Gender & Social Development Associate (Npsa-6), Swapno Ii

Over the last decade, Bangladesh has experienced remarkable economic growth and human development. Despite progress, fragile employment and the growing frequency and intensity of disasters and climate hazards are impeding progress. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequality and forced millions of people into poverty in Bangladesh. Women are facing the burden of these complicated issues, and the pandemic primarily had gendered consequences, slowing or even reversing much of the progress made toward gender equality.

SWAPNO (Strengthening Women's Ability for Productive New Opportunities) is a gender-based social security project that aims to lift poverty-stricken rural women (divorced/separated/widowed/having a husband with disability) out of economic insecurity by providing them with productive and sustainable livelihood opportunities. In addition to self-employment, SWAPNO also helps place women in local Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and private sector companies in the formal and informal sectors.

Since its inception, SWAPNO has benefited 12,492 beneficiaries in five districts. Among them, SWAPNO II has covered 3564 in Jamalpur, Lalmonirhat and Gaibandha districts. The project has aided economically disadvantaged women in developing their talents, linking them to services and the local market, and ensuring their financial inclusion. This has ensured their survival, improved their resilience to shocks, and provided them more power.

Based on the success of the project and the experience gained, SWAPNO II aspires to implement the project across the 12 districts of Bangladesh - Lalmonirhat, Nilphamari, Rangpur, Gaibandha, Jamalpur, Sherpur, Gopalgonj, Bagerhat, Pirojpur, Patuakhali, Cumilla, and Chandpur. SWAPNO will specifically targeted women group from 18 to 30 years and 31 to 45 years to ensure employability and sustainability of project outcomes. The project will maximize the possibilities for financial inclusion while also emphasizing future employability by improving industry skills for job placements in the formal sector and local SMEs. Additionally, SWAPNO will aim to attract investors for social enterprises that offer commercially viable solutions for social problems, encourage environment-friendly business, create employment, and collaborate with the private sector. The project will put further emphasis on the importance of disaster resilience and climate change adaptation and train women to develop their life and soft skills.

In this backdrop, this Implementation Plan outlines SWAPNO’s strategy to support women’s access to decent employment, ensure a discrimination-free environment in public workplaces, develop adaptive livelihoods, establish localized Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), access to financial services for sustainable graduation from extreme poverty, and develop local government capacity to implement pro-poor projects. SWAPNO II will contribute to achieve the following results:

• Outcome 1: Strengthen Institutional Capacity for Sustaining SWAPNO Benefits
• Outcome 2: Increased Income and Assets Engaging Local Economy and Skill Development
• Outcome 3: Strengthened Human Capabilities and Resilience Capacity

Gender and Social Development Associate is a Dhaka-based position under the direct supervision of the National Project Manager (NPM) of the SWAPNO project. The Gender & Social Development Associate will bear the responsibility of life-skills development and women empowerment component. S/he will ensure that the graduation strategy for core beneficiary women is implementable considering local gender conditions and engage in advocacy to remove obstacles and create a more congenial environment. Apart from Life-skills development interventions, s/he will advise on specific training needs of women UP representatives and devise training interventions accordingly. The Gender & Social Development Associate will also closely work with the UP-standing committee, local administration, and District Legal Aid Committees to ensure a safe job environment and access to legal support.

Summary of Key Functions:

The incumbent shall carry out the duties given below to achieve the mission:

Review Gender strategy and develop necessary guidelines for the SWAPNO project

• Prepare a Gender Action Plan for the project;
• Develop guidelines for awareness-raising activities on malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies through community sessions;
• Develop guidelines to promote decent work for the workplace, safety, and dignity by developing mechanisms to prevent sexual harassment/gender-based violence (GBV) for SWAPNO II;

Organize different assessments and lead different campaign

• Analyze gender context in the working areas and identify measures to be taken to remove factors impeding the socio-economic rights of the women beneficiaries;
• Led advocacy initiative with national-level stakeholders to get support for the women beneficiaries to get economic access;
• Engage women to observe different days on women empowerment, and gender equality to remove obstacles and create a women-friendly environment; 
• Conduct assessment of the nutritional status of women beneficiaries and their family members and play an active role in developing nutrition campaigns;
• Facilitate and motivate the Ups Standing Committee to address VAW using MoWCA's existing facilities and database;

Support capacity development activities for local partners and stakeholders 

• Support to facilitate capacity development training programme for Union Disaster Management Committee (UDMC) members on Gender-responsive Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA); 
• Support Gender friendly Apprenticeship training programs in different informal sector employment and Local SME development;
• Capacity building for field staff on Behaviour Change and Communication (BCC) to conduct a campaign on sexual health and menstrual hygiene as well as a balanced nutrition diet at the community level in partnership with local health service providers for project beneficiaries;
• Facilitate awareness/orientation sessions on life skills modules on Rights, Entitlement and Gender Development, and leadership development;

Develop effective linkage with service providers and relevant stakeholders

• Support the establishment of linkages between service providers and beneficiary households for public services essential for family welfare;
• Establish a hotline for reporting incidents of violence against and harassment of women, in both the public and private sphere and a referral pathway that includes necessary physical and mental health support for the survivors;
• Comply and follow all the guidelines  provided by the Country Office to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment within the scope of the SWAPNO project intervention.

Institutional Arrangement

The Gender and social Development Associate will work under the direct supervision of the National Project Manager (NPM) of SWAPNO project. This position is a Dhaka based with visits to project-implementing location.

• Adequate knowledge on social protection, rural development, gender mainstreaming, poverty; alleviation, food security, livelihood promotion, and working with the donors and development agencies;
• Experience in working on gender equality issues particularly relating to women in decision-making/ leadership; 
• Demonstrates ability to work in a programmatic context at field level; 
• Demonstrates track record in the preparation and implementation of Gender Action Plans;
• Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills; 
• Demonstrates skills in facilitating and organizing training for both women and men on gender;
• Experience of running campaigns with young girls and boys; 
• Experience in developing training materials, and familiarity with UNDP policies and procedures is an asset;
• Demonstrable proficiency with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other relevant software.

• Proven experience in working with NIM projects will be an added advantage.

• Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written, in English and Bengali.