Senior Advocacy Officer

Job Purpose
Reporting to the Director of Advocacy & Communications, the Senior Advocacy Officer will play a leading role in delivering International Alert’s ambitions to grow its influence capability under its Organisational Strategy and new internal Resilience Plan.
This position will focus on providing support to Alert’s country teams spanning, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. It will also play a leading role in supporting and driving the delivery of Alert’s multi-year Organisational Influencing Priorities, which include both country and thematic issues.
Increasing influencing impact at the national level and linking local project related work to more structural drivers of conflict has been identified as a key priority by country teams and this role will play a part in meeting that demand.
To that end, this position will provide high quality advice to teams related to advocacy strategy, design, budgeting and monitoring and evaluation.  It will identify and engineer opportunities to advance country program influencing priorities and buildout the organisations advocacy skills set through training and accompaniment.
Fluency in both English and French is a requirement of the position.

Duties and Responsibilities

1. Provide strategic and programmatic advisory advocacy support
• Lead the Advocacy & Communications team’s support to country teams on country strategy processes and annual plans, national influencing strategies as well as on strategy related to specific projects
• Support teams to formulate policy positions and messaging for influencing purposes
• In conjunction with the Advocacy Officer, provide support to teams delivering Alert’s Organisational Influencing Priorities
• Support direct programme delivery where written into proposals
• As requested, review and provide advice on policy products produced by teams, advise on associated dissemination and contribute to communications products requiring policy insights
• Support teams to frame and appropriately target research, reports and other policy products to maximise influence and impact

Build organisational, knowledge, skills and capacity
• Encourage systematic integration of advocacy and communications into proposals, designs, budgets and M&E frameworks through accompaniment, training and tools
• Identify, record and disseminate best practice/impact within the organisation related to influencing
• In collaboration with the Senior Communications Officer, skill up teams and partners in influencing planning and practice and maintain updated tools and guidance
• In collaboration with the Senior Communications Officer, cultivate the cross-organisation network on Advocacy and Communications to share lessons, best practice and rally action around organisational influencing priorities

Build and leverage networks & relationships
• Generate more systematic, rolling opportunities for country programme influence with key audiences at the regional and international level through building relationships and networks with regional and international institutions and engineering opportunities for engagement
• Keep abreast of key policy and advocacy developments and initiatives within country teams
• Undertake direct representation on behalf of the organisation on selected issues

Contribute to the team and Alert generally
• Contribute to team-wide communications and knowledge management, and participate in organisation-wide events and discussions on related topics/projects
• Any other tasks as may be reasonably required
Travel requirements

While pandemic conditions persist, travel is unlikely and remote working will be the norm. When these conditions subside, there would be an expectation of substantial travel to provide in-country support to teams throughout the regions where International Alert works and as the need arises, to donor capitals.

This is an outposted position of the Advocacy and Communications team. Travel to HQ would be expected for team strategic planning processes.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS

Talents

At Alert, we have introduced Talent Management to our business model as we believe talented people are crucial to the success of our work. We believe all individuals are talented and success comes in matching the right talents to the right roles. At Alert, we have introduced Talent Management to our business model as we believe talented people are crucial to the success of our work. We believe all individuals are talented and success comes in matching the right talents to the right roles.

For this role, the skills, qualifications and experience listed below are important, but we believe that to be great in this job you are likely, to have a talent for looking at the bigger picture, understanding and finding solutions to complex problems as well as communicating in a convincing manner adapting to different audiences.

ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS

At least 4 years’ experience working in mid-level policy and advocacy related positions
Oral and written fluency in French and English
Demonstrated high quality written and oral communications skills
Experience working in a developing or conflict-affected country including collaboration with programme teams
Degree level education in international relations, development, defence studies or allied fields
Significant experience in leading the development of advocacy strategies, policy documents and publications
Experience in supporting and guiding others in the development of advocacy strategies, policy positions and policy products
Strong analytical capabilities and an ability to identify and manage risk
Experience building networks and relationships and representing policy positions on behalf of an organisation to external actors
Demonstrated networks and relationships with, and experience engaging, bilateral and multilateral donor institutions and national governments
Ability to translate complex concepts into policy insights and recommendations tailored to different advocacy targets
Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work across diverse teams
Solution orientated, self-starter who is capable of working independently, with more limited supervision

DESIRABLE REQUIREMENTS

Specialist knowledge of peacebuilding through either professional experience or academic study or both
Experience delivering training to others
Experience in programme / project design, monitoring and evaluation
Experience in developing or contributing to fundraising proposals