Are you passionate about advancing gender justice? Do you have experience tackling inequalities from a human rights lens? CESR seeks a Program Officer with a proven commitment to human rights, economic justice, and gender justice to play a critical role in achieving our programmatic goals. The Program Officer will help challenge the global financial architecture that drives gender-based inequalities within and between countries. This is a remote position, with a preference for candidates based in the Global South.

Who we are

CESR is an international NGO that harnesses the power of human rights to inspire fairer and more sustainable economies. Our vision is of a world in which a just distribution of resources and power enables current and future generations to live with dignity, in full enjoyment of their economic and social rights. With a strong team of human rights and economic justice advocates worldwide, we are currently embarked on a four-year strategy to transform the global economic system and catalyze collective action toward it. Our work is informed by the certainty that this transformation needs unprecedented collaboration between NGOs and social movements. This is an exciting opportunity for a researcher, advocate, or activist, preferably from the Global South, to join a well-respected, high-impact international organization working to advance a Rights-Based Economy that prioritizes people over profit.

What you’ll do

Reporting to CESR’s Director of Program, the Program Officer devises and implements effective strategies for research, advocacy, skill-building, and movement-bridging to fulfill the objectives of CESR’s organizational strategy. Specific responsibilities include:

Research and policy

• Contributing to rigorous research—using a political economy, human rights, and feminist lens—to identify trends in key policy areas, particularly global tax policy, sovereign debt, and corporate accountability. This work will document how these policies impact human rights and drive structural inequalities both within and between countries, with a focus on their effects on gender inequality.

• Putting forward evidence-based, human rights-aligned policy proposals that complement the work of our partners and allies, particularly in the Global South, and align with the demands of the most affected communities.

Advocacy and relationship-building

• Designing and executing collaborative advocacy strategies to expose the gendered impacts of economic policies, promote feminist, rights-based alternatives, and hold powerful actors—such as governments, multinational corporations, and international financial institutions—accountable.

• Expanding CESR’s network of allies and partners by building strategic, trusting, and mutually supportive relationships, especially with groups and social movements focused on global economic justice and progressive economic alternatives.

• Conducting skill-sharing and learning activities with partners and allies across various countries, focusing on applying human rights to economic and environmental policy debates.

• Producing high-quality, compelling outputs that highlight the connections between economic justice, gender justice, and human rights. Emphasizing feminist, gender-responsive, and accessible materials to help bridge gaps between movements.

Project management and strategy implementation

• Managing, overseeing, and contributing to selected projects to achieve these objectives. This includes:

• Ensuring strategic collaborations with external partners—especially feminist groups and gender justice advocates—uphold high standards of transparency, trust, and mutual learning.

• Collaborating internally with other CESR staff to enhance organizational expertise and develop advocacy strategies.

• Contributing to monitoring, learning, and evaluation efforts to assess progress and guide our ongoing work.

Who you are

To be successful in this position, you will have:

Essential

• Commitment to the values of CESR, to equity and justice in the workplace and the world.

• At least 5 years of increasingly responsible professional experience working on gender and economic justice, with a strong feminist analysis.

• Solid research experience, ideally in more than one discipline.

• Familiarity with human rights standards and frameworks, and an understanding of how they relate to the economy and gender justice.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English, including the ability to summarize research findings and complex information (including quantitative data and statistical information) in powerful, concise forms.

• Knowledge of how global economic institutions, systems and rules affect domestic fiscal and policy space, particularly in the Global South.

• Strong project management experience, ability to work independently close attention to detail, and ability to juggle several different projects.

• Graduate qualification in economics, law, political science, development, human rights or similar field (or an exceptionally strong track record of work which shows equivalent expertise).

Desirable

• A track record of research and advocacy on gender, economics, and/or human rights issues with governments and multilateral institutions such as the UN (e.g. UNFCCC, UNEP and COP, regional processes, UNCTAD, UNFfD), OECD, IMF, World Bank or other multilateral development banks.

• Experience working within civil society or social movement coalitions, with excellent skills in building and maintaining respectful, trusting, horizontal, and dynamic collaborations.

• Experience contributing to fundraising efforts. While this position is primarily focused on assisting and supporting program initiatives, all team members play a role in supporting organizational fundraising efforts, such as identifying funding opportunities, contributing to grant applications, or assisting with donor communications.

• Proficiency in other languages besides English (especially Spanish, French or Arabic).

What else you need to know

We’re looking for someone to start relatively soon, ideally before the end of 2024.

CESR is registered as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in the state of New York, USA. Since 2020, our team members work remotely from a variety of countries around the world. The location for this position is flexible, with a strong preference for individuals based in the Global South. However, you will need to ensure some overlap of working hours with the rest of the team. We can only consider applicants already legally able to work in the country where they intend to be based.

This is a part-time position with a one-year contract initially, which will be renewable based on funding and other factors. The salary range for this position will depend on the candidate’s experience and location, considering the relative cost of living and the need to ensure equity and comparability within the team. The full-time salary range for this position is USD 35,000-60,000, based on experience, location, and the need for equity and comparability within the team. The actual salary will be prorated according to the agreed working hours specified in the contract.

We believe that our current economic model disproportionately hurts the most disadvantaged people in our societies, including people of color, women, people with disabilities, LGBTQI+ people, and those from working-class backgrounds—particularly in the Global South. In line with our commitment to embodying equity and justice in our work and workplace, we aim to center these communities in our work, and therefore strongly encourage applications from people with these identities or who are members of other disadvantaged communities.

How to apply

Prospective candidates should complete this application form, in which they’ll be asked to upload their CV and a writing sample. The deadline for applications is November 1st, 2024, although early applications are strongly encouraged as interviews will be conducted on a rolling basis until the position is filled. Due to the volume of expected applications, we will not be able to respond to individual queries.