Advocacy Manager

NRC in Afghanistan

NRC Afghanistan established operations in 2003, and currently maintains four area offices in Balkh, Nangarhar, Herat, and Kandahar Provinces, as well as field offices in hard-to-reach provinces: Kunduz, Khost, Faryab, Sar-i-Pul and Badghis. NRC interventions are based on the humanitarian principles, which are promoted to increase the acceptance of humanitarian assistance amongst target populations, as well as, to facilitate and enable access. Afghanistan is a protracted and complex emergency in which conflict and recurrent natural disasters combine, set against a back drop of the continued return of Afghan Refugees from Pakistan and Iran; the humanitarian context is characterized by multiple localised emergencies adversely impacting communities and populations with low levels of resilience and/or high vulnerability.

About the position

NRC is now seeking an experienced Advocacy Manager to provide overall leadership, management and strategic direction to NRC’s policy and advocacy work in Afghanistan. S/he will be 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 protection and humanitarian response environment in Afghanistan.

Generic responsibilities

• Identify and coordinate NRC’s advocacy response to prioritised protection issues both within the country and internationally
• Develop and implement country-specific advocacy strategy, aligned to overall country strategy
• 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.
• Ensure systematic training on advocacy and communication and build capacity of technical staff
• Provide high quality protection 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

Specific responsibilities

• Ensure the provision of high quality analysis on the humanitarian situation pertaining to displacement-affected, 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.

• 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 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 and draft and deliver necessary reporting documents, including Advocacy Key Messages.  

• 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.

Our ideal candidate

Professional competencies

• Post-graduate with minimum 5 years of relevant Manager/Adviser experience within the humanitarian field

• 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
• Documented results related to the position’s responsibilities
• Knowledge about own leadership skills/profile
• Fluency in English, both written and verbal

Context/specific skills, knowledge and experience:

• Solid understanding of international legal and policy processes relating to forced displacement, as well as migration

• 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

• Understanding of regional refugee and internal displacement relevant to the Afghanistan context

All NRC employees are expected to work in accordance with the organisation’s core values: dedication, innovation, inclusivity and accountability. These attitudes and believes shall guide our actions and relationships.

We offer:

Contract period: 18 months

Salary/benefits: According to NRC's salary scale and terms and conditions

Duty station: Kabul, Afghanistan with approx. 40% travel in country

This is an unaccompanied post/non family duty station, with shared housing/ accommodation of moderate standard.
Due to the unstable security situation, recreational and social facilities are limited.
All international staff working and residing in Afghanistan are obliged to pay income tax to the Afghanistan authorities. 
Approved health certificate will be requested before contract start. 
Selected candidate need to provide certified University diplomas prior to applying for visa to Afghanistan

Application procedures and CV registration: Please note that you are required to enter the geographical location for all your previous positions while registering your CV. There is no specific field for this information in our CV form, but you can use the "Company name" field for both company and location. 

Please note that this is a rolling recruitment.

NRC reserves the right to conduct a full background check on shortlisted candidates