Role Description
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:
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Ensuring our humanitarian responses have access to suitably skilled and experienced staff they need to deliver a high quality and timely humanitarian response;
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Managing the end to end deployment process for all surge deployments;
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Identifying and developing future humanitarian surge staff to meet the needs of our responses;
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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:
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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;
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Supporting ongoing emergency response and recovery work through providing advice, guidance and expertise in a specific skill area;
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Providing short term interim cover for country office staff;
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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.
Qualifications
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Prior experience working in an emergency response contexts or fragile states
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Significant prior experience working in advocacy on humanitarian issues, child rights, human rights, or development issues, preferably in emergency response contexts or fragile states
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Experience of influencing and advocacy work including lobbying, policy development and information provision in humanitarian issues at national, regional and/or international level
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Excellent skills in advocating towards government officials, humanitarian actors and UN agencies in developing countries
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Experience of and strong skills in developing and implementing humanitarian advocacy strategies
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Good attention to detail
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Extensive knowledge of child rights and international humanitarian law
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Understanding of UN and donor operations at country level and humanitarian response-planning cycles
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High-level analytical and strategic thinking skills and strong research skills
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Cultural awareness and ability to build relationships quickly with a wide variety of people
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Patience, adaptability, flexibility, and ability to improvise and remain responsive and to communicate clearly and effectively under pressure
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Excellent planning, management and coordination skills, with the ability to organise a substantial workload comprised of complex, diverse tasks and responsibilities
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Strong communication (written and spoken), and interpersonal skills in English, with experience in managing multicultural teams
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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
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Experience in working with other NGOs and coordinating inter-agency advocacy activities, strategies and products
Requirements
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Work with members to develop and implement advocacy workplans, and to monitor progress against agreed strategies.
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Lead drafting or support the production of advocacy messaging, policy briefs, talking points, research reports, to be used at national, regional and international levels.
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Work closely with programmes, MEAL teams, and data systems (including MRMs) to generate evidence on the impact of the crisis on children.
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Carry out advocacy capacity-building with Country Office staff, as needed.
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Support or lead the development of an advocacy risk assessment, as required.
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Provide information and analysis to the HAWG and other interested parties via regular email updates and on weekly calls to support global advocacy.
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Represent Save the Children at appropriate country-level working groups, NGO forums, advocacy working groups etc.
Benefits
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Meaningful and rewarding career
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Collaborative and inclusive environment
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Opportunities for professional development
