Positive Youth Development and Inclusion Advisor

Positive Youth Development and Inclusion Advisor

ACDI/VOCA

Tamale, Ghana

ACDI/VOCA is seeking a Positive Youth Development (PYD) and Inclusion Advisor for an upcoming youth activity in Ghana funded by USAID. The program will improve the socioeconomic status of youth in northern Ghana through youth-led and youth-serving organizations, among others, to generate cross-sectoral, positive youth development outcomes, allowing them to make better life decisions and influence policy. The program will give special attention to the needs of girls, the disabled, and other disadvantaged groups.

The PYD and Inclusion Advisor will guide the development and implementation of the program’s overall strategy for gender and youth and will ensure the integration of women, youth, and vulnerable populations into all program activities. 

Responsibilities

• Lead the mainstreaming of PYD across the program, including supporting staff to understand PYD principles and actively integrate them in their technical, operational, and/or Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) work;
• Design activities that target diverse groups of youth, including age- and developmentally-appropriate activities, and activities that are responsive to and target unique youth groups (e.g., young women, youth with disabilities, and Fulbe youth, among others);
• Provide gender, youth, and social inclusion (GYSI) technical advice and trainings to program staff, partners, and stakeholders to build their capacity in integrating gender equity, PYD, and other social inclusion considerations into intervention design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation;
• Ensure that the program follows the requirements of USAID’s and ACDI/VOCA’s gender and youth policies and strategies;
• Implement GYSI-focused research, including analyses, assessments, and other learning studies;
• Develop evidence-based gender and youth strategies with program staff and partners to ensure effective integration and mainstreaming of PYD and gender and social inclusion (GSI);
• Provide support and technical advice to technical and MEL staff on meaningful youth engagement principles in design, implementation, and MEL;
• Support the identification of youth-led and youth-serving organizations that the program should seek to engage with, including organizations serving distinct groups of young people and/or with expertise in ethnic inclusion, gender, disability inclusion, and other topics of relevance;
• Review and provide input to project work plans, with attention to GYSI dimensions of technical activities and operations;
• Support the MEL team in reviewing indicators, setting targets, planning for data collection, analysis, and reporting, and setting learning priorities around explicit PYD and GSI results;
• Maintain an up-to-date and thorough understanding of PYD and GSI issues related to program components;
• Write program reports and prepare internal documentation as required;
• Disseminate lessons learned among team and program partners.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in gender studies, youth development, international development, sociology, or relevant field is required; master’s degree is preferred;
• Minimum 8 years of experience in gender, youth, and/or social inclusion-specific or -integrated programming;
• Knowledge of USAID’s gender and youth policies and frameworks required, including knowledge of do no harm, PYD, and women’s empowerment approaches;
• Demonstrated experience conducting gender and/or youth analysis, including qualitative data collection;
• Demonstrated experience developing youth engagement strategies and approaches, and building the capacity of staff and partners to operationalize these;
• Proven interpersonal skills with ability to build personal relationships with staff, donor partners, and government leaders at all levels in a culturally sensitive manner;
• Experience working in northern Ghana strongly preferred;
• Fluency in English required.

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