Temporary Programme Officer: Grant Making About UHAI EASHRI UHAI EASHRI is Africa’s first indigenous activist fund for and by sexual and gender minorities and sex workers. Established in 2009, we have grown to fund civil society organising in 7 countries across the greater Eastern Africa region—Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda—and we also fund, partner with, and grow mission aligned Pan-African human rights organising across the continent. We provide our community partners funding through flexible and accessible, peerreviewed grantmaking; and we complement funding with capacity support, and support for activist-led convening.
Our Design We are a participatory fund; led by local activists living through local human rights struggles. We advance activist voice by providing resources and tools critical to push for change. Our participatory funding model is building agency and leadership in our communities by ensuring they are not just beneficiaries of support, but, more importantly, decision-makers for the support. UHAI is contributing to a radical shift in the narrative of how Africa’s human rights struggles are resourced from one of foreign assistance, to ownership and selfdetermination by local movements.
Temporary Programme Officer: Grant Making We seek to recruit a Temporary Programme Officer (PO) to lead strategic grant making work in Uganda and Ethiopia with a primary function of ensuring that UHAI EASHRI extends the most relevant, impactful and timely representative grants to our movements in those countries, including continuously scanning our organising landscape for strategic opportunities for UHAI to consider and recommending grants to be made, and partnerships to be leveraged and nurtured. They will also work closely with diverse programmes and finance team members to ensure that our grant making strategies and processes are in line with the UHAI strategic plan.
Specific Responsibilities 1. Direct Grant Making
● Provide continuous in-depth knowledge and strategic analysis of the assigned
regional area(s), including providing regular updates on the context, its issues and their evolution, as well as a clear understanding of how these fit into UHAI’s Strategic plan and ToC;
● Assessing new grants applications and recommending organisations to be funded;
Our Design ● Oversee all stages of grantmaking in their respective regional portfolio, including outreaches, solicitation of requests, partners’ due diligence and grantee visits;
● Provide support to the Peer grants review process including recruitment, and
orientation of the Peer Grants Committee (PGC), ensuring they are adequately prepared for their grantmaking role and that the review grant process is rolled out in a seamless manner;
● Preparing periodic reports and analyses of grant making activities including
grants statistics, grantees summaries,donor reports as well as other special reports;
● Developing, managing and implementing the grant making strategies as well as
reviewing the policies and procedures for grant making in line with UHAI’s strategy.
2. Relationship management
● Providing UHAI with advise on the unique and rewarding forms of partnerships with grantee partners, movements and actors in their respective region;
● Representing UHAI professionally by responding to grantmaking enquiries on time, attending grantee partners convenings, meetings, and conferences, and participating in partnership platforms and donor affinity groups as the need may arise;
● Nurturing collaborative partnerships with institutions whose work has potential of upscaling UHAI’s grantmaking role in the region;
● Collegially working closely with grantee partners and movements to ensure the partnerships with UHAI are maintained and are regenerative.
3. Strategic communications
● Working closely with the Partnership and Communications team to strengthen UHAI’s
communications strategy by providing liaison to the team with the grantee partners’ work;
● Providing up to date information to the Director of Programme useful in programme design and resource mobilization.
● Providing information on grantees to other teams, including the Capacity Support,
Knowledge, Communications, Partnership and Communications teams, including regular briefs to the Director of Programmes
4. Programme Management
● Work closely with the Director of Programmes to recommend grantmaking strategies based on evaluation of grantees outreaches and strategic analysis;
● Closely liaise with the Programme officer-Grants Administration to ensure coordinated action and prompt follow up of grant making processes;
● Closely liaise with the Capacity Support Manager to monitor capacity priorities identified in their outreach and grant making function;
● Closely liaise with the Finance and Operations Manager in developing and monitoring grant making budgets, including tracking specific grant awards against the budget;
● Work with the programme team in designing and implementing innovative monitoring and evaluation and learning strategies for the grantmaking function;
● Support the preparation of programme reports, including quarterly Board reports, yearly organisation reports, and various donor reports
● Undertake other duties and responsibilities as assigned by their supervisor.
QUALIFICATIONS AND PERSON SPECIFICATION Must haves 1. Possess excellent knowledge and nuanced analysis of the sexual and gender diversity and expression and Sex Work concerns in East Africa with a focus on Ethiopia and Uganda; as well as have a good knowledge of the civil society landscape generally; 2. An undergraduate degree preferably in any of the following or related fields: public health, public policy, human rights, law or social sciences. 3. Demonstrated knowledge of, understanding and commitment to human rights and social justice approaches to promoting sexual health and rights. 4. Familiarity with programme design, budget management, and monitoring and evaluation with grassroots organisations. 5. Familiarity with grants management, programme design, budget management, and monitoring and evaluation with grassroots organisations. 6. Strong emotional intelligence and sensitivity, flexibility, tolerance and ability to listen and communicate clearly and effectively with people from diverse cultures and backgrounds. 7. Workable proficiency in at least two of the three working languages of UHAI being Swahili, French and English. 8. Excellent oral, public speaking and written communication skills. 9. Ability to work effectively both independently (without detailed daily supervision) and as a member of a team, on a wide range of tasks. 10. Strong organisational and management skills with attention to detail. 11. Discretion and ability to handle confidential issues. 12. Inquisitive and able to question and challenge existing norms in a bid to create new avenues of thought and practice. 13. Willingness to travel.
Desirables 1. Recent demonstrable experience in community/non profit organizing, in the Human rights and Sexual Health and Rights field generally, and/or advocacy or direct service delivery to diverse Sexuality, gender and Sexual Rights movements in any of the Eastern African countries of Burundi, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania. 2. Proficiency in any of the local East African dialects and languages is an added advantage. 3. Demonstrated skills in presentations, research, writing, communications and media work. 4. Discretion and ability to handle confidential issues. 5. Inquisitive and able to question and challenge existing norms in a bid to create new avenues of thought and practice.
Eligibility to Apply The application is open only to nationals and residents of UHAI EASHRI’s countries of focus. For this hire, applicants from Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda and DRC are encouraged to apply.
Terms and Conditions UHAI EASHRI will offer competitive salary and benefits commensurate with experience and ability. We are an equal opportunity employer that and does not discriminate on any basis including ethnicity, physical ability, age, gender identity and sexual orientation.
What to include in your application
● a cover letter discussing your motivation and fit for the position; ● your CV; ● responses to the following question: In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the related gaps that have been identified in the funding landscape for the LGBTIQ and sex worker communities in the Eastern African region, what advice would you give funders seeking to support these movements to sustain their work?
If you find yourself ideal for this position, please email all the above to vacancies@uhai-eashri.org by 23.59 EAT on 28th February 2022, with the subject “Temporary Programme OfficerGrant Making”: Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.