Advocacy Manager at Norwegian Refugee Council

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a non-governmental, humanitarian organization with 60 years of experience in helping to create a safer and more dignified life for refugees and internally displaced people. NRC advocates for the rights of displaced populations and offers assistance within the shelter, emergency food security, and water, sanitation and hygiene sectors.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Advocacy Manager

Job Identification: 440
Location: Maiduguri, Borno
Job Schedule: Full time

Job Description

• The Advocacy Manager provides overall leadership, management and strategic direction to NRC’s policy and advocacy work in Nigeria.
• S/he is responsible for identifying priority protection concerns for advocacy, strengthening the incorporation of advocacy into all aspects of NRC’s activities and guiding NRC’s advocacy messaging to promote an improved in collaboration with the Protection coordinator protection and humanitarian response environment in Nigeria.

Generic Responsibilities (max 10) 

• Identify and coordinate NRC’s advocacy response to prioritised issues both within the country and internationally 
• Develop and implement country-specific advocacy strategy, aligned to overall country strategy and support the development of the advocacy part of program strategies. 
• Provide high-quality analysis on key humanitarian and displacement trends and prepare evidenced-based policy briefing papers, policy position statements and other public-facing advocacy products when strategic and relevant
• Liaise with other NRC Country, Regional and Global Representation Offices to coordinate the strategic delivery of advocacy messaging and to maximise impact
• Advise on media lines and media strategy, ensuring potential risks associated with NRC’s positions are assessed and sign-off procedures are adhered to
• Represent NRC to key stakeholders, strengthen strategic advocacy networks and identify opportunities to advocate NRC’s position
• Ensure advocacy coherence and reinforce effective synergies between programmes and advocacy by working closely with programme staff to integrate advocacy into programme planning and implementation.
• Line management, including development of staff if applicable 
• Ensure systematic training on advocacy and communication and build capacity of technical staff 

Specific Responsibilities:

• Keep Advocacy strategy for NRC Nigeria updated.
• Active participation in INGO advocacy working group
• Support the CCs advocacy work with stakeholders
• Ensure that relevant NRC Country Offices and departments (Field Operations, External Relations, Partnership & Policy) are informed and briefed on response situation and priority advocacy issues
• Actively network with other organisations involved in the response, and lead on development of joint field-based advocacy and positions towards target audiences
• Prepare high-quality key messages, briefings, letters and other written materials for internal and external use, ensuring strong evidence-base in messaging and following agreed sign-off procedures
• Revise and update the NRC Country Office advocacy strategy as necessary 
• Draft and deliver necessary reporting documents
• Seek fundraising opportunities for advocacy and contribute to the development of quality proposals, ensuring inclusion of research and/or advocacy activities on specific humanitarian and protection issues affecting displacement-affected where appropriate
• Continuously identify and follow-up opportunities for influencing based on NRC Nigeria’s advocacy priorities, both in-country and internationally through NRC’s Representation Offices; 
• Ensure the provision of high-quality analysis on the humanitarian situation pertaining to displacement-affected population, contributing to improved NRC programmatic response and informing internal and external advocacy products
• Support programme staff in incorporating and integrating advocacy into all aspects of NRC’s programme activities, strategy and budgeting

Critical Interfaces:
By interfaces, NRC means processes and projects that are interlinked with other departments/units or persons. Relevant interfaces for this position are:

• Training and capacity building of staff: PDMs and CMG in-country 
• Strategy development: Country Director and Regional Advocacy Manager. 
• Development of advocacy products: Regional Advocacy Manager, Country Director, Protection Manager, Head of Programme, and Policy and Partnership (Policy and Advocacy Section) and External Relations Department when relevant. 
• Information sharing with/ briefing of NRC Global (NRC Geneva, NRC Europe, Washington DC, London, Addis Ababa)on response situation and priority advocacy issues: Regional Advocacy  Manager

Competencies:
Competencies are important in order for the employee and the organisation to deliver desired results. They are relevant for all staff and are divided into the following three categories:

Professional Competencies
Generic professional competencies for this position: 

• Post-graduate with minimum 5 years of relevant Manager/ Adviser experience within the humanitarian field
• Documented results related to the position’s responsibilities
• Good leadership skills/profile 
• Fluency in English, both written and verbal 
• Experience from working in complex and volatile contexts
• Professional knowledge about protection principles and advocacy, and the use of media for public advocacy
• Strong managerial and interpersonal skills

Context/Specific skills, knowledge and experience: (examples)
Solid understanding of international legal and policy processes relating to displacement

• Documented/proven results related to the position’s responsibilities, particularly in analysis, drafting of messages, coordination and networking
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal (English)
• Knowledge of the Lake Chad region
• Representation experience

Behavioural Competencies (max 6):
These are personal qualities that influence how successful people are in their job. NRC’s Competency Framework states 12 behavioural competencies, the following are essential for this position:

• Handling insecure environments
• Working with people
• Initiate action and change
• Analysing 
• Strategic thinking
• Empowering and building trust

Performance Management:
The employee will be accountable for the responsibilities and the competencies, in accordance with the NRC Performance Management Manual. The following documents will be used for performance reviews: 

• The Job Description
• The Work and Development Plan
• The Mid-term/End-of-trial Period Performance Review Template
• The End-term Performance Review Template
• The NRC Competency Framework

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply

Application Deadline  29th January, 2021.