Advocacy Manager (contract) - Join Our Talent Pool

Programme & Policy

Overview

Join Save the Children as an Advocacy Manager for humanitarian-response advocacy.

You have:

• Prior experience working in emergency response contexts or fragile states
• Significant prior experience working in advocacy on humanitarian issues, child rights, human rights, or development issues, preferably in emergency response contexts or fragile states
• Experience of influencing and advocacy work including lobbying, policy development and information provision in humanitarian issues at national, regional, and/or international level
• Excellent skills in advocating towards government officials, humanitarian actors and UN agencies in developing countries
• Experience of and strong skills in developing and implementing humanitarian advocacy strategies
• Good attention to detail
• Extensive knowledge of child rights and international humanitarian law
• Understanding of UN and donor operations at country level and humanitarian response-planning cycles
• High-level analytical and strategic thinking skills and strong research skills
• Cultural awareness and ability to build relationships quickly with a wide variety of people
• Patience, adaptability, flexibility, and ability to improvise and communicate clearly and effectively under pressure
• Excellent planning, management, and coordination skills, with the ability to organise a substantial workload comprised of complex, diverse tasks and responsibilities
• Strong communication (written and spoken), and interpersonal skills in English, with experience in managing multicultural teams
• Strong leadership skills with ability to seek people’s views while also taking responsibility to determine the most appropriate course of action and act decisively
• Experience in working with other NGOs and coordinating inter-agency advocacy activities, strategies and products

Save the Children International has an exciting opportunity for an Advocacy Manager to join our surge platform roster.

This role profile is for inclusion in the Advocacy roster within Global Expertise and Humanitarian Surge Platform (GEHSP) which reflects the typical responsibilities associated with potential deployments and does not constitute a fixed-term position; assignments may be offered on an as-needed basis, subject to organisational requirements.

The Global Expertise and Humanitarian Surge Platform (GEHSP) operates on behalf of the members and SCI, and is dedicated to identifying, developing and deploying skilled and experienced surge staff from across the movement to meet the needs of our domestic and international responses. This helps to improve our response quality, timeliness, and effectiveness; ultimately, this will save the lives of children and their families. The platform is responsible for:

· Ensuring our humanitarian responses have access to suitably skilled and experienced staff they need to deliver a high quality and timely humanitarian response;

· Managing the end to end deployment process for all surge deployments;

· Identifying and developing future humanitarian surge staff to meet the needs of our responses;

· Identifying new and innovative ways to meet the surge needs of our responses.

Surge staff work alongside country, regional and member teams to support the scale up and management of international and domestic emergency responses, enabling positive change for children. The role of the surge staff varies depending on the needs of the response and could include:

· deploying in the first days or hours following a natural disaster or crisis to lead the first phase of a response to sudden onset emergency;

· supporting ongoing emergency response and recovery work through providing advice, guidance and expertise in a specific skill area;

· providing short term interim cover for country office staff;

· supporting delivery of capacity building initiatives.

The Advocacy Manager will be rapidly deployed by the Global Expertise and Humanitarian Surge Platform (GEHSP) to support the response team in quickly developing and implementing a humanitarian-response advocacy work-stream. The Advocacy Manager will act as Save the Children’s global lead on humanitarian-response advocacy on behalf of the Humanitarian Advocacy Working Group (HAWG), the Country Office and the Response Team. The Advocacy Manager will manage all advocacy initiatives related to the response on behalf of Save the Children, including representing Save the Children externally in country and internationally. The function will be a focal person for advocacy enquiries in the Country Office / Response Team and from Save the Children International and individual Save the Children members. The function will involve national, regional and international advocacy leadership on the immediate crisis and response, and related longer-term issues. The function will be part of the Response Team in order to ensure that key advocacy messages and strategies are informed by the response and shaped in close consultation with the Response Team Leader. The Advocacy Manager will seek clarification on any politically-sensitive matters which may impact upon the response operations and seek appropriate sign off (e.g. Country Director level) on any messaging or products.

• Title: Advocacy Manager
• Reports To: Response Team Leader
• Location: International, including remote and insecure locations
• Contract Length: up to 3 months

Principal Accountabilities

The Advocacy Manager should be an active member of the Response Senior Management Team with responsibility for leading advocacy strategy development, ensuring advocacy priorities are integrated across the overall response, and securing support and buy in from SMT and programme teams for strategic advocacy.

· Lead on the rapid development and implementation of a short-term humanitarian advocacy strategy (3 to 6 months), which includes national, regional and international elements, and short-and longer-term objectives, using policies, tools and guidance from the Global Advocacy Teams and in close collaboration with Country Office and global advocacy counterparts, and relevant HAWGs and working groups.

· Manage all advocacy initiatives in close coordination with the Country Director, / Team Leader, operations and technical emergency response staff, , the Global Senior Humanitarian Advocacy Lead, and Head of Humanitarian Advocacy, media and campaigns staff, relevant HAWG and working groups as appropriate. The role will also work closely with national programme staff with experience of carrying out advocacy work and building on their knowledge and expertise, Support the Country Director / Team Leader in high-level advocacy towards the Humanitarian Country Team, key UN agencies, donors and national actors.

· Ensure that all advocacy messages, documents and strategies are evidence-based, linked to programmes and response priorities, are of high quality, authorised by the Country Director / Team Leader and signed-off according to the Save the Children sign-off procedures.

· Work with communications and media colleagues to ensure advocacy messaging and narratives are integrated and consistent across press releases, media outputs, and communications packs, and that these are shared fully across the membership. Work with members, particularly via the relevant HAWG, to co-create advocacy strategies, including developing joint analysis and power mapping, identifying entry points for advocacy, and agreeing on the types of products and messaging needed to support impactful advocacy. Ensure strong member buy-in and ownership throughout the process.

· Work with members to develop and implement advocacy workplans, and to monitor progress against agreed strategies. Through the HAWG and other coordination structures, ensure alignment and coordination of advocacy efforts, linking national, regional, and global levels to maximise collective impact.

· Lead drafting or support the production of advocacy messaging, policy briefs, talking points, research reports, to be used at national, regional and international levels.

· Work closely with programmes, MEAL teams, and data systems (including MRMs) to generate evidence on the impact of the crisis on children, including grave violations, IHL concerns, and access to education etc. Provide regular analysis of these impacts alongside the national response and policy context, as well as key factors such as UN coordination, security dynamics, and emerging challenges affecting children’s access to humanitarian assistance. Ensure SC emergency response strategies and situation reports have clear advocacy objectives and strategies, and indicators for assessing the impact of SC advocacy work.

· Carry out advocacy capacity-building with Country Office staff, as needed.

· Support or lead the development of an advocacy risk assessment, as required.

· Provide information and analysis to the HAWG and other interested parties via regular email updates and on weekly calls to support global advocacy.

· Represent Save the Children at appropriate country-level working groups, NGO forums, advocacy working groups etc,

General:

· Comply with Save the Children policies and practice with respect to child safeguarding, code of conduct, health and safety, equal opportunities and other relevant policies and procedures.

Experience and Skills

Essential

· Prior experience working in an emergency response contexts or fragile states

· Significant prior experience working in advocacy on humanitarian issues, child rights, human rights, or development issues, preferably in emergency response contexts or fragile states

· Experience of influencing and advocacy work including lobbying, policy development and information provision in humanitarian issues at national, regional and/or international level

· Excellent skills in advocating towards government officials, humanitarian actors and UN agencies in developing countries

· Experience of and strong skills in developing and implementing humanitarian advocacy strategies

· Good attention to detail

· Extensive knowledge of child rights and international humanitarian law

· Understanding of UN and donor operations at country level and humanitarian response-planning cycles

· High-level analytical and strategic thinking skills and strong research skills

· Cultural awareness and ability to build relationships quickly with a wide variety of people

· Patience, adaptability, flexibility, and ability to improvise and remain responsive and to communicate clearly and effectively under pressure

· Excellent planning, management and coordination skills, with the ability to organise a substantial workload comprised of complex, diverse tasks and responsibilities

· Strong communication (written and spoken), and interpersonal skills in English, with experience in managing multicultural teams

· Strong leadership skills with an ability to seek people’s views while also taking responsibility to determine the most appropriate course of action and to act decisively

· Experience in working with other NGOs and coordinating inter-agency advocacy activities, strategies and products

Desirable

• Proven skills in media work, including interviews on Radio and TV
• Fluency in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic or Swahili

Working at Save the Children International

Save the Children is the world's leading organisation for children, employing ~25,000 staff. We save children's lives. We fight for their rights. We help them fulfil their potential. Through our work in 116 countries, we put the most deprived and marginalised children first.

We know that great people make a great organisation, and that our employees play a crucial role in helping us achieve our ambitions for children. We value our people and offer a meaningful and rewarding career, along with a collaborative and inclusive environment where ambition, creativity, and integrity are highly valued.

The work here is challenging but is also immensely rewarding. At Save the Children, you will be in good company, working with talented, like-minded individuals who are determined to ensure that all children survive, learn, and are protected. Your contribution will help ensure children's voices are heard at the highest levels, and that we achieve our global strategy, Ambition for Children 2030, and reach every last child.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Equal Opportunities

DEI is core to our vision, values and global strategy. Save the Children is committed to creating a truly diverse, equitable and inclusive organisation, and one which will support us in our vision to ensure every child attains the right to survival, protection, development, and participation.

We are committed to equal employment opportunities, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, colour, ethnic origin, nationality, disability, marital or civil partnership status, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, caring or parental responsibilities, age, or beliefs and religion. We are committed to diversifying our staff to better represent the communities we serve and actively welcome underrepresented groups to apply.

Reasonable adjustments will be made should any candidate invited to interview require this.

Application Information

Please attach a copy of your CV and cover letter with your application. A full copy of the role profile can be found at SCI Careers. It is recommended that you save a copy of the role profile as it will no longer be available after the advert closes.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis and the job advert may be closed earlier than advertised subject to the volume of suitable applicants. Please submit your application at your earliest convenience to avoid disappointment.

Due to the high volume of applications we receive, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Candidates who are successfully shortlisted should expect to hear from us within 2 weeks of the advert deadline.

Our Recruitment Process

• Application review by our recruiting team based on your CV and cover letter
• Competency-based interviews with the hiring team
• Some recruitment may include an assessment or case study stage
• If successful, you will receive a conditional offer of employment, followed by your contract subject to passing background checks

We need to keep children and adults safe so our selection process includes rigorous background checks and reflects our commitment to the protection of children and adults from abuse. All employees are expected to carry out their duties in accordance with our Code of Conduct and all policies and procedures relating to Anti-Harassment, Health and Safety, Safeguarding, and DEI and Equal Opportunities.

Save the Children does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process.

Apply now

Potential interview questions

Added 5 hours ago - Updated 5 hours ago - Source: savethechildren.net