Senegal: ADVOCACY MANAGER

Advocacy Manager

Contract Type: fixed term

Location: Dakar, Senegal

Job Grade: National

Reporting to: Country Director

Job Ref No: 12839

WHO WE ARE

Oxfam is a global organization working to right the wrongs of poverty, hunger, and injustice. We work with people in more than 90 countries to create lasting solutions. Oxfam saves lives, develops long-term solutions to poverty, and campaigns for social change.

OXFAM has been active in Senegal for more than two decades. In recent years, our focus has been on supporting sustainable livelihoods, promoting good governance and ensuring sustainable human development in the face of crisis and human/natural disasters.

Job purpose

The purpose of this job is to design and implement, together with partners and thematic Leads, a country influencing strategy based on the overall country strategy.

Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities

Thematic quality and oversight (30%)

• Lead the development of Oxfam’s national influencing and advocacy agenda, including campaigning and networking for lasting change, in close collaboration with programme leads

• Facilitate development of strong partnerships for the development and delivery of a joint influencing agenda

• Support research to generate knowledge and evidence to inform influencing work

• Identify initiatives and campaigns within Oxfam (globally, regionally, Pan Africa) and link them to the national ambitions for broader national impact.

• Ensure adequate resourcing allocated within budgets to scale up influencing at national level and support initiatives for resource mobilization.

• With partners and other CSO stakeholders, take actions that protect the space of civil societies to operate in accountable and transparent manner.

• Identify and explore new partnerships and to broaden Oxfam’s partnership portfolio for greater influencing

Program Development, Strategy and Management (25%)

• Capacity building, networking and coordination of civil society organizations, citizens and media to lead influencing initiatives and policy reforms within a rights-based framework

• Support staff to internalize the Oxfam’s national influencing guidelines and programme standards and regularly review compliance to such standards

• Ensure the centrality of women’s rights in the country programme’s influencing agenda.

• Support Programmes to integrate influencing, media and communication into programme design and implementation.

• Explore the use of digital technology in our campaigning and support programmes to scale up their ambitions in this area.

• In collaboration with the Programme Quality and MEL Officer, drive the development of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning within national influencing initiatives

• Strengthen the relevance, legitimacy and downward accountability of our global influencing initiatives

• Support scale up of proven innovative models and initiatives

• Together with the Business Development Lead, develop high quality project proposals to support national influencing work

• Develop a plan for engagement with donors with a view to influencing their agenda with respect to Senegal

• In consultation with MEAL Lead develop and implement MEAL strategy and participate in periodic country learning reviews

• Undertake and support regular monitoring and evaluation of EJ programmes to assess programme delivery against agreed results and, make recommendations and implement action to ensure delivery of programme objectives

• Create spaces for peer learning from national influencing work

• Establish linkages with the relevant knowledge Hubs and learning communities across the Oxfam confederation

• Regular reports to the Country Director and the Regional Influencing Lead

Knowledge Management and Thought Leadership (25%).

• In collaboration with the Head of Programmes and the Programme Quality lead, identify opportunities for learning, research and publications relevant to country influencing priorities

• Facilitating the dissemination of good practices and learnings from Oxfam programmes in Senegal

• Participate in Oxfam regional and global Inequality strategic planning and implementation, and ensure relevant links with country program staff.

• With the support of the Programme Quality lead, ensure that programme learning is documented, that lessons learned are taken into account in reviews and development of future programme strategies.

• Organizing and participating in knowledge-sharing workshops and conferences, both in-country and abroad.

• Working closely with the Programme Quality lead to develop and implement research components within Oxfam’s projects.

Staff development, training and management (10%)

• Providing ongoing supervision and mentoring to support the performance and professional development of direct reports.

• Orientating new staff to Oxfam values, culture, tools and processes where relevant.

• Promoting the ongoing development of staff skills (technical and non-technical) and identifying relevant opportunities to further the development of staff.

Represent Oxfam externally (10%)

• In collaboration with the Country Director and Head of Programmes, liaising and networking with other agencies and organizations working within the area of influencing in Senegal, broader West Africa and internationally.

• Representing Oxfam in meetings with government, civil society actors and other key stakeholders, and ensure that Oxfam’s influencing vision, mission and work are well articulated.

Technical Skills, Experience & Knowledge

Essential

· At least 7 years in development, especially in advocacy, campaigning and policy influencing

· Good knowledge of and experience in developing, and implementing, advocacy and campaign strategies and plans to successfully achieving impact and change.

· An in-depth understanding of the socio-economic, environmental and political context of Sierra Leone

· An understanding of regional and global socio-economic and political issues and their implications for national development of Sierra Leone.

· Ability to think and act strategically and support others to design advocacy, campaigns, programme, research and policy reform actions that support long-term objectives in Sierra Leone

· An understanding of the relationship between national and regional programmes and the global objectives of Oxfam and opportunities for local leverage

· Knowledge and experience in partnership development in Senegalor elsewhere.

· Excellent leadership, inter-personal and collaboration skills

· Very strong analytical and conceptual thinking skills; able to understand highly complex issues and translate them into simple, workable actions and plans.

· Experience and commitment to address women’s rights in the design/delivery of influencing work

· Ability to represent Oxfam in external meetings and fora.

· Collaborative working as part of a leadership team

• Ability to work on own initiative, manage complex workload and deliver outputs and reports at agreed deadlines

· Ability to anticipate risks and strategically position to mitigate them

· Experience in and knowledge of capacity building of staff and partners for greater influence

· Fluency in written and spoken English.

Desirable

· Proven knowledge and commitment to Oxfam’s One Programme approach

· Knowledge of Krio or other local languages is desirable

· Experience and knowledge of working with the media and harnessing digital platforms for campaigning.

Equality and diversity

We are committed both to promoting equality and diversity within the organization and to Equal Opportunities in employment. We believe in equality of opportunity regardless of race or racial group, religion or belief, age, disability, sexual orientation, sex, gender re-assignment and gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy, maternity and paternity. This also includes any incidents of perceptive or associative discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions are made entirely on merit.

HOW TO APPLY:

This opportunity is for a dedicated and highly motivated professional with strong commitment to Oxfam's values and beliefs. If you believe you are qualified for this post and you are the candidate that we are looking for, please submit your cover letter and CV to:

https://app.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Job.aspx?j=oGEc6fwm

THE CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS IS 7 NOVEMBER 2017

Given the urgent need for this position, suitable candidates can be shortlisted and interviewed before the closing date.

ONLY SHORLISTED CANDIDATES WILL BE CONTACTED