Global Technical Lead – Social Inclusion and Mainstreaming

Job Description:

Sightsavers is looking for an experienced and collaborative Global Technical Lead – who will join our team of Social Inclusion experts to provide technical support on inclusion and mainstreaming in the design of new projects.
Salary: £54,158 – £63,715
Location: UK remote – with occasional travel to Haywards Heath, when required and regular overseas travel
Contract: Permanent (UK)
Hours: This is a full-time role with some flexibility around hours worked and lots of home working

Sightsavers’ programming portfolio is growing, and we deliver a range of disability rights programming in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, which are designed to expand civic space and to make systems and processes more inclusive of people with a range of impairments.

Our social inclusion strategy covers four thematic areas: inclusive health, economic empowerment, citizenship, and political participation, and promoting the rights of women and girls with disabilities. Gender mainstreaming is a core commitment of our work and addressing stigma, negative stereotypes and discrimination is a priority. Similarly, climate action is a core organisational commitment, and all projects now have a climate-related component. Cross-cutting all our work is a strong influencing commitment to ensure that the SDGs, Disability Summit Commitments and UN treaties are implemented effectively, particularly those relating to disability (UNCRPD).

We seek a Global Technical Lead – Social Inclusion and Mainstreaming, with expertise in addressing inequalities, to join our team of social inclusion professionals. The post-holder will be responsible for providing technical support in the design of new projects, the provision of technical expertise to ongoing initiatives and will also play a role in shaping the strategic direction of Sightsavers’ approach to disability inclusive decision-making, gender mainstreaming, and supporting our policy and global advocacy priorities.

The Global Technical Lead – will support the Deputy Technical Director, Social inclusion in delivering Sightsavers’ work in inclusive decision-making. This will include working closely with country office staff to deliver our West Africa portfolio of projects addressing inclusive citizenship and political participation (CPP). Inclusive democracy is an area of growth for Sightsavers, and the post-holder will have a significant role in contributing to growing the portfolio.

Principal accountabilities will include:

Providing Sightsavers staff and our partners, technical leadership, support and guidance in the area of disability inclusion across our thematic area of citizenship and political participation
Identifying the capacity building needs of Sightsavers’ staff and partners globally to deliver social inclusion programming
Working with Global Technical Leads and other teams to identify new strategic initiatives and innovative approaches in social inclusion including in fragile environments and promoting locally led development.
Developing tools and guidance around disability mainstreaming
Representing Sightsavers externally and strengthening partnerships with relevant stakeholders
Working with fundraisers to generate additional financial resources.
Contributing to the design of new opportunities
Actively engaging in the Social Inclusion Thematic Group
Contributing to communications about our work – internally and externally

This is a varied role, please read the full job description for further details

This is an ideal opportunity for someone enthusiastic about leading our efforts in disability mainstreaming across a number of key projects as well as designing new programmes in the future. To succeed in this role, you will need:

Significant and demonstrable practical experience in a relevant field (social work/social inclusion; gender studies, disability studies, international development etc.)
Knowledge of current issues and best practice in social inclusion, gender, disability and development
Experience in social inclusion and rights-based programming in low-resource settings
Experience in developing and adapting programme guidance tools and other resource materials.
Experience in collating, synthesising and disseminating best practice guidance, research and programme learning.
Demonstrable experience of supporting capacity strengthening initiatives and programmes with marginalised groups in low-resource settings
Good knowledge of the key international networks and organisations working on social justice and inclusion
Experience of representing an organisation at conferences and events
Excellent oral and writing skills in English and French
The ability to travel for up to 12 weeks a year
An understanding of and commitment to equality of opportunity for disabled people

Benefits

Sightsavers offers some fantastic benefits. Our comprehensive benefits package includes generous annual leave allowance, pension, season ticket loan, cycle to work scheme, discounted gym memberships and wellness discounts. If you choose to work in or are visiting our collaborative, modern office space, you will find it an easy 20-minute train journey from Brighton or 45 minutes from London.

To apply for this exciting opportunity, please complete an application via our recruitment portal. We are particularly interested in learning of your motivations for applying. Please note that there will be an expectation that you can occasionally visit our modern and collaborative offices in Haywards Heath, West Sussex (RH16 3BW) and attend in-person meetings on at least a quarterly basis. We anticipate that remote interviews will take place w/c Monday 29 April 2024 and the evaluation process will include a written exercise in English and French to be completed by shortlisted candidates in advance of this.

As an equal opportunity employer, we actively encourage applications from all sections of the community. Sightsavers is a Disability Confident Leader and qualified people with a disability are particularly encouraged to apply.

In line with its commitment to safe programming and recruitment, Sightsavers participates in the inter-agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme (MDS) administered by the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response. Through collaboration with other MDS members, Sightsavers aims to ensure that there are no sexual exploitation, abuse or harassment issues relating to potential new hires and that we can respond systematically to checks from fellow MDS members. This ensures our work is accountable, delivered to a high standard and supports safeguarding across the development and humanitarian fields.