Women Engagement & Advocacy (WEA) Specialist

The Agency For Accelerated Regional Development (AFARD) in collaboration with six partners (African Agribusiness Incubation Network (AAIN), Omia Agribusiness, Agromax, Tropical Institute of Development Innovations (TRIDI), Uganda Rural Development and Training Institute (URDT) and Gudie Leisure Farm (GLF) and partnership with the Mastercard Foundation will implement a 5-year program, “Sustainable Inclusive Youth Employment Pathways (SIYEP)” in West Nile, Karamoja, Acholi, and Central and Western Uganda as part of the Young Africa Works Strategy to address unemployment
challenges faced by young women in Uganda. The program will directly reach 258,000 young women (7% refugees and 5% young women with disabilities (YWWDs)) and transition 90% into work, and 70% into dignified and fulling work. This will be achieved through institutional strengthening, market relevant training, skilling, incubation, and access to capital and markets.
The program will work directly with Technical, Vocational, Education and Training (TVETs), Local Artisans, and incubation centers and in collaboration with local and central government entities such as Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES), Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (MoGLSD), National Council of Higher Education (NCHE), Uganda Business and Technical, Examinations Board (UBTEB), Directorate of Industrial Training (DIT), Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS), Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URBS), Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), NGOs, CBOs, and existing Young Africa Works partners.

JOB TITLE: Women Engagement & Advocacy (WEA) Specialist (1 vacancy)
Reporting: Technical Advisor, Youth Skilling & Workforce Development

Duty Station: Kampala
Employment terms: Full time; Fixed Term: 5- years renewable annually based on satisfactory performance and availability of funds.
Job Summary
Responsible for championing youth agency and voice through facilitating consortium partners’ and technical advisors/experts’ productive engagement of young women in all project management stages. She/he will lead the co-creation with young people to develop, implement, and ensure compliance of youth engagement strategy so that the ideas and needs of young people take a center stage into the program. She/he will provide expertise and interact effectively
with senior levels of partner organizations and ecosystem stakeholders to advance the development and delivery of the Program with a young people focus and lens. This role will have a dotted reporting line to the consortium lead partner on youth tenement.
Roles & Responsibilities
• Conduct partner youth engagement mapping (assessment of policy, systems, structure, and practices)
• Develop guidelines and tools and materials for young women participation and engagement (i.e., enrolment, committee representation, training of trainer, safe spaces, curriculum design, internships, apprenticeship, MEL, reporting, upscaling & sustainability strategy development, etc.) and train partner staffs in the effective use of youth engagement guidelines
• Support partners in ensuring intentional active engagement of young women in staff employment, enrolment, group formation, work/enterprise selection, curriculum design, review, and implementation, engaging young people as trainers of trainees and monitoring, evaluation ad learning.
• Conduct regional annual stakeholder experience sharing meetings to strengthen active youth engagement by partners
• Support partners in organizing youth events such as exhibitions, exchange learning & exposure visits; and, international youth days (Labor Day & international women’s day)
• Conduct regional exchange learning visits for SIYEP program participants and document best practices
• Support integration and resource allocation to youth-led enterprises in districts and local government budgets
• Together with M&E and Communication leads, document and publish programme lessons, best practices, successful models, innovation & emerging opportunities for upscaling
• Hold stakeholder engagements to motivate young people to enroll in TVET. This will include TVET career fares where TVETs engage with their communities (parents, local leaders, and young people).
• Support partners to conduct innovation competitions for young people to demonstrate their skills acquired in TVETs at institution, district/ regional and national levels.
Person specifications:
• A bachelor’s degree in social sciences, development studies, Education or Psychology. Masters degree is an added advantage.
• Post graduate Diploma in Project Planning and Management is added advantage
• Minimum of 5 years of consortia work experience on youth engagement, empowerment, or youth development programs in a consortium setting.
• Demonstrated experience in working with government MDAs, TVETs, private sector, local artisans and other humanitarian and development organizations.
• Demonstrated experience in capacity development of local implementing partners.
• Experience in designing and implementing youth engagement strategies and activities.
• Experience reviewing, analyzing and or developing a diverse range of program operational tools (Curricula, Policies, guidelines with experience in leading best practice across complex and high value grants).
• Strong facilitation and communication skills (in English), including the ability to work effectively with diverse groups of youth.
• Familiarity with participatory and youth-centered methodologies.
• Knowledge of gender-sensitive approaches and inclusive programming.
• Ability to work collaboratively with diverse teams and partners.
• Flexible, adaptable, and able to execute a range of job duties and changing priorities.
• Experience working in refugee-host community settings.
• Exceptional skills in report writing and tracking results
• Exceptional interpersonal, teamwork and networking skills
• Familiarity with work in refugee-host community settings is an added advantage.
• Willingness to travel to remote districts of Uganda to support partners as and when required

The Agency For Accelerated Regional Development (AFARD) in collaboration with six partners (African Agribusiness Incubation Network (AAIN), Omia Agribusiness, Agromax, Tropical Institute of Development Innovations (TRIDI), Uganda Rural Development and Training Institute (URDT) and Gudie Leisure Farm (GLF) and partnership with the Mastercard Foundation will implement a 5-year program, “Sustainable Inclusive Youth Employment Pathways (SIYEP)” in West Nile, Karamoja, Acholi, and Central and Western Uganda as part of the Young Africa Works Strategy to address unemployment
challenges faced by young women in Uganda. The program will directly reach 258,000 young women (7% refugees and 5% young women with disabilities (YWWDs)) and transition 90% into work, and 70% into dignified and fulling work. This will be achieved through institutional strengthening, market relevant training, skilling, incubation, and access to capital and markets.
The program will work directly with Technical, Vocational, Education and Training (TVETs), Local Artisans, and incubation centers and in collaboration with local and central government entities such as Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES), Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (MoGLSD), National Council of Higher Education (NCHE), Uganda Business and Technical, Examinations Board (UBTEB), Directorate of Industrial Training (DIT), Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS), Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URBS), Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), NGOs, CBOs, and existing Young Africa Works partners.

Signed Application and a 2-pager motivation letter plus relevant academic & experience credentials, CV with names and daytime contacts of three referees,
and your daytime phone contact numbers in 1-file PDF format should be addressed to “The Human Resources Office” and e-mailed to procurement@afard.net latest on May 23, 2025 at 5:00PM. In the subject area of your email, indicate the position you are applying for.
Polite Notice.
• Qualified females and refugees are highly encouraged to apply.
• Only complete applications will be accepted and considered for review.
• Only those who are ready to start immediately will be shortlisted.
• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
• Successful applicants will be required to start immediately after appropriate screening checks including criminal records, child and sexual abuse, exploitation and/or harassment. By applying, job applicants consent to these screening checks