Manager, Gender Programmes

Job Summary

The Accelerating Financial Resilience & Insurance for Young African Women in Agrifood Systems (AFIYA) program is a multi-country initiative that seeks to strengthen the resilience of vulnerable young women smallholder farmers and agri-preneurs across eight African countries. AFIYA complements and amplifies existing Mastercard Foundation country programs by embedding innovative insurance and financial inclusion solutions within established initiatives and trusted delivery channels. AFIYA’s core ambition is to enhance the financial security, climate resilience, and entrepreneurial capacity of young women in agriculture, enabling them to sustainably participate in and benefit from agrifood systems.

Job Details

 The Manager, Gender Programmes will ensure that gender-intentionality is embedded in the design, delivery, and systemic outcomes of AFIYA's interventions across all three components.  The Manager will work alongside product development teams to ensure that agricultural insurance solutions are structured from inception to serve young women smallholder farmers and agri-preneurs. The Manager will lead the gender dimensions of AFIYA's education and workforce development strategy shaping how financial literacy programming, climate-smart agriculture skilling, and community engagement are designed to build young women's capacity to understand, access, and retain insurance and credit products. The Manager will ensure that AFIYA's regulatory engagement through R3Lab and its investment in climate and agricultural risk data are driven by gender-disaggregated evidence.

Reports directly to - Head of Delivery, AFIYA

Reports indirectly to - Principal, Innovation for Resilience

Direct reports - Consultants engaged on projects

Contract Type - Full-time, Permanent

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND ROLE REQUIREMENTS

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

COMPETENCIES
Competencies describe the key behaviours that drive success in all of FSD Africa’s roles, regardless of technical specialism. They have been derived from systematic research correlating performance with personal attributes. 

Competency Levels 

• Level 1: Basic
• Level 2: Foundation   
• Level 3: Specialist
• Level 4: Senior Specialist      
• Level 5: Leading Expert          
• Level 6: Executive

This position requires competency at Specialist Level for all the competencies listed below:

ESSENTIAL FOUNDATIONS
Commitment & Alignment
Demonstrates commitment to serving our partners and alignment with the values and vision of FSD Africa
Change & Challenge
Has a strong sense of ownership that leads to learning, self-starting, taking initiative, driving change and leading development
 

ACHIEVEMENT COMPETENCIES
Situational Awareness & Thinking
Thinks clearly and intentionally, analysing information objectively, understanding issues, solving problems, and making decisions
Drive for results
Is keenly motivated to achieve goals & act with accountability to deliver quality results
 

PEOPLE COMPETENCIES
Relationships & Collaboration
Discerns and appreciates the values, viewpoints, or abilities of others; effectively reconciles different interests and displays emotional intelligence
Communication & Influencing
Deliberately adjusts behaviour to accommodate others; communicates clearly, confidently, and appropriately to influence others
 

Requirements

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.
• Experience working with product development or financial sector teams with a demonstrated ability to translate gender analysis into concrete product design and distribution decisions.
• Understanding of climate-smart agriculture and agricultural risk.
• Experience designing gender-disaggregated monitoring and evaluation systems, including indicator development, data collection tool design, and evidence synthesis for policy and regulatory audiences.

Desirable

• Experience of working in a multi-cultural environment
• Experience working with donors, including knowledge of donor policies and procedures
• Previous experience of working in Mastercard Foundation-funded programmes 
• Languages: French, local African languages

Commitment to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity: 

FSDAi is committed to building a diverse organization and a climate of equity and inclusivity.  We strongly encourage applications from candidates who can demonstrate that they can contribute to this goal.

Equal Opportunity Employer: 

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, colour, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability status. We will ensure that all applicants are provided a fair chance to compete for available job opportunities.

About Company

FSD Africa

https://fsdafrica.org/

FSD Africa is a specialist development agency working to help make finance work for Africa’s future. Based in Nairobi, FSD Africa’s team of financial sector experts work alongside governments, business leaders, regulators, and policymakers to design and build ambitious programmes that make financial markets work better for everyone. FSD Africa Investments, provides early-stage, risk-bearing, catalytic and patient capital to inventive commercial organisations in order to stimulate capital flows in support of green economic growth benefiting people and planet. Established in 2012, FSD Africa is incorporated as a non-profit company limited by guarantee in Kenya. It is funded by UK aid from the UK government.