Gender Analyst

Written by AECF

About us

AECF (Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund) is a leading non-profit development organization supporting innovative agribusiness and renewable energy enterprises to reduce rural poverty, promote resilient communities, and create jobs.

We catalyze the private sector by surfacing and commercializing new ideas, business models, and technologies designed to increase agricultural productivity, improve farmer incomes, expand clean energy access, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve resilience to the effects of climate change. We finance high-risk businesses that struggle to access commercial funding. We are committed to working in frontier markets, fragile contexts, and high-risk economies where few mainstream financing institutions dare to go.

Over 17 years, we have supported 536 businesses in 27 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, impacted more than 36 million lives, created over 35,000 direct jobs, and leveraged US$840 million in matching funds.

 Purpose of the role

The Gender Analyst will be part of the Gender Team leading AECF’s work in social finance, Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE), and gender-lens investing.

The role holder will contribute to the delivery of gender activities across our portfolio of WEE and GLI programs and funds, including offering technical assistance to portfolio companies. The role holder will also work in close collaboration with the AECF Impact, Knowledge, and Partnership team to contribute to the overall learning through leadership, dissemination, and business development of AECF’s GLI work.

Key responsibilities

Gender activities design, tools development, activities implementation

  • Support in the implementation of gender work under AECF’s portfolio of programs and funds, Investing in Women and WEE while bringing together AECF’s expertise and resources to support companies to reduce gender gaps across leadership, employment, and entrepreneurship.
  • Contribute to the effective implementation of the gender work for all programs in the portfolio, develop and maintain detailed annual gender activities and scale up gender offerings to selected companies.
  • Prepare materials for gender activities implementation meetings and maintain records of implementation progress across the AECF teams.
  • Contribute to identifying strategic actions that can enhance the quality of implementation.
  • Provide advice on appropriate gender-sensitive indicators across projects and support colleagues in monitoring and reporting results/outputs and objectives against agreed-upon indicators and defined theories of change, in close collaboration with the Impact team.
  • Engage and cultivate relationships with local partners throughout implementation.
  • Assist in monitoring and managing the gender program budget, tracking financial performance in alignment with project plans, and engaging with donors or investors to strengthen collaboration.
  • Provide gender-specific advisory support to clients on women’s employment, entrepreneurship, and other inclusion-focused topics within the private sector.

Partnership, knowledge, and impact

  • Identify opportunities and contribute to the conceptualization of strategic project interventions that address the needs and concerns related to Women’s Economic Empowerment.
  • Work with the Manager, Gender, to mobilize project resources, including funding, by developing fundraising proposals and identifying potential funding sources and linkages with donors.
  • Offer input to AECF programming to ensure that gender analysis effectively informs program and project design and management.
  • Track political, economic, and social developments affecting women’s rights in SSA, produce analytical reports, and contribute to strategic responses to opportunities and challenges within AECF’s projects in collaboration with relevant stakeholders.
  • Participate in thought leadership by representing AECF in GLI and WEE-focused forums and sharing learnings and insights from your portfolio.
  • Support the coordination and management of sectoral and topic-specific research, including areas such as financial services, the blue economy, processing, insurance, agribusiness, transport, renewable energy, and respectful workplaces.
  • Develop company case studies showcasing innovative approaches to closing gender gaps in the private sector.
  • Work with the communications team to develop innovative communications tactics, including the use of digital media, documentaries, etc.

Internal gender mainstreaming

  • Support gender mainstreaming across the institution.
  • Work with the Manager Gender to support portfolio teams with gender flagging against set targets.
  • Promote gender knowledge among AECF colleagues through themed events, communications, and timely reporting.

Suitable candidates should:

  • Hold a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Development Finance, Gender Economics, Finance, Business, or any other related field of study.
  • Have a minimum of five (5) years of experience in one or more of the following areas: social entrepreneurship, impact investing, management consulting, private sector development, agriculture, agribusiness, SME finance, rural financial services, and/or renewable energy and adaptation to combat climate change with a minimum of 2 years of progressively responsible professional experience addressing the promotion of gender equality, inclusivity, and women’s empowerment.
  • Be a seasoned gender lens investing professional with in-depth experience working with the private sector on gender-smart solutions in emerging markets.
  • Have experience in establishing the business case for women’s economic empowerment and know how to provide gender-specific advisory services to private sector companies.
  • Have experience imparting internal or external gender training to mainstream gender transformative programming and sensitivities across institutional practices and programming.
  • Be able to routinely lead operations and research projects and integrate the work of other (often multidisciplinary) professional staff.
  • Be able to proficiently interact with companies’ senior management and development partners and communicate at the policy level with senior government counterparts and other organizations with confidence on the topic.
  • Have technical-operational gender and private sector experience, in particular in women’s employment and entrepreneurship.
  • Be able to demonstrate an ability to conceptualize, design, and implement multi-sector, multi-stakeholder partnerships, and client engagements and to produce analytical reports for clients and donors.
  • Have a track record in managing consultants in a project, monitoring project issues and tasks, meeting deadlines, and setting priorities.
  • Have a strong ability to communicate ideas clearly and confidently (including to the media), articulate issues, and recommend solutions.
  • Have a thorough understanding of the international development agenda and key stakeholders such as the UN, G-20, and private sector partnerships such as the Global Banking Alliance for Women and the Global Compact.
  • Be fluent in English. Knowledge of French is an added advantage.

How to apply

The AECF is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All applicants will be considered based on merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.AECF does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process (application, interview, meeting, processing, training, or any other fees).

If you can clearly demonstrate your abilities to meet the relevant criteria for the role, register and apply at https://recruitment.aecfafrica.org. To be considered, your application must be received by 25 March 2025.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.