Brief Description:

ABOUT CESO
CESO is an international economic development organization dedicated to reducing poverty and fostering economic growth around the world and in Canada. With a vision of stronger economies for better lives, CESO’s initiatives are aimed towards catalyzing and strengthening sustainable economic growth and social development.

CESO’s international development program aims to advance women’s economic empowerment and gender equality by applying a gender sensitive value chain approach. In this program, CESO plans to engage highly experienced Volunteer Advisors in short term field assignments to improve opportunities, rights, participation and the role of women in selected sectors including agribusiness, tourism and nutrition. CESO will work closely with developing country partners to design capacity building activities to be implemented by Volunteer Advisors with support of local staff members and experts.

SUMMARY
Reporting to the Director, Program Development and Learning, provides technical advice to project staff in development of strategies and implementation plans in selected value chains; strengthens capacity of project team to conduct and apply value chain analysis with a gender sensitive lens; develops creative tools, processes and templates to enhance effectiveness and efficiency of value chain focused activities; facilitates use of organizational learning to enable evidence based decision making. This position is remote and the successful candidate can be based in either the following provinces/territories: Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia & North-West Territories.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Program Development and Innovation
– Leads value chain analysis to support the management team to develop sector strategies with a focus to advance the status of women as economic/institutional actors and consumers;
– Develops innovative intervention concepts and ideas in selected sectors and value chains in alignment with local needs and donor priorities;
– Develops creative tools, processes and templates to improve effectiveness and efficiency of delivering outputs and outcomes in selected value chains;
– Recommends creative solutions to evolving constraints challenging success of project activities in selected sectors;
– Supports staff members, volunteers and other stakeholders to creatively integrate findings from gender-based analysis of value chains in project design, implementation, Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning (MEL) and communications;
– Collaborates with the program management team and Advisor, Gender Equality and Women’s Economic Empowerment (GE & WEE) to develop a gender equality and women’s economic empowerment strategy that can guide CESO, catalyze impact for women and advance women’s role as agents of change in selected sectors.

2. Technical Guidance
– Supports the application of tools, processes and templates for gender sensitive value chain analysis by collaborating with Program Managers, field staff and Volunteer Advisors (VAs);
– Actively engages with Program Managers, VAs, field staff, local partners and stakeholders in order to identify opportunities and challenges in selected markets;
– Supports the project team to design robustly rationalized gender sensitive activities in alignment with sector strategies;
– Collaborates with the Advisor, (GE & WEE) to support the program management team incorporate gender based analysis as a core consideration in sector strategies;
– Supports the project team to identify potential partners, develop partnership agreements, define scope of objectives and design feasible project activities and work plans;
– Collaborates with project team members to track progress in implementation of operational plans and provides advice for strategic and tactical steering of project activities;
– Integrates consideration of cross-cutting themes into program activities in alignment with donor priorities, local context and organizational strengths;
– Provides guidance to manage internal and external risk factors in accomplishing economic development oriented outcomes.

3. Organizational Learning
– Facilitates the effective flow of information between the MEL and program management functions;
– Actively engages with the M&E function in value chain oriented research and analysis;
– Enables program management staff and VAs to apply sectoral learnings from the MEL system to the projects strategic and operational decision-making;
– Contributes to the development and improvement of processes, tools and templates to strengthen results based management (RBM) in CESO.

4. Organizational Capacity Development
– Supports senior management to identify technical areas where internal capacity development can improve organizational performance in value chain oriented activities;
– Develops training materials and relevant content to introduce value chain related concepts, ideas, tools and processes to staff, volunteer advisors and other stakeholders in Canada and field offices;
– Facilitates consultations and workshops with participants in Canada and field offices with the aim to improve effectiveness and efficiency in delivering equitable impact.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL REQUIREMENTS
QUALIFICATIONS:
– Must have recent experience of gender sensitive value chain analysis in donor funded economic development projects;
– Professional Degree in an area relevant to the described responsibilities;
– Thorough knowledge about at least one of the following value chains- agribusiness, tourism & hospitality, nutrition, green technology;
– Fluent in speaking, reading and writing English;
– Fluent in speaking, reading and writing French or Spanish an asset;
– 3-5 years relevant experience in research, project design, implementation or MEL;
– Knowledge of RBM and other participatory methodologies in program management;
– Field experience, an asset, in at least one of the following regions- Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Asia or the Caribbean.

ADDITIONAL SKILLS:
– Excellent conceptual and analytical skills;
– Excellent organizational, presentation, interpersonal and meeting facilitation skills;
– Proactive team player with creative problem solving skills;
– Ability to achieve goals through respectful collaboration in a cross-functional environment;
– Ability to reach consensus in teams representing departments with contending goals;
– Excellent in remote collaboration with team members in different time zones;
– Available for national and international travel, sometimes at short notice;
– Proficiency using MS Office, primarily Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Please forward your resume, cover letter, including salary expectations, with Advisor, Gender Sensitive Value Chain in the subject line to:

Jennifer Rovet, Recruitment Manager
jrovet@ceso-saco.com

Application deadline: September 10th, 2021

CESO is an equal opportunity employer.
We appreciate the interest of all applicants, but only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

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