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Job Category Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Programme Roles) Job Description (Roles and Responsibilities)Main purpose of job:
We are looking for a Social Development Adviser to join the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) at British High Commission (BHC) in Islamabad.
This role is managed in the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Team (GESI) within Open Societies and Effective Institutions Group. This team acts as the hub for social development expertise within BHC. While the line management and technical quality assurance function for this role sits within this group, the job holder will provide social development inputs to sectoral teams. The indicative division of labour for the role is as follows: 40% Health and Education; 40% Climate Change and Resilience; up to 20% broader social development priorities and modest flexible support across other groups as required.
The job holder will be expected to demonstrate and apply knowledge, experience and skills around the social development competencies: social policy; poverty and vulnerability analysis and monitoring; gender equality, rights and the empowerment of women and girls; empowerment and accountability; and social protection. (See below for more details)
The SDA role requires the provision of expert advice on mainstreaming gender equality, social inclusion and rights into the design, implementation, appraisal and evaluation of sectoral programmes; on the development, implementation and dialogue around our own and Pakistan’s policies on education, health, climate and the environment and social protection; and on diplomacy and international partnerships as needed. She/he will play an expert role in inter-disciplinary thinking and thought leadership, linking programmes, and bringing deep expertise to maximise the impact of our work in Pakistan.
The job holder will have a solid understanding of poverty, vulnerability, social exclusion, marginalisation and inequality in Pakistan and will be able to develop strong links with specialist networks, research organisations and professional bodies in Pakistan and globally.
The role requires excellent communication and team working skills and the ability to work with a diverse set of operational, programmatic and policy leads. It will also necessitate strong interpersonal and networking skills to build and maintain working relationships across the British High Commission on related issues including on the Pakistan Network Gender Strategy and human rights.
The role sits in GESI team whose focus is to ensure integration of gender, inclusion, and rights perspectives into our engagements across all BHC campaigns. The team has a supportive work culture in which members work flexibly to support each other and share their skills. There are also excellent learning and development opportunities available, and the Senior Social Development Adviser will provide enduring guidance and support.
Roles and responsibilities / what will the jobholder be expected to achieve?:
Social development advice and analysis for informing effective programme development, implementation and monitoring as well as policy dialogue on education, health and climate resilience.
• Collaborate effectively with thematic and programme leads, including around defining short, medium, and long-term social development demands / requirements, drawing in senior social development colleagues as necessary.
• Provide timely, high quality social analysis to better understand the drivers of poverty, exclusion and inequality, and implications for policy and programmatic work. This will include providing data, information, and knowledge to support programming and policy dialogue at Federal and Provincial levels.
• Participate effectively in the development of business cases (BCs), annual reviews (ARs) and project completion reviews (PCRs) and ensure that these reflect accurately / realistically issues related to women and girls, gender, social inclusion.
• Act as the focal point for strengthening approach to safeguarding in education, health and climate change teams.
• Provide leadership for the group on responding and engaging internally and externally on inclusion issues, including gender equality and disability.
Specific tasks related to education and health.
• Lead a process to provide analysis of education and health teams’ overall approach to equity, inclusion, and targeting of the poorest, making specific recommendations on strengthening it going forward.
• Provide social develop advice to support the building of more inclusive health and education systems for delivering more and better social services to the most marginalised people.
• Lead education and health teams’ engagement on freedom of religion or belief (FORB) in close coordination with education and health advisors, including representing the group at cross-mission human rights strategy discussions.
• Contribute a social development perspective and analysis to the further development of a new cross-mission workstream on demography.
Specific tasks related to climate change & resilience.
• Act as the lead social development adviser for the Building Resilience and Addressing Vulnerability to Emergencies in Pakistan (BRAVE) programme. BRAVE is a climate resilience and response programme that aims to maximise the Government of Pakistan’s and communities’ ability to anticipate, avoid, plan for, cope with, recover from and adapt to climate related shocks and stresses. It focuses on institutional strengthening, community climate resilience, and adaptive and shock responsive social protection initiatives. The job holder will lead the adaptive and shock responsive social protection initiatives.
• Act as lead social development adviser for the Water Resource Accountability Pakistan (WRAP) programme. WRAP aims to strengthen water governance at national and provincial levels, supporting adaption to climate change and improving environmental sustainability.
Essential on arrival:
• Advanced degree (Masters) in social policy, international development, sociology, gender studies or similar relevant discipline.
• At least five years of full-time relevant professional experience, with demonstrated experience across the breadth of technical competencies.
• Knowledge of poverty and vulnerability, gender and inclusion issues in Pakistan.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills
• Ability to work and deliver project outcomes within tight deadlines.
Demonstrated experience and expertise that meets FCDOs technical competencies on Social Development Cadre . Please refer to the FCDO technical competency framework: FCDO Social Development technical competency framework 2020 (publishing.service.gov.uk)
Desirable qualifications, skills and experience Desirable:
• Experience of working in education, health and/or climate and resilience is strongly desirable.