Senior Advisor, Health Policy and Communication

Job Description

Background/IRC Summary The International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) mission is to help people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster including the climate crisis to survive, recover, and gain control of their future. IRC’s health programs comprise the largest proportion of its overall program budget and are essential to both IRC emergency response and long term programming worldwide. The Health Technical Unit is a dynamic team of more than 70 professionals in Primary Health, Reproductive Health, Nutrition, Mental and Environmental Health. They provide IRC’s 40 plus country offices and emergency response team with world class technical expertise, capacity building and a cross country view of what works to achieve outcomes in terms of both scientific evidence and practical experience. They also lead focused research agenda, influencing donor policy to support interventions and innovations proven cost effective to achieve positive change in people’s lives.

Job Overview/Summary: The Senior Advisor, Health Policy and Communications is a key member of the Health Unit, sitting within the IRC’s CRRD division. This role offers an opportunity to draw on IRC’s excellent track record implementing health programs in the most challenging contexts and identify strategies to influence policy discussions. To do this effectively, the IRC seeks a Health Policy and communication Advisor to lead the creation of a coherent set of well-researched, field-supported policy messages and develop a communication strategy for pushing these messages into external audiences.

Responsibilities:

1. Health policy, advocacy and communications strategy

· In partnership with the Senior Health Director, Policy, Advocacy, and other colleagues, develop actionable and timely strategies for IRC’s health policy, advocacy, and communications work.

· Lead the revision and re-launch of the nutrition advocacy strategy to drive coverage and scale of wasting treatment.

· Create a living map of the policy landscape in global health - where and who holds influence, around which issues, how these impact IRC clients.

· Ensure IRC’s health policy, advocacy, and communications work is aligned to S100, and drive impact to IRC clients.

· Directly lead policy and advocacy efforts on different aspects of health requiring organizational policy and advocacy efforts.

· Provide leadership in health policy, advocacy, and communications priority setting, and ensure health staff are supported to advance advocacy and communication in their areas of work.

· Lead collaborative policy and advocacy work with Airbel in support of the health and nutrition Global Research and Innovation Priorities (GRIPs)

2. Team leadership and management

· Manage IRC’s health policy, advocacy, and communications team members

· Create the internal coordination structures needed to ensure the team functions effectively and collaboratively

· Work with each team member to develop effective work plans designed to meet the goals in our advocacy strategies

3. Partnership development and donor management

· Represent the IRC’s health policy, advocacy, and communications work to donors and key external collaborators

· Oversee our health policy, advocacy, and communications funding and donor reporting

· Support donor cultivation and grant acquisition for advancing health and nutrition policy agenda.

4. Representation and Communication

· Lead production of annual health and nutrition impact report

· Be the contact point for communication with key groups and actors in the health policy space

· Identify most important existing forums/ meetings through which IRC should send its messages, exert its influence

· Recommend to Senior Director new forums, meetings, media opportunities, relationships IRC should invest in to advance its policy agenda

· Lead and oversee drafting of policy and communication material for placement in internal and external medium

Key Working Relationships: Position Reports to: Senior Director, Health Position directly supervises: Nutrition Policy and Research Uptake Advisor; Health Communications Specialist; Nutrition Policy and Advocacy Senior Officer; Nutrition Policy, Communications, and Research Uptake Advisor, West Africa; and management in partnership of the Sr. Research Uptake Advisor, EQUAL; and secondary supervision of the Health Unit Program Manager. Management in partnership responsibilities for the Sr. Research Uptake Advisor include biweekly meetings and strategic guidance provided for the policy and advocacy components of her portfolio; for the Health Unit Program manager, this includes biweekly meetings and supervision of knowledge management and logistics support to the health policy and advocacy portfolio.

Other Internal and/or external contacts: * Internal: The position includes liaison and work with colleagues across all IRC departments, especially the other technical units, advocacy and communications teams; and Airbel. * External: The position includes relationship-building and communications with partner organizations, policymakers, donors and other influential constituents in the health and nutrition policy space.

Job requirements:

* At least 8 years of experiences in public health, with at least 3 years’ experience in health-focused policy and advocacy work * Master’s degree in public health or closely related field: * Expertise in research and advocacy: ability to formulate policy positions and present facts and information to substantiate such positions * Excellent research and analysis skills in the health policy field: strong understanding of the political landscape in global health and health in emergencies; ability to identify the most salient issues in health * Excellent written and oral communications skills; ability to communicate with many and diverse audiences; you listen intently and actively to all audiences; your communications are direct, simple and respectful. * Strong negotiation, influencing and networking skills * Fluency in English.

Working Environment****: Standard office work environment” as per IRC policy. Regular travel up to 15% travel may be required.

IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status or disability.

The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Accountability and Equality. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.

We offer a comprehensive and highly competitive set of benefits. In the US, these include: 10 sick days, 10 US holidays, 20-25 paid time off days depending on role and tenure, medical insurance starting at $120 per month, dental starting at $7 per month, and vision starting at $5 per month, FSA for healthcare and commuter costs, a 403b retirement savings plans with immediately vested matching, disability & life insurance, and an Employee Assistance Program which is available to our staff and their families to support counseling and care in times of crisis and mental health struggles.

Qualifications