Policy & Advocacy Advisor, PlayMatters

IRC is leading a the PlayMatters consortium in partnership with War Child, Plan International, Behavioral Insights Team and Innovations for Poverty Action to implement the PlayMatters project. The 5-year initiative funded by LEGO Foundation aims to increase play-based learning opportunities for nearly 1 million pre-primary and primary school aged refugee and host community children impacted by the humanitarian crises in East Africa and living in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda.

The Ministry of Education and Sports (MOES) in Uganda supports the project in accordance with the Education Response Plan for refugees and host communities in Uganda (ERP) -2007-2021 which sets out a realistic and implementable plan to ensure improved learning outcomes for increasing numbers of refugee and host-community children and adolescents across Uganda.

Job Overview

IRC in partnership with the Education Response Plan (ERP) secretariat is seeking a Policy and Advocacy Advisor  to provide technical and strategic support to  engage , influence, coordinate and support integration Early Childhood Development (ECD)  and PlayMatters Learning through Play core agenda within  in the ERP and other education sector plans and priorities for both pre-primary and primary .  The role will also support the monitoring function of the ERP Secretariat for the LEGO Funding 

Duties and Responsibilities

• Ensure inclusion of ECD/ PlayMatters initiatives into existing government-led coordination mechanisms and relevant education sector departments 
• Identify entry points and support IRC Consortium Partner engagement within the ERP and other subsectors in the Ministry of Education and conduct up to date mapping of the strategic partners
• Representation of the mandate of the ERP/PlayMatters in key strategic platforms to ensure accurate information dissemination and learning exchange.
• Support advocacy for ECD and Learning through Play in Refugees and host communities in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) and other relevant sector policy implementation and prioritization
• Develop a clear ECCE strategy for ECCE in the ERP II, maintaining the guidance provided in the ESSP and ECCE strategy
• Support mobilization of resources for ECCE in the ERP and track utilization of resources invested, documenting key outcomes and gaps
• Develop a TOR for advocacy interventions to mitigate challenges and risk factors affecting ERP implementation especially the need for increased burden responsibility sharing
• Prioritize and facilitate Policy dialogues regarding key issues relating to ECCE and Learning through Play(LtP)  in pre-primary and primary school education
• Support the development of policy briefs, advocacy papers for ECCE and Learning through Play in Refugees and ensure their dissemination in strategic forums and processes
• Attend meetings and dialogues on behalf of PlayMatters/ERP/MoES and ensure follow up on key emerging issues
• Monitor and support inputs of ECD and PlayMatters data periodically into the ERP and other relevant databases for PlayMatters and the collaborating sector departments.

Reports to: Dual reporting to ERP Coordinator and Uganda PlayMatters Senior Project Coordinator