Job Vacancy at Oxfam

We are currently recruiting for a Senior Campaigns and Policy Advisor

Fulltime/ 40 hours a week

Start date May 2018 for 1 year

Location: Hargeisa, Somaliland – with frequent travels across Somalia and Kenya as and when needed

Oxfam is looking for a Senior Campaigns and Policy Advisor Somalia who, together with Oxfam Somalia colleagues and many others, wants to work towards creating a just world without poverty.

Oxfam in Somalia

Oxfam work is currently concentrated in pastoralist areas of Puntland and Somaliland. Through its offices in Hargeisa and Burao and partner’s office in Garowe, Oxfam is supporting directly and through partners the drought affected pastoralist communities in rural and per-urban areas. The emergency work, focused on cash and water interventions, it is complemented with resilience and development programmes aiming to reinforce the voice, economic empowerment and livelihoods of Somali women and youth.

Oxfam is considered one of the leading policy and advocacy organizations in Somalia. The successful media and lobbying is deeply rooted in the work with national NGO and our programmes. It aims to amplify the impact of the humanitarian and development operational work improving the life of Somalis affected by climate shocks, injustice and conflict. Oxfam reports and press releases on Somalia are often cited by international news agencies and decision and policy-makers around the globe.

The position

The Senior Campaigns and Policy Advisor is the Campaigns and Policy Lead for Oxfam on all lobby, advocacy and campaign issues. The role will ensure that the full range of Oxfam’s global, regional and national campaign and advocacy capacities are appropriately mobilized to achieve lasting change in relation to Oxfam’s strategic objectives in Somalia. Our work in Somalia has both a strong humanitarian and developmental focus. The post holder will be expected to continue the highly successful campaign (including popular mobilisation), lobby and advocacy work built up over the past few years. There is a one year advocacy strategy in place and Oxfam often leads multi-agency lobby initiatives. Currently there is no media strategy.

He or she will liaise and engage closely with Oxfam humanitarian and development programme and technical sector leads in Somalia, national partners and other humanitarian and development actors in Hargeisa, Garowe, Mogadishu and Nairobi. The information and analysis at this national and regional level will allow the post holder to proactively and strongly lead a global advocacy working group of Oxfam affiliates, coordinating the work at donors’ capitals, and Oxfam International offices, influencing decisions in hubs following Somalia’s policies (such as Washington for International Financial Institutions, New York and Geneva for the United Nations, Brussels for European Institutions and Addis Ababa for the African Union). He or she will ensure that the advocacy working group’s influencing activities have a strong integration of policy, advocacy, campaigns, media, alliance-building and programming work, and maintain coherence and coordination with Oxfam Somalia’s national development advocacy work as well as with Oxfam’s regional and global humanitarian (Rights in Crisis) campaigns. The post holder will be expected to be able to engage at senior level with policy-makers at governments, donors and other stakeholders.

Purpose of the position

• To serve as Campaigns and Policy Lead and provide leadership, strategic guidance and supervision on advocacy and campaigns to all members of staff and to the humanitarian and development programmes.
• To analyse regularly the national and regional political, and socio-economic and humanitarian context and developments in Somalia, disseminating those updates internally and externally.
• To update the humanitarian advocacy and campaigns strategy, adjusting the key areas of work and objectives for Oxfam and key messages, in close collaboration with humanitarian and development programme leads.
• To implement the campaigning and lobby agendas for Somalia, identify the power dynamics of external national to global stakeholders to adopt and implement the policy positions of Oxfam and key civil society actors that can support them through potential alliances.
• To lead in research design and production of policy and campaign products.
• To engage with governments, other humanitarian and development agencies, UN agencies in coordinating and leading policy and campaign work.
• To assist and advise staff and Somali partner organizations in developing their lobby, advocacy and campaigning activities.

Responsibilities General

• To develop, update, lead on implementation and monitor the Oxfam Somalia humanitarian advocacy and campaign strategy, ensuring that the analysis and priorities of programmes and partners consistently informs the process and its coherent and synergetic with the development advocacy work. To act as the Oxfam Campaigns and Policy Lead for Somalia for that strategy as well as for any reactive work related to specific events or changes in the political, development and humanitarian situation in Somalia;
• To mobilise and manage internal and external financial and other resources to implement agreed advocacy strategies and plans. To develop approaches to monitoring and evaluation and impact assessment of campaigns work and ensure effective roll-out;
• Ensure that gender analysis and a commitment to achieving gender justice is applied across all levels of the strategies’ planning and delivery;
• To produce, or to commission and project-manage, research, regular analytical reports, briefing papers, talking points and other public communication material on relevant political, humanitarian and economic developments in Somalia, the region and globally and other products included in the strategy. To plan and implement advocacy efforts of Oxfam and its counterparts to influence internal and external stakeholders, coordinating the various influencing components including popular mobilization and media;
• To exchange information and meet with Oxfam Somalia partners, technical sector and programme leads, and to visit communities working with Oxfam humanitarian and development programmes. To ensure that their input and issues are represented effectively in Oxfam’s campaigning and advocacy plans and initiatives;
• To identify Oxfam Somalia programme staff and partners needs in advocacy and lobby, build their influencing capacity and take steps to promote greater opportunities for Somali voices to be heard through advocacy and media work. To facilitate capacity building and involvement of all Oxfam staff and partners in research, analysis, policy development and advocacy;
• To represent Oxfam to external policy and/or media stakeholders, events and influencing opportunities. To build relationships with relevant government and UN officials and with other relevant stakeholders including international and local NGOs.

Required Skills and Competences:

The post holder should have a proven record and commitment on development and humanitarian affairs and ability to travel within Somalia and to Nairobi, Kenya, as well as occasionally internationally.

(E) = Essential

• Strong advocacy background, with experience of leading teams and processes regarding policy and advocacy work at local, national and international levels (E). This experience would have been ideally gained on complex environments, with multi-dimensional humanitarian and developmental policy issues, and preferably within larger NGOs. It would have provided the ability to conduct policy, power and stakeholder analysis; prioritise key issues and analyse their impact on the policy environment; and, finally, sensitivity to challenging political contexts and understanding of risk management processes;
• Knowledge and understanding of protection issues, humanitarian assistance, food security, aid effectiveness, and peace and security concerns (E). It is essential an operational experience and excellent understanding of how humanitarian crisis can present both opportunities and threats to women’s rights and gender justice, and ways to plan and implement “gender-just” approach to development and humanitarian influencing work.
• Excellent research, analysis and report writing skills and proven capacity to develop position papers, articles and policy notes (E). These skills and experience will be coupled with significant and proven experience of managing others to produce research and analysis outputs;
• Proven ability to communicate verbally with a wide range of actors and audiences (E). Ability to build relationships with a variety of stakeholders at different levels from crisis affected Somali women and men to decision makers. High level of networking skills. Prior experience in alliance building with other organisations and expanding the influencing work of national NGO and networks, with a particular focus on women right’s organisations;
• Fluent in English (E); knowledge of Somali an advantage.

(D) = Desirable

• Understanding and experience of Somalia’s complex and evolving political, humanitarian, and development situation (D);
• Experience of managing complex working groups and multiple tasks with the ability to engage in innovative and strategic thinking (D). This experience and ability is paramount to work and lead within a cross-affiliate team which occasionally has conflictual priorities and agendas. This means working, particularly at time of humanitarian crisis, in a challenging and pressurised environment. Highly motivated, self-starter able to lead a process, engage others and create ownership ends.

What we offer

Oxfam Novib is committed to providing you with a competitive, fair, and comprehensive pay and benefits package that is justifiable to our donors.