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The Local Networks (LocNet) team invites host institutions in Africa, Asia and Latin America that are already working with community networks to apply and nominate one candidate for the position of gender coordinator in the region of their scope.
“Meaningful community-centred connectivity” is a project under the Local Networks (LocNet) initiative, a collective effort led by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Rhizomatica in partnership with people and organisations in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). It aims to directly support community networks and other community-centred connectivity initiatives, while contributing to an enabling ecosystem for their emergence and growth. It is part of a multi-year, multi-donor strategy envisaged to address the human capacity and sustainability challenges, along with the policy and regulatory obstacles, that limit the growth of community-based connectivity initiatives.
Funding Information
- The host institution in each of the three regions selected will receive USD 14,500. This fund should cover a minimum 0.5 full-time equivalent, 9 ½ month contract for the regional coordinator, who is expected to work from 6 March 2024 until 31 December 2024. While the 2024 contract would be for 9 ½ months, there is a possibility for further time extension should funding allow.
Responsibilities
- Primary Responsibilities
- Prepare and lead a regional gender strategy for the project.
- Coordinate gender activities for their respective regions.
- Assess and identify priorities for their regions and support local organizations in the gender integration of the work.
- Identify and participate in regional capacity-building and movement-building activities and events.
- Coordinate and report the results of face-to-face and virtual meetings of LocNet partner organizations in the region concerning gender and community network activities.
- Coordinate the development of the regional capacity-building program aspects of SPACE in their region.
- Integrate the work in the broader gender communication plan to collect stories for impact visualization.
- Participate in the project’s inception meeting in 2024 as well as in online and face-to-face meetings and events coordinated by the gender integration outcome area.
- Secondary Responsibilities
- Advocacy: Support the gender policy advocacy plans globally, and especially in their region.
- Fundraising and resource mobilization: Assist the project team with developing a multi-year strategy to continue the project’s work.
Location
- The applicant will work at a location within the region agreed with the host institution and preferably be from and living in the specific region where the institution is largely based. Institutions with experience in regional networks will be given preference.
Eligibility Criteria
- The following qualifications, background, and experience are expected from the individual candidate proposed by the host institution:
- Experience in gender-led projects or programs rooted in the region.
- Experience working with community networks or similar projects (in “rural development”, “rural connectivity”, “access development”, “community radio”, etc.).
- Knowledge about policy advocacy processes and other mechanisms that enable community networks, small operators, or universal affordable access in one of the three regions.
- Ability to plan and think strategically, in particular, to revise practices and suggest solutions to ensure the efficiency of the implementation of the project.
- Ability to handle conflict and to approach communities with compassion.
- Capacity to work autonomously and in a team setting.
- Excellent writing, documentation, filing, and communication skills.
- Good command of the English language and local dialects and languages.
- Not necessary but favored:
- Technical experience in the deployment of community networks.
- The ability to communicate in Spanish or Portuguese would be an advantage.
