Vacancy // Gender, Youth and Inclusion Coordinator at CGIAR WLE

The CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) is a global, research-for-development program. It promotes an innovative approach to sustainable intensification of food and agriculture, a prerequisite for sustainable growth and resilience (http://wle.cgiar.org). WLE is one of 12 CGIAR Research Programs, a global research partnership for a food-secure future (www.cgiar.org). CGIAR Research Programs align the research of 15 CGIAR Research Centers and their partners into efficient, coherent, multi-disciplinary programs. WLE is led by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), a CGIAR Research Center. IWMI is a non-profit, scientific research organization focusing on the sustainable use of water and land resources in developing countries (www.iwmi.org). WLE is run out of the IWMI headquarters in Colombo, Sri Lanka, with regional offices across Asia and Africa. The WLE Program works to bring together the resources of IWMI together with 10 other CGIAR Research Centers, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the RUAF Foundation, thus enabling more interdisciplinary working to deliver knowledge for development impact. WLE has a wide network of research and uptake partners around the world. WLE focuses on the transformations towards sustainable intensification. Social equity and gender inclusion are central to this agenda, and constitute a very important integrating work stream of the Program. WLE works increasingly closely with policy and delivery partners to mobilize evidence it produces into real action. During WLE’s first phase, the program took a gender-transformative approach, based upon the premise that greater gender equality in natural resource management will lead to more sustainable social and economic benefits. As the program moves into its second phase, WLE intends to achieve a deeper understanding of gender relations and social inclusion in the management of agro-ecosystems at a landscape scale. It also seeks to better understand how to address the intersection between gender and other axes of difference, such as class, caste, ethnicity and age, bringing in, for example, youth issues.

The Person and the Job

WLE is seeking an outstanding social scientist, with very strong development impact credentials, in the field of gender, youth and inclusion to take this work stream forwards. This is an exciting opportunity for someone with the enthusiasm and inspiration to make WLE the place to go for evidence, insights and knowledge on gender, youth and inclusion in relation to the sustainable intensification of agriculture. The overall purpose of the Gender, Youth and Inclusion (GYI) Coordinator position is to deliver a step change in the understanding of how to address gender, youth and inclusion as a key element of sustainable food and agriculture systems, and to secure transfer of this evidence to uptake partners for implementation. The position will coordinate production and promotion of high-quality and innovative research and evidence on gender, youth and inclusion across the WLE portfolio. This will involve driving a fundamental gender, youth and inclusion approach at depth, across our work, i.e. during design of research and evidence activities, implementation, communication and knowledge brokering to uptake partners. The GYI Coordinator will also be involved in identifying new lines of enquiry and initiating innovative research for development on strategic new fields for WLE. All this work will take place with a strong focus on changing policy and practice. The person will work closely with the Program Director - WLE and the WLE Flagship Research Leaders and/or their designates, and will report to the Program Director - WLE. The incumbent will be based at IWMI’s headquarters in Colombo, Sri Lanka, but there is a possibility to look into other IWMI regional office locations for the position. We are particularly seeking to encourage candidates from the South.

Requirements

SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES Research coordination and support

• Ensuring that there is a consistent strategy for integrating gender, youth and inclusion within the research of five WLE five sub-programs: (i) Restoring Degraded Landscapes; (ii) Land and Water Solutions for Sustainable Intensification; (ii) Sustaining Rural-urban Linkages; (iv) Managing Resource Variability, Risks and Competing Uses for Increased Resilience; (v) Enhancing Sustainability across Agricultural Systems. This includes outlining key development research questions and entry points for analysis, and outlining how the GYI team can support the flagship activities.
• Provide day to day support to the flagships in identifying key gender, youth and inclusion entry points for existing research activities, including research design, identification of research questions, and written outputs.
• Liaison with other CGIAR institutions and Research Programs (CRPs) for collaborative gender, youth and inclusion research, to identify synergies and to encourage the sharing of skills, data and knowledge for gender, youth and inclusion research.
• Contribute to the monitoring and evaluation of the WLE program to ensure gender, youth and inclusion outputs and outcomes are effectively recorded.
• Engaging with the WLE program management unit on portfolio wide interactions. Participate in management committee meetings, possibly as and when needed, and steering committee meetings.
• Help prepare inputs and reports on gender research achievements as necessary for the CGIAR Systems Office, the WLE Independent Steering Committee and IWMI Board.
• Liaison between flagship leaders, gender focal points and IWMI, the WLE host institution. In particular, this will involve working closely with IWMI’s Sustainable Growth program, to draw synergies in research, and encourage the sharing of skills, data and knowledge for GYI research.

Evidence and knowledge building

• Pursuing research and developing impact-oriented scholarship on overarching questions relating to gender, youth and inclusion, which aligns to the larger goals of the program.
• Research coordination across the flagships to deliver high quality integrative programme wide outputs on gender, youth and inclusion. This includes the identification of new cross-flagship research themes, and contributions to existing initiatives, including emerging research on migration, water and resilience.
• Develop tools to support gender, youth and inclusion research
• Develop consortiums and participate in large research funding bids across the WLE focal basins

Partnerships and engagement

• Work with communications team to ensure maximum media and online coverage of key events for gender, youth and inclusion in 2017
• Organize workshops, or sessions at international events which can expand WLE’s international networks
• Provide guidance to align the different research projects within the flagships, and lead the development of a wider network of research and development partners (e.g., nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) who can broaden support for gender and development issues within the program.

Candidates with a PhD in a social science field (geography, anthropology, sociology, development studies, economics, etc.) or equivalent, and about 10 years’ experience managing applied research or research-for-development projects to support the integration of gender-sensitive, inclusive and pro-poor objectives in developing countries, are invited to apply for the position. Candidates having a proven ability to apply concepts of gender, youth, poverty or institutional analysis to change processes with development and other uptake partners such as the private sector, strong networks in research (including at the grassroots level in Africa and/or Asia), policy engagement and development, and strong track record of peer reviewed publications and research for development communications and collaborative research are encouraged to apply.

Benefits

This is an internationally recruited position at Senior Researcher level (http://www.iwmi.org/irsbss) with a competitive salary and benefits package, which includes a housing allowance, transport, education, shipping assistance, annual home leave, retirement and health insurance package. The duration of the contract will initially be for a three-year period with possible extension. Your application must include a copy of your curriculum vitae, cover letter which addresses IWMI’s requirements stated above, and contact information of three professional referees who may be contacted if you are short-listed for the position. Applications must be submitted by 24:00 (Colombo time) on May 31, 2017 (Wednesday). Source: workable.com website