Senior Program Officer, Women's Livelihoods Development

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Gates Foundation

  • Career category: Programme/ Project design & management
  • Job type: Job
  • Experience level: 5-10 years
  • Organisation type: Philanthropy
  • Remote option: No
  • Right to work requirements: Anyone can apply
  • Remuneration: Not Disclosed
  • Work schedule: Full-time
  • Length of contract: Temporary/ Fixed-term
  • Deadline: 11/07/2025
  • Location: Ethiopia
Economic justice
The Foundation
We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. 


What You’ll Do
  • Partner with foundation colleagues and external collaborators to develop, implement and assess the vision and Theory of Change of the WEE portfolio. Advance a forward-looking strategy with clear impact pathways for WEE and the GE Division that supports WLD and economic opportunity, playing a collaborative role with other teams in Ethiopia, including the health team.
  • Build and manage a portfolio of WLD investments against the full WEE strategy for capital and markets with global and in-country partners focused on Ethiopia, with support to investments, learning and representation across Sub-Saharan Africa. Ensure that investments achieve their outcomes, making course corrections and adjustments as needed, to ensure success across WEE focal areas of women’s access to capital and markets, enabled through digital tools, platforms, and data, with connection points with GE Division women’s health and other GE programming.
  • Develop investable concepts and grant proposals, collaborating with WEE and GE colleagues to provide clear, concise, and insightful written analyses and recommendations for funding with strong emphasis on leverage, building on WEE comparative advantages and building evidence of impact.
  • Be a thought partner with grantees and ecosystem stakeholders - in Ethiopia and elsewhere in the continent - on the design of new partnerships supporting WLD, building out initial ideas into strong partnerships, leverage and systems change approaches.
  • Other special projects as assigned.

Your Experience
  • Master’s or other advanced degree in a related field (e.g., development economics, finance, public policy, business), with a minimum of 7-10 years of relevant senior level experience, with on the ground experience in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on Ethiopia preferred.
  • Significant technical expertise and hands-on experience related to the design and delivery of high impact women’s livelihoods programming, including women’s access to appropriate financial products, markets, and digitally enabled services to low-income populations in emerging markets.
  • Experience working with partners in low and middle-income countries to implement change.
  • Experience in service delivery through private sector institutions, civil society and government programming is preferred.
  • Demonstrated experience with programming related to gender equality and WEE.
  • Deep experience in financial services development and delivery relevant to women, ideally at both wholesale and retail levels.
  • Experience with market systems approaches to livelihood development, particularly focused on the informal sector, including nano, micro and small enterprises.
  • Experience with the use of data-driven interventions and digital solutions development, delivery, and use of data to understand impact and cost effectiveness of investments.
  • Understanding of regulatory frameworks that pertain to women’s livelihoods, market development and financial services is preferred.
  • Ability to work on complex, ambitious problems and collectively build solutions working across partners from a diverse set of disciplines and geographies.
  • Proficiency in English, and ideally other languages spoken in the region.

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