Advocacy Manager At Amref Health Africa

1. GAVI CSO HOSTING ARRANGEMENT

Amref Health Africa is the new host of the Gavi Civil Society Organization (CSO) Hosting Arrangement. In this role, Amref Health Africa will work with a wide array of local, national to international civil society organizations (the Gavi CSO constituency) by providing coordination, strategic advisory services, constituency governance systems and process management, communications and administrative services, including advocacy, networking and knowledge management. This is aimed at supporting Gavi to attain the global immunization Agenda 2030, Gavi’s Strategy for the 2021-2025 and COVAX.

2. JOB PURPOSE

The Advocacy Manager will report directly to the Programme Manager and lead the CSOs engagement, capacity building, technical oversight of activities related to the attainment of Gavi’s Strategy for the 2021-2025 period, the Global Immunization Agenda 2030 and COVAX.

3. PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Coordinate policy engagement, communications, and capacity-strengthening activities promoted by the Gavi Secretariat in collaboration with the Gavi CSO Steering Committee.
• Establish and nurture partnerships with relevant stakeholders including CSOs, governments and the private sector while initiating other useful ones.
• Work closely with the project team and lead in planning, implementing, and managing the advocacy and policy engagement activities within budgetary guidelines and donor compliance requirements.
• Work closely with the Gavi CSO Steering Committee (CS) and the Gavi Secretariat to develop knowledge translation products such as evidence briefs, policy briefs, fact sheets, and others for CSOS.
• Provide advocacy support for initiatives the SC focuses on such as the Calls to Action, advocacy letters, among other.
• Organize and lead policy engagement forums at national, regional and global levels in liaison with research teams to disseminate research findings and promote the use of evidence in policy engagement.
• Attend and ensure appropriate and balanced representation of CSO voices in key regional and global meetings identified by the Gavi CSO Steering Committee and the Gavi secretariat as part of Gavi CSO delegation, by taking minutes and providing written reports to wider CSO Constituency on key outcomes.
• Coordinate attendance of Gavi task teams and working groups meetings and teleconferences in consultation with the Programme Manager in order to ensure that the SC is well informed on key policy and governance developments for the latter to make informed decisions.
• Responsible for coordinating all of the COVAX CS work, liaising with the ACTA CS platform and coordination with the Constituency in liaison with Programme Manager.
• Developing and implementing robust and impactful advocacy and policy engagement strategies.
• Work closely with the core team in ensuring compliance with donor requirements such as keeping track of outputs and outcomes for advocacy and policy engagement, writing annual progress reports and updates to Gavi.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

4. Education and Professional Qualifications

• Master’s degree or higher in Public Health, Social Sciences, International Development, or a closely related field.

5. Required Qualifications and Experience

• Minimum of seven (7) years of relevant experience in advocacy, behavior change communication or immunization and vaccinations.
• Stakeholder engagement experience and demonstrable results of using evidence to influencing policy, knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and perceptions.
• Proven ability in managing and fostering relations with stakeholders ranging from communities to government level.
• Familiarity with Gavi policies, procedures, strategies and work.

6. Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Demonstrated ability to cultivate relationships and collaborate with a variety of stakeholders such as civil society, private sector, government ministries and officials, donors, community-based institutions.
• Ability to provide leadership, communicate effectively, and promote a team approach to enhance staff commitment to the program’s success.
• Language skills: Excellent spoken and written English; Proficiency in French is an added advantage.
• Strong interpersonal skills.