Director, Community Land Protection, Kenya at Namati

Job Details

Overall, the Director will be responsible for the following-

Country Strategy Implementation and Refinement

• Oversee the successful implementation of Namati’s five-year (2018-2022) Community Land Protection country strategy for Kenya.
• In consultation with team, develop annual work plans, budgets, benchmarks, and measures of success.
• On a quarterly basis, analyze strategy implementation, successes, and challenges, and refine country strategy as needed.
• Directly manage and supervise Community Land Protection Program staff in Kenya.
• With the Director of Namati’s Citizenship Program, identify opportunities for collaboration and cross-learning between Community Land Protection and Citizenship Programs.
• Oversee and manage major research initiatives.

Government Outreach and Capacity Building

• Cultivate relationships with government officials in relevant Ministries and agencies at the national and county levels.
• Provide quarterly updates to government officials focused on Namati’s Community Land Protection program implementation, analysis of program data, and policy recommendations.
• As needed, facilitate training workshops on community land protection to government officials and employees.
• In collaboration with the Special Advisor for Land, make recommendations for regulations to the Community Land Act based on Namati’s approach to community land protection.
• In collaboration with civil society partners, engage in policy advocacy efforts to ensure that the government of Kenya implements the Community Land Act.
• As needed and in collaboration with the government, create forms, templates, and tools to support the implementation of the Community Land Act.

Civil Society Outreach and Capacity Building

• Cultivate relationships with civil society organizations, academics, and activists that are working to implement the Community Land Act.
• Develop and maintain a database of all organizations, activists, and government allies that are working to implement Kenya’s Community Land Act.
• In collaboration with the other team members, select, train, and manage new partner organizations.
• As needed, facilitate training workshops for civil society organizations that are interested in implementing community land protection efforts.
• Periodically convene civil society organizations, academics, and activists to develop and implement a shared policy and advocacy agenda for the implementation of the Community Land Act.

Fundraising and Grants Management

• Build and cultivate relationships with current and potential funders (foundations, other NGOs, intergovernmental institutions, bilateral funders) for Namati Kenya’s Community Land Protection Program.
• Oversee proposal development and reporting requirements for grants directly to Namati Kenya’s Community Land Protection Program.
• Contribute to multicountry Community Land Protection and organizational proposals and reports.
• As needed, collaborate with Namati Kenya’s Citizenship Program on joint fundraising efforts for Namati Kenya.

Communications and Media

• Contribute to and help curate a variety of tools, publications and other resources designed to support community land protection efforts.
• Represent Namati Kenya’s Community Land Protection Program in Kenyan print, television, radio, and social media.
• Write op-eds, social media posts, and other opinion pieces to help further Namati’s strategic goals in Kenya.
• Serve as point person for Namati’s global team on communications efforts.

Administration and Namati Global Team

• Serve as the Community Land Protection Program representative to the Namati Kenya Board of Directors.
• Ensure that Namati Kenya staff are following board directives, as well as Namati Global policies and systems.
• Serve and actively participate on Namati’s global leadership team.
• As needed, carry out key administrative and logistical tasks to ensure that Namati Kenya operates as efficiently as possible, while remaining compliant with relevant Kenyan laws.

Here’s what you might have tackled last week

• Led an annual team retreat to reflect on country strategy progress, setbacks, and lessons learned, and support the team to refine the strategy based on new learning.
• Facilitated a workshop for county government officials on the content of the Community Land Act and supported key officials to develop a plan to support the implementation of the Act at the county-level.
• Co-facilitated a national-level stakeholders meeting that brought together CSOs from all over the country that are working to implement the Act and developed a joint advocacy plan.
• Met with a program officer at a major bilateral funder, presented our community land protection strategy, then developed a concept note for a three-year grant.
• Written an editorial for the Daily Nation about the bureaucratic obstacles that communities have faced when trying to register their land.
• Organized and facilitated a meeting with Namati Kenya’s Board of Directors to go over last year’s audited financials.
• Participated in a Namati leadership conference call focused on what each program has learned about the scalability of various approaches to legal empowerment.

About You/Must-Haves for the Position

• Track record of getting results: You bring at least five years of land, natural resource, and/or human rights program management, implementation, and advocacy experience that demonstrates you are a strategic, dynamic leader who makes things happen. Experience in legal empowerment is a big plus, as is a comprehensive understanding of Kenya’s Community Land Act.
• Aptitude for investigation and analysis: You have a demonstrated track record of skilled research and writing. Your creative edge and entrepreneurial approach to learning set you apart.
• Evidence of time spent building strategic partnerships: You value relationships with colleagues outside of your organization and are already well networked and respected by Kenyan CSOs. You believe that it can often be strategic to work in partnership with government at various levels.
• Skilled manager and administrator: You hold a bachelor's degree at minimum (relevant advanced degree preferred) and have demonstrable management experience (at least three years), directly managing staff. You are familiar with the legal framework governing NGOs in Kenya, board engagement, and can easily work with Namati legal, auditing, and accounting partners.
• Exceptional communication and relational skills: Your written and verbal communications evidence clarity of thought, analysis and sensitivity to audience and context. You are a “people person” with strong interpersonal skills and an intuitive sense of how to build and maintain strong, personable relationships with a variety of stakeholders. Fluency in English and Kiswahili required. Proficiency in Maa and/or Samburu languages a plus.
• Ease with technology: You’re a technophile, and when given the opportunity to work with a new program or application, you quickly become fluent.
• Collaborative and service-oriented: You greet everyone you encounter with a collaborative spirit, kindness, and empathy. You are known as a team-player who brings an “all hands on deck” mindset to all projects -- you’re happy to contribute however you can to advance Namati’s mission.
• Growth-oriented: You’re always seeking to better yourself and your work, and you will push yourself to the peak of performance to help fulfill our mission. In service of that growth, you welcome and delight in feedback from supervisors, peers, and anyone else.

About Namati

Namati is dedicated to placing the power of law in the hands of people.

For billions of people around the world, the law is broken. It’s an abstraction -- or worse, a threat -- but not something we can use to exercise our basic rights.

Namati is building a global movement of grassroots advocates who empower people to understand, use, and shape the law. These “barefoot lawyers” form a dynamic, creative frontline that can squeeze justice out of even broken systems. In the past four years, Namati and our partners have worked with over 65,000 clients to take on some of the greatest challenges of our times: protecting community lands, enforcing environmental law, and securing basic rights to healthcare and citizenship.

We track data on every case and use that information to advocate for systemic changes, like better policies for land governance in Liberia, environmental regulation in India, and healthcare delivery in Mozambique. And we're joining forces for change. Namati convenes the Global Legal Empowerment Network -- over 1500+ groups and 5,000+ individuals from 150 countries learning from one another and bringing justice to communities in every part of the world.

As we move into our next phase, we’re growing our global team of passionate, results-oriented, big-hearted advocates, united by a common mission and a strong culture:

• We are guided by our mission. It’s why we all wake up every day. We pour our hearts into this work.
• Our work makes real, tangible, measurable progress in people’s lives. We take abstract concepts – rule of law and human rights – and make them concrete, helping people find solutions that improve their lives every day.
• We walk our talk. Our movement is about legal empowerment and we bring this spirit of empowerment and collaboration to all our partnerships. We hold humility as a core value: we lead when necessary and follow when necessary.
• We are a truly global organization. Our offices are located in Delhi, Freetown, Maputo, Washington DC, and Yangon, and our staff come from all corners of the world. We are united by our common mission.
• We see our people as our most valuable resource. We bring on individuals of the highest caliber and character and we mentor, train, and support our staff.
• We hold one another in the highest esteem. Our work relationships are built on deep abiding respect and love.