Community Facilitators – Field

GLOBAL WOMEN EMPOWERMENT DEVELOPMENT ETHIOPIA (GWEDE)

VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT 

About GWEDE

Global Women Empowerment Development Ethiopia (GWEDE) is a national, women-led and community-rooted civil society organization established in 2022. GWEDE works to advance gender equality, women’s and girls’ empowerment, food and nutrition security, resilient livelihoods, inclusive economic empowerment, WASH, protection, peacebuilding, and sustainable community development in Ethiopia.

GWEDE envisions a future where gender equality, inclusion, and locally led leadership drive sustainable community progress. The organization works with women, youth, pastoralist and agro-pastoralist communities, local institutions, government, CSOs, and development and humanitarian partners to strengthen local capacities, amplify marginalized voices, expand opportunities, and promote resilient and inclusive solutions.

GWEDE is committed to localization, equal opportunity, diversity, safeguarding, and accountability. Qualified women, youth, persons with disabilities, and candidates from Borena Zone and surrounding pastoralist and agro-pastoralist communities are strongly encouraged to apply. Candidates with strong knowledge of the local context, communities, languages, culture, and development and humanitarian priorities are particularly encouraged.

GWEDE seeks competent, committed, and values-driven professionals who are passionate about community engagement and contributing to gender responsive, inclusive, locally led, and sustainable development outcomes.

About the Project

LEVEL UP is a three-year initiative designed to make Borena’s food system more inclusive, climate-resilient, nutrition sensitive, and market oriented by strengthening the economic participation, leadership, resilience, and agency of pastoralist and agro pastoralist women and female youth.

The project uses Market Systems Development, Gender Transformative, climate-resilient, nutrition-sensitive, and graduation approaches to strengthen women’s participation in three high-potential value chains: poultry, irrigation-based horticulture, and small ruminants.

LEVEL UP will work across Arero, Yabello, and Gomole woredas, strengthening women’s and female youth’s access to markets, services, productive assets, skills, leadership opportunities, and decision-making, while supporting institutions to adopt more gender responsive and inclusive practices.

The project seeks to create sustainable economic opportunities, stronger agency and leadership, and more inclusive market and institutional systems that enable women and female youth to participate in and benefit equitably from Borena’s evolving food economy.

 Community Facilitators – Field

Purpose of the Position

Community Facilitators are the frontline of WE-LIFT at kebele level and the primary link between communities, woreda structures, and the project team. Based in and assigned to a specific woreda (Arero, Yabello, or Gomole), each facilitator leads community mobilization, participatory and transparent targeting, group formation, and gender-transformative engagement to ensure that pastoralist and agro-pastoralist women and female youth participate fully and that interventions are locally owned, culturally appropriate, and conflict-sensitive. Facilitators translate project activities into day-to-day community-level action across the poultry, horticulture, and small-ruminant value chains, while driving the household- and community-level behaviour and social-norm change that underpins women's economic empowerment. Given GWEDE's identity as a pastoralist women-led organization, facilitators play a critical role in building trust with communities, customary and religious leaders, and local government, and in ensuring that the voices and priorities of women and female youth shape implementation.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead community sensitization and mobilization at kebele level to introduce the project, build trust, and secure the engagement of communities, customary and religious leaders, and local government.
• Facilitate participatory, transparent, and verifiable identification and selection of women and female youth participants using agreed eligibility criteria, in collaboration with community representatives and woreda authorities.
• Support participatory assessments to identify suitable horticulture sites around micro-dams and ensure inclusive, gender-sensitive, and conflict-sensitive site selection.
• Organize and register women and female youth into poultry, irrigation-based horticulture, and small-ruminant producer groups, cooperatives, and enterprises to strengthen collective production, business development, and market participation.
• Identify and mobilize female youth into producer, aggregation, and marketing enterprises to strengthen entrepreneurship and sustainable self-employment.
• Support the formation and strengthening of VSLAs and savings groups, and facilitate basic group governance, dynamics, and collective action.
• Support day-to-day, kebele-level implementation and scheduling of value chain, enterprise, nutrition, and gender activities, and coordinate the participation of producers in trainings, demonstrations, coaching, and market activities.
• Facilitate participants' access to and correct use of productive inputs provided under transparent, performance-based cost-sharing arrangements, and support post-distribution follow-up at community level.
• Support the establishment of demonstration and learning sites and mobilize producers to participate in and learn from them.
• Support participants to access business development services, mentorship, and start-up/incubation support, and facilitate their linkages with cooperatives, buyers, input suppliers, and financial service providers.
• Conduct household-level engagement, couples' dialogue, and community conversations that promote joint decision-making, women's control over productive assets and income, and more equitable gender roles.
• Establish and facilitate community-led Social Analysis and Action (SAA) platforms training and supporting local facilitators, providing discussion tools, and guiding regular reflection and collective action planning to address barriers to women's economic participation.
• Facilitate community dialogue sessions with men, elders, religious leaders, customary (Gadaa) leaders, and other influencers to promote equitable gender norms, shared household decision-making, and acceptance of women's leadership and economic participation.
• Identify, engage, and support male champions and community role models who advocate for gender equality, and help document and amplify positive examples of behaviour change.
• Support transparent nomination processes and leadership pathways for women and female youth within producer groups, cooperatives, and community structures, and encourage them to take up and perform leadership roles.
• Support women and female youth to participate in consultation forums, water-user associations, and value chain and community governance structures so their priorities inform local planning and decision-making.
• Facilitate mentorship and peer-learning connections between emerging women leaders and experienced leaders in cooperatives and community institutions.
• Mobilize households to participate in market-based nutrition campaigns and behaviour-change activities, and support linkages with health extension systems, agro-dealers, retailers, and women-led enterprises.
• Disseminate culturally appropriate, gender-responsive nutrition information and IEC/BCC materials to promote improved dietary practices and household consumption of diverse, nutritious foods.
• Operate accessible community feedback, complaints, and accountability mechanisms (CFM); record and refer issues, including protection and safeguarding concerns, through the correct channels; and ensure timely follow-up.
• Collect accurate field data, maintain participant and activity records and databases, and support monitoring, documentation of results, and MEAL activities.
• Conduct regular community-level follow-up, identify implementation challenges, recommend corrective actions, and document lessons and good practices.
• Coordinate closely with woreda sector offices, development agents, extension and veterinary workers, cooperatives, and community structures to align activities with local plans and strengthen ownership and sustainability.
• Serve as the primary link between communities, the field office, and the project team, and provide regular field updates to the Field Office Coordinator.