Advocacy Manager – Somalia (Nairobi) at Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)

Job Description

The Advocacy Manager is responsible for all advocacy activities in the Mission in line with MSF policies and values, following the Operational line and linked with the HQ Reflection Unit. The Advocacy Manager is a member of the mission CMT and acts as a sparring-partner for all operational and medical teams.

Other tasks include, but not limited to:

1. Defining, implementing and coordinating all MSF advocacy activities, including responsibility for drafting advocacy strategies addressing medical-humanitarian priorities in relation to mission needs – ensure that advocacy components are included in project and mission operational strategies as member of the Country Management Team (CMT)
2. Supervise the quality of field-level data collection (under MSF ethical guidelines) for operational and advocacy purpose.
3. Draft ad hoc lobbying points and internal/external reports in relation to main medical humanitarian concerns while strengthening the integration of humanitarian affairs (analysis, critical reflection. Contextual understanding) and operational communications.
4. Advises CMT and Head of Mission/Medical Coordinators on perception related to positioning and operational strategy with a particular view on increasing local/national visibility and ensuring good acceptance for MSF projects/presence.
5. Drafts regular situation reports for mission/HQ as well as reports for external use in line with mission advocacy strategy.

Data collection – Analysis

1.  Design and support the implementation of data collection systems with regards to the mission context (focus on national level with potential regional/global repercussions, and local developments in project locations), and medical-humanitarian issues, in order to provide reliable information for operational and strategic decision-making.
2. Provide data and discourse analysis in support of the Country Representative to inform MSF positioning in-country (project-level and at national level), particularly in terms of political / operational environment (regulation frameworks, donor/aid agreements, trade and economic developments).
3. Propose improvements in the methodologies and tools used, and provide trainings to field teams as required
4. Undertake actor mapping and stakeholders’ analysis on behalf of projects and mission, while providing strategic advice to Head of Mission / Medical Co for national-level organizational positioning. 

Representation – Communication 

1. Define, draft and review advocacy messages and targeting (including communications and dissemination strategies) to raise awareness of medical-humanitarian issues across MSF projects and at national level (transversal thematic).
2. Link with other MSF sections in-country to develop inter-OC advocacy and/or communications initiatives
3. On request by the Country Representative, interact with the international MSF advocacy network (reflection centres, HART, ACCESS) to provide updated contextualized medicalhumanitarian content (country-level information)
4. Lead discussions, trainings, briefings, etc. on the country’s medical-humanitarian context, MSF principles, international humanitarian law, medical ethics, and advocacy activities/strategies to raise awareness of MSF national and expatriate staff on these topics.
5. Provide recommendations and be a propositional voice for opportunistic communications (unplanned) from operations/medical activities’ analysis.

On request

1. Undertake field assessments (in relation to data gathering/context analysis or exploratory missions) and other work-related traveling as required.
2. Draft Terms of Reference, supervise, and evaluate other expatriate humanitarian affairs staff deployed to the mission (Advocacy / Humanitarian Affairs Officers).

Additional tasks

1. Act as central point and liaison between heads of programmes, medical department and others, is information management related to humanitarian affairs.
2. Perform data collection and research concerning local and international context, with regards to security, medical, nutritional and humanitarian issues, in order to provide reliable information for further decision-making.
3. Support the operation and medops management in the analysis of the data collected, in order to better orientate the programmes and projects, to provide an optimal response to population needs.
4. Compile regular updates of the ongoing (inter-)national activities and plans of NGO’s, UN, ICRC, donors, authorities and other actors on lobby, policy and operational plans and initiatives in order to adequate MSF ’s activities and objectives.
5. Promotes and assists in the implementation of advocacy activities locally, nationally and internationally.