Advocacy Manager at African Population and Health Research Center

The CPSE program aims to act as a critical and neutral knowledge partner to the constellation of actors working towards the full domestication and implementation of continental commitments on sexual and reproductive health and the rights of Africa’s young people and women. As a knowledge partner, CPSE will work to support these actors in developing and deploying effective, evidence-based advocacy, specifically on three focal SRHR issues:

• The sexual and reproductive health and the rights of adolescents.
• Access to safe abortion and post-abortion care.
• The discrimination of marginalized sexual and gender minority groups.

 Project approach 

CPSE’s work is anchored on partnerships with key government and civil society bodies at the regional and sub-regional levels in Eastern, Southern and Western Africa in seven countries: Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, and Liberia. Across these geographies, CPSE encompasses three key pillars of work, namely:

• Research – generating policy-relevant evidence.
• Supporting the use of evidence in advocating for change and
• Strengthening capacities of policy partners to use evidence and learning to achieve change.

The APHRC seeks to recruit an Advocacy Manager to work in the CPSE project within the Policy Engagement and Communication (PEC) Division. The Advocacy Manager will report to the Head of Advocacy Unit, PEC, while working closely with the CPSE project team, the Policy Engagement and Communications Division (PEC) and other APHRC units. Externally, the Advocacy Manager will work closely with national parliaments, Civil Society Organizations, UN agencies, regional economic groups such as EAC, EALA, SADC PF and ECOWAS/WAHO among others. S/he will also participate in regular meetings with Sida, the project funder. This role’s country scope includes Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, Burkina Faso, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

 Duties/Responsibilities

• Coordinate and work with the CPSE policy team in the management of partnerships.
• Coordinate policy engagement, communications, and capacity-strengthening activities for partners.
• Manage the Policy Officer in responding to rapid response requests from partners while managing the rapid response service.
• Sustain existing partnerships with EAC, EALA, SADC PF, ECOWAS, WAHO, AU, EANNASO, UNFPA ESARO and SAT, while initiating other useful ones.
• Work closely with the project team and lead in planning, implementing, and managing the advocacy and policy engagement activities within budgetary guidelines and donor compliance requirements.
• In collaboration with the Outcome Harvesting consultant, ensure consistent generation of quality data for timely decision-making at all levels and track performance of all project indicators, and delivery of quality narrative reports to the funder.
• Provide leadership and work closely with the CPSE team in mutual capacity strengthening of CPSE project partners.
• Work closely with the CPSE research team to develop knowledge translation products such as evidence briefs, policy briefs, fact sheets, and others for partners.
• Organize and lead policy engagement forums in liaison with research teams to disseminate research findings and promote the use of evidence in policy engagement.
• Developing and implementing robust and impactful advocacy and policy engagement strategies.
• Work closely with the project team in ensuring compliance with donor requirements such as keeping track of outputs and outcomes for advocacy and policy engagement, writing annual progress reports and updates to the project funder.
• Provide support to the broader policy engagement and communication division as requested, including writing division’s reports and fundraising efforts.
• Perform any other tasks required to advance the project and the division’s objectives.

 Qualifications, Skills, and Experience 

• Master’s degree in public health, public policy, public administration, social policy, anthropology, economics, communications, international development, politics and internal relations, sociology, social transformation or related sectors.
• At least eight years’ post-qualification experience in advocacy, policy engagement, and a year in research and analysis of sexual and reproductive health (including quantitative and qualitative), needed to build an evidence base from which you will work.
• Working on SRHR and health policy within the international development sector at a senior level; those who have worked on ASRH, LGBT and access to abortion preferred.
• Demonstrable experience in managing budgets, development of project log frames, reporting to the funder, annual work planning, project risk management working on sensitive issues, and solid experience of people management with excellent people soft competencies.
• Ability to manage research and promoting its use in policy/advocacy work.
• Experience working with different stakeholder, including NGOs, CSOs, and government bodies such as EAC, AU, SADC and ECOWAS/WAHO to inform and influence policy development would be an advantage.
• Ability to prepare high quality and impactful publications and reports for specialist and non-specialist audiences, including policymakers.
• Excellent engagement, coordination, and communication (written and spoken) skills to be able to absorb complex information and present it to different audiences in a clear and accessible way.
• Good interpersonal skills, to work and build relationships with a wide range of people and partners holding different views.
• Experience in policy development and advocacy in social or economic policy areas at a national level, regional or international level.
• Production of high quality written work to influence policy outcomes.
• Experience and evidence of fundraising work.
• Good organization skills, to track priorities, work to deadlines and manage projects.
• Flexible and adaptable approach to responding to shifting priorities and a rapidly evolving external environment.
• The ability and desire to acquire and maintain knowledge of a policy area or areas with a focus on sexual and reproductive health.
• Experience and skills in external communication for vast audiences will be an added advantage, and so is an existing network in the SRHR space in Africa.