity strengthening related to conflict-sensitive and resolution approaches.

·         Contribute to participatory and learning processes that build commitment and capacity among activity staff to ensure gender equity and youth empowerment.

·         Track local social and conflict dynamics as feasible, gauging potential impacts on women, youth, and social inclusion and adjusting program approaches accordingly.

·         Ensure the development and adaptation of gender equality and transformation as well as youth and social cohesion markers, benchmarks, and indicators across the program.

·         Support the collection and analysis of gender, youth, and social cohesion data and contribute to program reporting.

·          Identify and document best practices of the project in implementing gender, youth and social inclusion components for learning with partners.

·         Support the project to map GBV referral pathways and conduct other mitigation tactics as appropriate to prevent and respond to GBV that may occur through project activities.

·         Ensure that USAID’s Gender Equality and Female Empowerment Policy, USAID’s Youth in Development Policy, ADS 205, and other relevant gender, youth and inclusion principles, policies and regulations are applied consistently throughout the project.

·         Foster commitment from and strengthen the capacity of team members, partners, local stakeholders, and communities to facilitate gender transformative outcomes and positive youth engagement; this includes developing and delivering formal training as well as coaching and mentoring.

·         Manage team members supporting gender and youth engagement as well as social inclusion at the field level.

·         Work effectively with the Gender and Youth Activity (GAYA) and other BHA- recommended coordination platforms.

·         Represent gender and social inclusion aspects of the project to external stakeholders, such as the donor, governments, and partners; disseminate learnings and best practices; and participate in technical working groups.

COMPETENCIES AND SKILLS

·         Lead the formulation and implementation of a detailed program learning plan/ learning agenda and manage associated learning partnerships and processes.

·         Manage a program “change log” during the Refine period of the program (initial 12 -24 months), documenting changes to program design required as a result of formative research findings and operational planning discussions.

·         Manage learning events and processes. Work with M&E team members to ensure adaptations to the program theory of change as new information comes to light.

·         Lead the creation and management of a detailed program knowledge management platform, ensuring full integration with other relevant knowledge management platforms.

·         Create guidelines for CLA in the context of the program. Manage CLA ‘pause and reflect’ events and resulting adaptive management analysis, decision-making, program/ approach adjustments, training, and follow-through.

·         Work closely with M&E and technical teams to develop and implement innovative approaches for capture, analysis and uptake of qualitative and quantitative information to inform programs, improve performance and agility.

·         Contribute to the creation of a culture of openness, trust, and continuous improvement within the program team and with partners. Train team members on CLA in addition to ensuring peer-to-peer learning, knowledge sharing and application, activity-based capacity strengthening, evidence and data utilization within the team.