Senior Advisor - Gender, Woman, and Democracy

 About Us

The National Democratic Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness, and accountability in government.  Help support democracy worldwide by joining our team! 

About the Role

The National Democratic Institute (NDI) seeks a Senior Gender Advisor to provide the Institute with expert guidance in designing and leading cross-cutting global programs in democratic governance that promote gender equality and women's empowerment. The Senior Gender Advisor is a senior position within the Institute.  The incumbent will be based on the Gender, Women, Democracy (GWD) team at NDI's headquarters in Washington DC, and offer senior level insight and strategic direction to staff and leadership from multiple regional and functional teams on gender, power and equity.  Integral to GWD's work is the development of tools and approaches for gender-transformative democracy programming, informed by NDI’s theory of change, and its commitment to gender analysis and gender mainstreaming. The incumbent will be a source of advice to the Institute on its corporate agendas related to its vision, mission and values, and on diversity, equity and inclusion. The applicant should have demonstrated experience in gender and in democracy.  Additional experience of working on or in conflict-affected, fragile and transitional political contexts  programs, as well as in the implementation of international development programs are desirable.

Your Purpose and Impact:

• Manages the collection, archiving and dissemination of institutional knowledge in the subject matter of gender, women, and democracy.
• Advises NDI staff on best practices for program development, implementation and evaluation on issues related to gender, women and democracy.
• Offer advice, training and guidance to NDI staff to promote a deeper understanding of opportunities to accelerate gender equality and the political empowerment of women in all their diversities.
• Increase gender, women, and democracy program expertise within NDI by ensuring tools and approaches are available and accessible across the Institute's network.
• Provide Strategic vision, leadership and planning from a gender and inclusion perspective for NDI’s corporate and institutional strategies and policies.
• Promote knowledge sharing and collaborative tools to facilitate sharing of ideas and work among internal and external stakeholders.
• Work with NDI regional and functional teams to conceptualize, design, and implement NDI’s programs in collaboration with local partners, in-house experts and external experts and advisors.
• Cultivate institutional relationships with domestic and international organizations working on democratic governance issues.
• Represent NDI at conferences and meetings related to gender, inclusion and democracy.
• Embrace team communication, information and documentation systems; observe organizational policies and established internal team guidelines and procedures.
• Mentor staff on the Gender, Women, and Democracy team.
• Actively seek and engage in professional development opportunities to enhance knowledge in approaches and new thinking on gender and democracy and related issues, and maintain a general working knowledge of relevant program trends and issues occurring external to NDI.
• Perform other duties as required.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in a field of study related to gender or women’s studies and international development required; and graduate degree in political science, gender or women’s studies, international relations, public policy, law, human rights, conflict studies, or related field preferred;
• Fourteen (14) years relevant professional technical experience in international development, preferably in gender and women's rights programs, in particular on strengthening inclusive and equitable democratic norms and institutions in international contexts. An advanced degree or work towards one in a relevant discipline may be substituted for required years of experience on a one-for-one basis.
• Other experience may reflect a combination of: women, peace and security or women in politics and public leadership; gender, transparency and anti-corruption programming; gender-based violence including technology-facilitated gender-based violence; building women's social  movements; feminist foreign policy, and international development.
• Demonstrated proposal writing, program budgeting and donor report writing experience. 
• Experience working with the United States and other bilateral donors, international organizations,