Humanitarian Advocacy Advisor
Deadline: 15 March, 2023
Term: 35 hours, full-time
Salary: £35,703 – £37,210 (London weighting); £32,019 – £33,526 (without London weighting); or National Equivalent
Location: London, UK, or hybrid remote, including internationally
London/UK, which could be potentially hybrid working with a minimum of 40% of your time in the office (this is the default arrangement for most posts within the UK); or office based in London. However, we are open to strong candidates based elsewhere around the world with the location flexible with potential for remote working. As a global organisation we are open to considering applications from candidates in a variety of locations. Terms and conditions will depend on country registration and right to work status of the successful applicant. Some international travel will be required.
Job profile
The Humanitarian Advocacy Advisor (HAA) is an advisor-level position in CAFOD’s Humanitarian Programme and Support Team. Working closely with the Head of Humanitarian Policy, other CAFOD staff and local partners, the HAA will support policy analysis, advocacy, and other related tasks (e.g. media work) on both thematic and context-specific issues relevant to promoting local leadership in crisis response.
Through its advocacy, wider programming and partnerships, CAFOD is committed to promoting transformative change in the humanitarian system at global as well as national and local levels to promote the leadership, agency and voice of local civil society and crisis-affected communities themselves. The expertise of our local partners and their networks is at the heart of our advocacy approach. Together with our local partners, CAFOD has played an important role in efforts to promote accountability for localisation commitments made by donors, UN agencies, NGOs and others. We are looking for candidates with relevant experience which could include working in humanitarian action, but also other dimensions of advocacy and civil society response to conflict and/or natural disasters. An understanding of how to advocate for change in the humanitarian system, as well as of the priority challenges and opportunities faced by local civil society, will be essential to deliver in this role.
There is scope for deployments (2-4 weeks at a time) to countries in crisis to support the CAFOD Country Offices or partners at peak moments of emergencies. Total travel is not expected to exceed 3 months in any 12-month period.
Key responsibilities
Support to thematic advocacy to promote local leadership of crisis response (30%)
- Provide thematic leadership on one or more thematic priorities under our Global Core Advocacy Programme; as determined by our priority advocacy objectives and advocacy strategy. Responsibilities would include engaging with local partners in priority contexts to understand their perspectives and support their analysis and recommendations on the theme; building up and evidence base and cooperation across different contexts. In addition, monitoring and engaging in policy dialogue with institutions and inter-agency processes of relevance to that theme; drafting policy briefs, talking-points, media/communications outputs; and supporting local partners to directly engage, represent their perspectives and have influence with these institutions and processes.
- Provide support on prioritised themes for advocacy led by other staff, including the Head of Humanitarian Policy and other staff across CAFOD and local partner organisations. Responsibilities could include support on research and analysis (eg conducting surveys and interviews with staff and partners or other relevant stakeholders); organising meetings and lobbying opportunities; as well as more basic administrative support (eg note-taking, scheduling advocacy meetings etc).
- Collaborate with media/communications, campaigns and supporter engagement teams to generate content to help raise awareness and generate public and media attention to deliver on our thematic advocacy priorities.
Support to context-specific advocacy to promote local leadership of crisis response (30%)
- Provide support to advocacy by CAFOD programme staff and local partners on Local Leadership in Crisis Response in at least one context prioritised under the Global Core Advocacy Programme. Responsibilities could include:
- Accompaniment and mentoring of CAFOD or local partner staff on humanitarian advocacy methods and their understanding of humanitarian and other relevant decision-making spaces (including humanitarian coordination processes; but also potentially including wider processes of relevance such as those relating to peacebuilding/conflict resolution, government social protection systems and national disaster management authorities, and anticipatory action).
- Support to relevant internal programme and advocacy strategic planning and management processes (eg factoring humanitarian advocacy into the wider programme MEAL) and linked to this support to programme and funding proposal development towards securing increased resources to support national/local civil society partners’ capacity to lead research, advocacy and other actions of relevance to local leadership of crisis response.
- Acting as a focal point or broker for CAFOD staff and partners to relevant context-specific inter-agency advocacy and policy spaces when a crisis occurs (eg the relevant inter-agency context-specific advocacy working-group, the IASC coordination group discussion on that crisis response, as well as identifying opportunities for the CAFOD team and partners to engage with in-country processes and networks)
- Provide support to CAFOD programme staff and local partners on humanitarian advocacy in other contexts that are affected by humanitarian crisis or are at high risk of emergencies occurring. Again, responsibilities could include:
- Accompaniment and mentoring of CAFOD or local partner staff on humanitarian advocacy methods and their understanding of humanitarian and other relevant decision-making spaces (peace/conflict, social protection, national disaster management, etc).
- Support to relevant internal programme and advocacy strategic planning and management processes (eg IECs, EMTs)
- Acting as a focal-point or broker for CAFOD staff and partners to relevant context-specific inter-agency advocacy and policy spaces when a crisis occurs (eg the relevant inter-agency context-specific advocacy working-group, the IASC coordination group discussion on that crisis response, as well as identifying opportunities for the CAFOD team and partners to engage with in-country processes and networks)
- Collaborate with media/communications, campaigns and supporter engagement teams to generate content to help raise awareness and generate public and media attention to deliver on our humanitarian advocacy priorities in the above contexts.
Support to networking and coalition-building on local leadership of crisis response (20%)
- Engage with external humanitarian policy fora as required (eg clusters, IASC, ICVA, Grand Bargain working-groups, BOND and context-specific NGO advocacy working groups).
- Provide logistical support to organising policy events and other joint advocacy work with external partners.
- Provide support to convening and organising the Caritas Internationalis Humanitarian Policy Taskforce (eg monthly meetings; updating the working-group work-plan; liaising with relevant Caritas focal points to the working-group in countries affected by crisis, the CI Brussels, Geneva, New York and Rome offices to maintain momentum on shared priorities between meetings).
Support to monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning to enable more effective local leadership of crisis response (20%)
- Provide support on monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning for advocacy the Global Core Programme on Local Leadership on Crisis Response.
- Support other Core Programmes on monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning for humanitarian advocacy.
- Support wider efforts on MEAL of CAFOD’s approach to local leadership and localisation across both humanitarian and wider programming, as well as corporate efforts of relevance.
For more information about working for CAFOD and the full Person Specification please visit the careers pages.
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