ActionAid Denmark seeks an experienced regional Pan-African Governance Advisor, who would be an important member of the core project management team for the EC funded Pan-African project “Mobilizing Civil Society Support for Implementation of the African Governance Architecture”. The project is led by AADK and implemented in eight ActionAid countries by ActionAid country offices and with regional partners from the CSO media fraternity.
The project is aiming to develop a Citizen’s Report methodology bringing together results from community scorecards; citizen perception data (Afrobarometer); and legal analysis into national and regional overviews on implementation. The Advisor would play a key role in advising on development and implementation of this methodology as well as subsequent advocacy at national, regional and continental levels. A significant focus is to train and build capacity of the ActionAid national offices and partners within this methodology as well as support advocacy.
Specific objectives:
- Develop tools and guidelines that allow the AA offices to be confident in implementing the Citizen Report methodology at national level
- Providing coaching and capacity building to ensure that partners feel confident and are independently engaging effectively in advocacy activities at national, regional and international levels.
- Mentor partners and support development of training curricula that they can utilise to deliver training to other CSOs on advocacy to implement the ACDEG (the African Charter on Democracy, Elections & Governance).
- Develop guidelines to support regional implementation partners to successfully advocate for the implementation of the ACDEG and more effectively buildg CSO alliances at regional level for advocacy on ACDEG especially with governance, youth and women’s rights oriented CSOs
Key result areas:
The Advisor’s support will help to ensure:
- A methodology guide has been developed for producing national Citizen’s Reports on implementation of the ACDEG and revised to reflect lessons-learned
- Coaching is provided to AA offices on implementation of Citizen’s Report methodology, especially legal analysis and Community Scorecard approaches
- Training curriculum has been developed for ½ day, 1 day, and 2 day versions of introduction to advocacy for implementation of the ACDEG, and programme staff in all 8 AA offices familiarized with training contextualization and delivery
- All partners have confidently developed and implemented their own campaign and advocacy strategy and are engaged in concrete advocacy activities.
- At least 4 tangible and realistic advocacy initiatives have been carried out in cooperation between two or more partners by December 2018
- Regional implementing partners have contextualized training courses for CSOs on ACDEG
- Regional implementing partners have provided regional reports and briefing materials on implementation of ACDEG
- AU level advocacy events and knowledge products have been informed by Technical briefing on evidence and issues regarding ACDEG implementation
- Lesson learned and best practices related to the implementation of the AGA and Citizen Report methodology have been developed and distributed
- Tangible advocacy strategies and linkages between local, national and international levels have been implemented
Required qualifications:
- At least 5 years of experience working on governance programming and/or advocacy in Africa
- Extensive field experience in capacity building and an in-depth knowledge of governance trends and preferable in the areas of electoral accountability, civil political rights in a cross section of African countries
- Application of human rights based approach to development and theoretical knowledge in the design, management and support of complex, multi-disciplinary capacity building programmes involving various stakeholders
- Demonstrated abilities and contributions to participatory monitoring tools, policy guideline formulation, coalition building, team building and advocacy, preferably in the NGO sector
- Demonstrated abilities and contributions to policy and guideline formulation, organizational capacity development and advisory support, preferably in an INGO sector
- Experience in working with partners in different intervention levels and a partnership approach
Personal qualifications:
- Strong negotiation and advocacy skills
- Cultural sensitivity
- Patient, flexible and approachable
- Resistance to adversity
- Diplomacy and respect
- Track record of developing strong working relationships across organizational boundaries with a wide variety of CSO actors and government representatives
- Ability to work independently and adapt to easily to different situations
- Excellent skills at working in distributed international teams, including communicating appropriately combining face to face, videoconferencing, emails, social media effectively
- Pro-activeness.
- Strong sense of solidarity and commitment to development issues.
- Ability to work quickly and effectively under pressure.
Application procedure and deadline:
Forward a letter of motivation and an updated CV (totalling no more than 4 pages) by email to advisor1@ms.dk with a subject line Ref: Pan-African Governance Advisor. The application package should not exceed 2 MBs.
Deadline for application submission is: December 12th, 2017
Contract start is subject to approval of work and residence permit, which can be a lengthy process. Therefore, the expected start date is 1st February 2018. The assignment is for 24 months, with the possibility for renewal.
Estimated recruitment process:
- 13th December: Shortlisted candidates are contacted
- 15th December: Skype interviews with shortlisted candidates
- 18th December: Second round Skype interviews with two final candidates
Due to the large number of applications received for these positions, it is not possible to provide feedback for all applications. Therefore, only shortlisted candidates will be notified at each stage of the recruitment process. If you have not received any reply to your application by 23rd December, then you should consider yourself unsuccessful for this position.
More information:
A comprehensive job description is available for download at: www.actionaid.org The job description includes thorough information about the job content, basic salary, and background for the placement. All interested candidates are strongly recommended to go through the detailed job description before applying. For more information on the People4Change program, please visit the ActionAid Denmark website: www.ms.dk
The Advisor is placed through ActionAid Denmark’s People4Change program; a people-to-people programme providing development support to ActionAid Country Programs and their partner organisations. People4Change is a cross-national program, aiming at building tolerance, respect and expertise across cultures and borders.
For practical questions related the advertised position, please contact: Dorte Tietze, Senior Programme Manager ActionAid Denmark, dti@ms.dk
