The Youth Livelihoods and Employment Advisor (YLEA) is a senior level position that will support technical quality across a portfolio of projects in the Department of Hunger and Livelihoods, employing various types of economic strengthening approaches for adolescents and young adults, including promotion of employment, employability, transferable life skills, entrepreneurship, and financial capability. This portfolio is global in nature, with a current focus in sub-Saharan Africa.
The YLEA will be expected to provide technical inputs and guidance across the project cycle, from design through monitoring and evaluation and final reporting. The YLEA will also distill learnings from this portfolio and use them to produce programming guidance, thought leadership, and compelling fundraising proposals. In addition, the YLEA will stay abreast of industry developments and maintain relationships with key players in the youth livelihoods space. The YLEA is accountable for achieving results in strategic and operational plan with management support. Responsible for setting clear objectives and measures for self. YLEA will exercise independent judgment and discretion on significant matters. YLEA may serve as an Advisor to Senior Management in specific area of expertise.
Technical Leadership for Quality Programming:
- Provide technical assistance to a portfolio of projects deploying economic strengthening strategies targeted at young people – focusing on cost-effectiveness, building a solid evidence base, and moving innovations to scale.
- Maintain a line of sight into technical quality of all youth economic strengthening technical assistance at the country level through productive relationships with field staff, enabling the timely provision of appropriate technical inputs and oversight, as well as the distillation and documentation of lessons learned.
- Focus on strengthening the livelihoods-related technical resources available to, and capacity of, staff implementing Child Sponsorship programs with an adolescent development component, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Contribute to the development, dissemination, and monitoring of program quality tools (including assessments, frameworks and M&E systems).
- Lead the best practice documentation and learning for both internal and external audiences to position Save the Children as a thought leader in youth economic strengthening work.
- Facilitate cross-program linkages, especially with health, child protection, and education.
Business Development:
- Actively incorporate lessons from Save the Children’s (SC) projects and previous technical experience into high-quality thought leadership and positioning activities such as writing, presentations in various industry fora, and active participation in practitioner networks.
- Leverage that experience to produce cogent proposals for new activities involving economic strengthening for young people, alone or in combination with other sectoral strategies.
- Undertake relationship management with key funding, research, implementation, and other partners in the youth livelihoods space. This will include advising Country Offices (COs) on appropriate fund-raising approaches for US-managed donors based on familiarity with CO capacities, operating contexts and key stakeholders and/or potential partners.
Program Learning and Innovation:
- Provide direction and support to the design, testing, and evaluation of innovations to advance youth economic strengthening programming, and participate in and support program assessments, and baseline, midterm, and final evaluations in COs.
- Distill learnings and evidence generated into succinct and compelling programmatic guidance and thought leadership for internal and external consumption.
- Monitor developments in the field of youth livelihoods, and incorporate these and SC experience into the development of new/refined program models in the youth economic strengthening space.
- Identify new operational research opportunities in the area of economic empowerment and strengthening at country, regional and international levels.
- Disseminate technical and project materials to ensure key stakeholders remain informed and engaged.
- Participate as appropriate in agency-wide, regional and international meetings to represent programs.
- Participate with senior leadership in planning and implementation of training and technical support workshops.
- Collaborate with key youth experts across the organization on development of training modules to build capacity of CO sector staff to design and implement quality programs.
- Minimum 7-10 years of experience implementing, managing, and/or providing technical assistance to youth livelihoods programs in developing countries, including employment, entrepreneurship, and financial capability, especially in sub-Saharan Africa;
- Successful proposal development track record, especially for US Government funding sources;
- Ability to synthesize high-quality knowledge products from diverse data sources including programmatic materials and tools;
- Ability to engage at both detailed project/programmatic level as well as take a big-picture view of field/industry;
- Talent for building strong working relationships across cultural and organizational boundaries, and managing through influence;
- Willingness and ability to travel internationally up to 30% of the time;
- Excellent interpersonal, communications and presentation skills;
- Skilled at leading diverse technical teams; and,
- Excellent written English.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with other sectoral youth development strategies;
- Master’s degree;
- Experience implementing microfinance approaches, especially for youth;
- Monitoring, evaluation and learning dissemination skills and experience; and,
- French language ability to further of youth employment and livelihoods work in francophone countries.
- Meaningful work, with a knowledge that you are changing the lives of children all around the world
- A family friendly work environment
- Highly collaborative and innovative teams
- Generous paid vacation days, holidays, family leave days, and sick time
- Healthcare plans including medical, dental, and life insurance
- Retirement savings account with matching company contributions
- Structured and formalized management development and coaching programs for mid and senior level managers
- Extensive e-learning opportunities on a variety of topics offered through our affiliation with several prestigious universities as well as language learning opportunities