CARE is an international NGO with local staff and community partners in more than 90 countries. We create local solutions to poverty and inequality and we seek dignity for everyone every day and during times of crisis. These solutions have a broad range, from clean water to access to education; from microfinance to ensuring that everyone has nutritious food; from agriculture and climate change to disaster response. CARE puts women and girls at the center of everything we do because they have proven to be the best hope for creating lasting change in the world. Our staff live where they work, which makes us effective at understanding the challenges they face. We’ve been doing this for over 70 years, since World War II. It started with the world’s first CARE Package® of food for the post-war hungry in Europe. Our work today is as important as ever, we believe that poverty and inequality are historic injustices that we can end within a generation, for good. If you share our core beliefs: poverty is an injustice; poverty is solvable; and together, we have the power to end it, join us, and fight with CARE.
CARE is a leading international non-governmental organization (NGO) fighting global poverty through humanitarian relief and long-term development initiatives. CARE places Gender Justice at the heart of its work by focusing upon transforming the lives of women and girls through the promotion and protection of their rights and by harnessing their capacities for transformative change.
As part of its CARE 2030 Vision, CARE and partner agencies - particularly women’s led and women’s rights organizations - ensure impact through evidence-based advocacy which links its program interventions to advocacy at country, regional and global levels.
CARE Members and Country Offices across the globe are held accountable for Gender Justice, with technical resources located in CARE members, regional units, and country offices dedicated to forwarding their programming objectives. In the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), plus the additional Balkans and Caucasus offices, CARE’s efforts are guided by a Social and Gender Justice Framework which prioritizes addressing gender-based violence (GBV), women’s economic Justice and humanitarian response. The Regional Advocacy Coordinator is therefore a leader of such work in the region.
The Regional Advocacy Coordinator will be a champion of the rights of women and girls in the region working to promote wider Gender Equality through the work of CARE country presences, networks and partnerships.
He/She will guide and support\the creation and the advancement of CARE’s advocacy goals ensuring that they combine with programming to multiply impact and sustainability. Working with country teams across the MENA region, the role will support strategy formation by conducting analysis to identify and advance advocacy priorities; provide capacity building and technical support to CARE and partners and ensure the results-capture of advocacy initiatives.
The role works on developing and improving policies and practices from governments, as well as national, regional and global institutions towards more just and fair societies.
Given the large number of protracted humanitarian situations in the region (e.g. Syria, Yemen, etc) a clear focus of this role is upon Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls (GEEWG) in humanitarian action, whilst supporting subsequent phases of programming through Humanitarian-Development-Peace nexus. Accordingly, experience of Humanitarian and Protection-related issues, Gender Justice and Women’s Economic Justice and inclusion are key.
The role encompasses management of consultants, researchers and persons external to CARE to conduct advocacy and policy initiatives, requiring skills in management of people and budgets. This regional position will be based in the MENA, Caucasus and Balkans region, reporting to the Regional Deputy Regional Director for Program and Impact.
Job Responsibilities:
Analyses, Strategy Formation, Action Planning and Implementation
- Conduct and document analyses of unequal power relations to better understand that root causes of vulnerability, disenfranchisement and poverty to identify necessary changes.
- Provide strong technical leadership to support COs to design, implement, and evaluate results-oriented Advocacy strategies .
- Facilitate and support strategy formation tied to country teams and locally-led groups, including Women-led orgnisations and (WLOs) and Women’s Rights Orgnisations (WROs).
- Create influencing plans within the global and regional leadership to operationalize implementation of the policy recommendations by responsible agencies at field level, including donor governments, HCTs, UN agencies, cluster/working group coordination systems, IASC regional structures and key governments in MENA and regional institutions.
- Report at regional level advocacy wins, processes, lessons learned and challenges to strengthen CARE’s advocacy in the region
- Produce stakeholder mappings, reports, position papers, theories of change, lead research and collate written analyses to ensure impact through influence upon change-makers and target audiences
Advocacy and Policy Research, Learning and Measurement
- Identify knowledge and evidence-generation gaps and co-develop policy guidance, briefings to surface national and regional issues and inform global policy formation and advocacy.
- Create smart systems for impact measurement of Advocacy strategies that highlight performance and impact to strengthen program learning and documentation on advocacy.
- Lead and collaborate on the implementation of Advocacy case studies in CARE country presences to showcase successes and challenges with different advocacy initiatives or strategies.
- Support and lead the monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning processes related to Advocacy at country level, providing guidance and advising on the best ways to capture evidence.
Strategic Partnerships and Representation
- Build and engage with networks in the region that share CARE’s values and aims - WLOs and WROs - wider civil society actors including regional coalitions, intergovernmental fora, research/academic institutions to advance CARE´s programme, policy and advocacy aims and to ensure impact.
- Identify and manage strategic partnerships with key regional bodies for advocacy and programming goals and objectives.
- Enhance CARE’s technical leadership role as a credible regional voice on Gender Justice among donors, government counterparts, partner organizations CI Members, and partners.
- Forge internal and external partnerships, provide high level representation in regional fora, programs and networks Act as a spokesperson for CARE with external stakeholders on advocacy issues, being a champion of women’s rights and courageous voice for rights of vulnerable groups in external fora and with media.
- Prepare talking points for CARE’s leadership and key messages fro external audiences Attend regional and global meetings as required.
Regional Coordination and Global Connectedness
- Coordinate across CARE country presences in the region to ensure regional coordinate and harmonized Advocacy engagement, initiatives, outputs and outcomes
- Ensure connectedness and engagement with Global advocacy initiatives.
- Collaborate closely with regional communications and advocacy staff to proactively share and coordinate across these functions
- Lead and coordinate the MENA Technical Working Group on Gender and Advocacy in collaboration with the Gender in Emergencies and Protection Coordinator
- Be a proactive member of the regional Programme and Advocacy team and the Regional Management Unit, through collaborating with other colleagues, pro actively sharing updates and relevant information and collaborating in team meetings.
- Cover for staff absences on urgent matters when needed in the region.
Management, Capacity-building, Coaching and Training
- Provide trainings to CARE colleagues and partners in the region on Advocacy to enhance skills to effectively influence policy-making processes
- Coach and mentor colleagues and partner staff working in advocacy in the region to support professional development and the localization of aid and development Manage consultants/researchers/staff to deliver upon Terms of Reference/Job descriptions in accordance with budgetary and advocacy aims, targets and responsibilities.
Education / Training:
- Master’s Degree level qualification in an international development, public policy, genders studies.
- Preferably with Master’s degree in public policy, gender studies or aid and development related studies.
Experience / Technical Skills :
- 5-7 Years experience in international aid and development/policy related field, 5 of which in advocacy and policy roles.
- Excellent communication skills, written and oral, with ability to create documents in English and Arabic.
- Demonstrated experience of context analysis, policy analysis, design and implementation of advocacy with diverse Civil Society actors especially Women’s organizations, government, academia & NGOs to secure commitment around common goals
- Strong understanding of the political and legal systems related to women’s rights and gender and protection in MENA countries
- Effective training and capacity building skills, proven capacity to work in alliances, to create multi-stakeholder networks
- Knowledge of key advocacy approaches: promoting gender equality and women’s voice, inclusive governance and building resilience, preferably in the Middle East and North Africa or Caucasus context.