Openings at COHERE

Position description

You will act as the Head of Advocacy for the organisation by:

• Leading the development of Cohere’ positioning, strategic engagements, and recommendations in line with mission objectives.
• Collaborating with the Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) team to support Cohere’s synergy between its operation and advocacy.
• Collaborating with RLO partners in advocacy, through joint action or other forms of support according to their expressed needs.
• Collaborating with the Head of MEAL in generating and analysing programmatic data available for advocacy objectives.
• Collaborating with the Head of Communication to ensure that communications strategy is advocacy-driven.

Key Responsibilities

Lead Cohere’s advocacy strategy development

• Co-design Cohere’s advocacy strategy with RLO partners, while ensuring

  • Accessibility and inclusivity of all different refugee identities in the process
  • Accountability, transparency, and equal share of decision-making with RLOs over Cohere’s advocacy strategy.
• Work with partners to integrate and position Cohere within the existing advocacy ecosystem on refugee leadership.
• Monitor learning opportunities and developments relevant to Cohere’s advocacy objectives.

Pilot the implementation of Cohere’s advocacy strategy

• Take a lead in ongoing advocacy projects (Community of Practice around barriers to meaningful refugee participation in humanitarian decision-making)
• Elaborate and execute Cohere’s advocacy strategy and ensure its complementarity with the existing initiatives, alliances and coalitions.
• Lead the work of influencing decision-makers around the advocacy strategy championed by Cohere.
• Ensure external representation at events related to Cohere’s advocacy strategy : local, national conferences and meetings organised by other networks, INGOs, donors, UNHCR, government bodies, academics, and ensure RLO participation to these same events.
• Lead the direction of publications and interventions linked to Cohere’s advocacy.
• Lead the editorial consistency of Cohere’s communications strategy elements that relate to advocacy.
• Lead the M&E and reporting of Cohere’s advocacy strategy.

Ensure Cohere’s exemplarity and synergy between its operations and advocacy.

• Actively contribute to the synergy between Cohere’s four strategic objectives (advocacy, funding, coordination, capacity-sharing).
• Along with DEI consultants and the DEI officer, actively contribute to ensuring the synergy between Cohere’s internal transformation and its advocacy.
• Strengthen Cohere’s strategy to support and collaborate, and complement RLO partners’ advocacy.

Contribute to the operational direction of Cohere

• Contribute to Cohere’s broader strategies, leadership initiatives and operations.
• Contribute to ensuring accessibility to diverse and relevant refugees in Cohere’s leadership.
• Contribute to organising and facilitating internal meetings.
• Ensure coordination of Cohere’s advocacy department with other departments.

Manage the resources of the Advocacy department

• Monitor the budget of the advocacy department.
• Support the DEI officer in gaining competences in advocacy (mentorship, information sharing, professional development)
• Secure legal counsel when necessary

Your profile

• You have a robust experience working for a refugee-led organisation or a community-based organisation working with displaced communities, and/or a masters’ degree in international relations, social sciences, development studies or similar fields. 
• You have a robust and demonstrated experience in policy analysis, data collection, qualitative and quantitative analysis and interpretation, writing and production of reports, policy briefs and publications.
• You have a demonstrated experience in being exposed, influencing and negotiating with high-level stakeholders (NGO leadership, UN agencies, governments)
• You have a good knowledge of the localisation and “meaningful refugee participation” agendas, of the DEI principles, and of the stakeholders from the refugee leadership advocacy ecosystem. Ideally, you have previous experience working in those fields.

You also have:

• Exceptional interpersonal skills, with an ability to develop and maintain relationships according to interests.
• A passion for systemic change, particularly to dismantling top-down approaches and unequal power distribution in the humanitarian and forced displacement fields.
• A demonstrated ability to lead a department (management, budget tracking).
• An ability to lead in broader initiatives around diversity, equity and inclusion at Cohere.
• You have excellent writing skills and oral communication skills in English. Kiswahili, Luganda, or a language spoken by one or more refugee communities around the world is an asset.

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Responsibilities

Pilot the implementation of Cohere’s MEAL strategy

• Lead the development and management of the organisation´s MEAL system
• Provide guidance in data management including data collection, collation, analysis, and reporting to MEAL and programme teams
• Co-develop and oversee the implementation of data quality check mechanisms .
• Provide methodological support to MEAL and programme teams
• Co-create effective and harmonised channels of data flow among different teams in the organisation.
• Ensure the incorporation of the organisation´s learning generated through MEAL activities into the programme and strategic planning and revision processes.
• Coordinate MEAL-related collaboration between leadership, programme, and partner staff across all relevant teams.
• Lead the design of MEAL capacity-strengthening training for internal teams as well as external community-led partners.
• Pilot the implementation of Cohere’s MEAL strategy.
• Act as a focal point for external evaluations where relevant.

Ensure Cohere’s exemplarity and synergy between its operations and advocacy

• Organise indicators co-design sessions with RLO partners to ensure RLO partner ownership over COHERE’s framework of success.
• In relation with RLO partners, lead the development and implementation of the organisation’s MEAL strategic plan
• Provide guidance in the design and implementation of programme-based theories of change and results frameworks, and their alignment to the organisation’s overall strategic objectives, by ensuring
  • Refugee ownership of the COHERE’s programs and initiatives
  • Equitable partnerships and excluding tokenistic practices
  • Inclusivity of COHERE’s workplace culture in regards to DEI principles
  • In close relation with the Head of Advocacy, follow the evolution and emergence of power shift indicators in programs and workplace cultures from meaningful-participation supporters(States such as New Zealand, Canada, US, aid agencies and organizations, RLOs, academics, and companies), Transpose and adapt these to COHERE. This will imply a strong part of the online watch, literature review, and one-to-one conversations with M&E officers of partners, like-minded organisations, academics, and leaders of the meaningful refugee participation movement.
  • Generate data that will feed into COHERE’s advocacy strategy to shift power, and that will position COHERE as leading by example on the thematics it advocates for.
  • Work closely with the Head of Communications to ensure data-driven editorial content.

Essential requirements

• Graduate or Postgraduate degree or equivalent in terms of experience in an RLO or CBO, in a field related to project and MEAL management, international development, statistics, demography, data management, and other relevant areas.
• Proven progressive responsibility in a similar position.
• Proven experience in
  • Project cycle and MEAL management
  • MEAL strategy and system design and implementation
  • Data management including data collection, analysis, and interpretation
  • Conducting data quality assessments and designing effective pathways for results sharing
  • Research and report writing
  • Data collection tool design and use
  • Design and delivery of MEAL capacity-strengthening training
  • Community engagement in MEAL activities
  • Design and implementation of MEAL plans results framework and theories of change
• Excellent writing skills
• Strong interpersonal skills and empathy, particularly with regard to working with vulnerable people
• Willingness to travel within Uganda/Kenya and other countries if necessary
• Excellent knowledge of MS Office
• Reliability and self-reliance
• Strong critical and analytical thinking
• Motivation to cultivate and share knowledge
• Responsible and systematic work approach
• Enthusiasm and self-initiative

Desired requirements

• Experience or strong understanding of challenges faced by refugees and other marginalised communities in East Africa.
• Experience in working in M&E for an RLO or refugee-led initiative or a CBO working on forced displacement.
• Notable initiative and ability to take ownership of projects, manage multiple deadlines, and work effectively independently and collaboratively in a team environment.
• Cultural competence and intelligence, ability to work well in a diverse, multicultural workforce.
• Exceptional willingness to ensure meaningful participation, inclusion, and engagement for all team members and external partners.
• Experience in working within a refugee context including challenging fieldwork conditions.
• Experience working with a diverse team of people from different backgrounds