Manager, Gender Programmes

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND ROLE REQUIREMENTS

Gender-Intentional Product Design (Develop) 

Serve as the gender lead embedded in AFIYA's product development workstreams, working directly alongside the insurtechs, insurers, and reinsurer partners engaged in AFIYA to design and refine agricultural insurance solutions for young women smallholder farmers and agri-preneurs.

• Support in defining gender-intentional product design criteria for AFIYA insurance solutions, interrogating how premium structures, claims processes, policy terms, and distribution channel requirements include or exclude young women.
• Conduct gender analysis of agricultural insurance product prototypes at the design stage, identifying structural barriers relating to land tenure, income seasonality, mobile money access, and household-level financial decision-making that determine whether products reach and serve young women before they go to market.
• Work with country teams and cross-functional partners to ensure integration of gender considerations into program design, implementation, and monitoring.
• Ensure gender considerations are embedded in reinsurance and lending partners programmes.

 Adoption and Capacity Building (Adopt) 

Lead the gender dimensions of AFIYA's adoption and capacity building strategy, ensuring that financial literacy programming, climate-smart agriculture skilling, and community engagement are designed and delivered in ways that build young women's capacity to access, understand, and retain insurance and credit products;

• Design targeting frameworks and segmentation approaches that enable implementing partners to identify and reach young women smallholder farmers and agri-SME owners across AFIYA's countries of operation. 
• Support development of financial literacy and capability-building curricula grounded in how young women in agrifood systems make financial decisions, manage seasonal cash flows, and engage financial institutions.
• Equip implementing partners and country teams with practical tools and guidance to apply gender-intentional approaches in product distribution, client engagement, and beneficiary targeting.
• Oversee the integration of social norm change approaches into client-facing programming, ensuring interventions address household-level barriers.
• Monitor and report on adoption rates, retention, and product utilisation disaggregated by gender, and use this evidence to continuously refine targeting and capability-building approaches.

Evidence Generation and Regulatory Engagement (Enable)

Own the gender-disaggregated evidence base that AFIYA requires to drive its regulatory engagement through R3Lab and inform policy dialogue for gender-intentional agricultural insurance at scale: 

• Design the gender data architecture across AFIYA's monitoring and results measurement system, establishing what sex-disaggregated and gender-specific indicators are collected at intervention and country programme levels.
• Manage research and learning activities — including rapid gender assessments, barrier studies, and periodic outcome reviews that generate evidence on how young women in agrifood systems engage with insurance and credit products, and what product design, distribution, or regulatory adjustments would improve outcomes.
• Translate programme-level gender evidence into policy-relevant outputs — briefs, regulatory submissions, data insights, and stakeholder presentations — that support AFIYA's engagement with insurance regulators, central banks, and development finance institutions across programme countries.
• Support R3Lab's engagement with policymakers and regulators to advocate for gender-intentional regulatory frameworks, using AFIYA's evidence base to identify specific regulatory barriers and data gaps that prevent young women from accessing and benefiting from agricultural insurance.
• Ensure all gender evidence feeds back into programme adaptation, establishing a learning loop between the Enable, Develop, and Adopt workstreams that keeps AFIYA's gender-intentionality responsive to what the data shows.

Programme Integration and Stakeholder Management 

Take initiative to build relationships and ensure effective collaboration with and between all project stakeholders and FSD Africa colleagues; includes managing any consultants deployed to the projects being managed:

• Maintain embedded working relationships with the programme leads participating in design sessions, technical reviews, and implementation planning meetings as an integrated programme contributor.
• Foster collaboration across organisational pillars, identifying opportunities for synergy and coordinated actions.
• Respond effectively to stakeholder information needs, organising targeted capacity-building events or knowledge dissemination.
• Manage consultants and teams through motivational leadership, ensuring high performance and effective project outcomes.
• Engage continuously with stakeholders to nurture relationships, ensuring ongoing collaboration and support for projects.

Risks & Resources Management 

Ensure effective management of resources/budget for projects under management, aiming to optimise the impact that is achieved with resources and ensuring compliance with Mastercard regulations:

• Develop project plans, budgets, and forecasts to ensure optimal resource utilisation and compliance with organisational policies.
• Ensure rigorous due diligence and risk assessments are conducted, ensuring thorough analysis without impeding project operations.
• Liaise internally to manage financial resources effectively, ensuring compliance with statutory and donor regulations.
• Regularly analyse portfolio performance for value-for-money, adjusting strategies to enhance development impact.

Carry out any other duties or special assignments as assigned by the Management.

PERSON SPECIFICATIONS

Qualifications and Education

• Master’s degree and 6 years of experience or bachelor’s degree and 8 years of experience.
• Relevant postgraduate qualifications preferred.
• Excellent skills in written and spoken English.

Essential Experience, Knowledge, and Skills

• At least 6 years of progressively senior experience in gender programming, with significant exposure to financial inclusion, insurance markets, or financial product design.
• Demonstrated ability to integrate gender analysis into financial sector interventions — whether in product design, distribution channel development, or regulatory engagement.
• Substantive understanding of how insurance markets, lending facilities, and regulatory frameworks function in sub-Saharan African contexts.