Job Detail

About Save the Children

We employ approximately 25,000 people across the globe and work on the ground in over 100 countries to help children affected by crises, or those that need better healthcare, education and child protection. We also campaign and advocate at the highest levels to realize the right of children and to ensure their voices are heard. 

We are working towards three breakthroughs in how the world treats children by 2030:

•             No child dies from preventable causes before their 5th birthday

•             All children learn from a quality basic education and that,

•             Violence against children is no longer tolerated

We know that great people make a great organization and that our employees play a crucial role in helping us achieve our ambitions for children.  We value our people and offer a meaningful and rewarding career, along with a collaborative and inclusive workplace where ambition, creativity, and integrity are highly valued.

SCI - Afghanistan

 Save the Children has been working in Afghanistan since 1976. Our way of working close to people and on their own terms has enabled us to deliver lasting change to tens of thousands of children in the country. The UN Convention of the Rights of the Child is the basis of our work.

We are helping children get a better education, we make it possible for more boys and girls to attend school, we help children protect themselves and influence their own conditions. We work with families, communities and health workers in homes, clinics and hospitals to promote basic health in order to save lives of children and mothers

Job Description

ROLE PURPOSE:

As a member of the Afghanistan country office Senior Management Team, the Advocacy Director oversees the strategic positioning, coordination, direction and lobbying activities to contribute to enabling Save the Children Afghanistan to achieve the Country Strategic Plan and ensure progress against the Global Breakthroughs.  The situation for children in Afghanistan is the focus of national and international advocacy, based on child rights theory and child rights reporting. Advocacy strategies and impactful campaigns will influence government and other institutional policies and practice to achieve positive and lasting changes to fulfil children’s rights in Afghanistan with the support of coordinated and timely media activity and communications products. S/he will ensure that SCI profile is raised both nationally and internationally through the design and delivery of effective activities and supportive team management.

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

1. Advocacy and Campaigns;

• Develop and nurture relations with key advocacy coordination groups across national and international organisations to ensure that Save the Children’s advocacy work in country is informed, timely and visible.
• Work closely with the regional office and SCI centre to ensure advocacy strategies and activities are guided by Save the Children global campaign strategy, Global Themes advocacy strategies, the advocacy steer of the Global Advocacy Group, and Asia Regional Office influencing priorities.
• Responsible for delivering the ‘be the voice’ components of the Country Strategic Plan, working closely with technical advisors and the head of MEAL and Research to enable strategic milestones to be achieved through exploring avenues for advocacy and policy development.
• Position Save the Children as the leading organisation for advocacy on children’s issues in Afghanistan, with child rights at the core of the advocacy work.
• Chair and support Child Rights Advocacy Forum (CRAF) to develop and implement a joint advocacy strategy alongside CSO’s to influence government policy; particularly the Law on the Protection of Child Rights, and monitoring of the UNCRC.
• Oversee the implementation of SCI campaigns, working in close relations with programme implementation and PDQA teams. Devise appropriate campaign tactics to achieve results and regularly review and monitor the impact of these tactics.
• Technical lead on aspects of proposal development relating to policy, MRM and Grave Violations and ensure that the Child Rights Reporting SCI common approach is implemented in order to achieve the country strategic plan and in line with SCI global campaigns and informed by field visits.
• Secure sufficient funding to maintain or expand the country office’s advocacy & campaign activities through stand alone or integrated programming initiatives as per the country strategic plan needs.
• Lead the delivery of the Protecting Children in Conflict advocacy and campaign activities, oversee the Red Alert climate change campaign and lead technical advocacy and campaign activities in line with country, regional and global priorities.
• Lead on the development and delivery of emergency response ACCM strategy with a focus on safe and appropriate child participation
• Pro-actively work with external facing SMT members to ensure unified and strategic external representation and advocacy for children in Afghanistan.

2. Media and Communications

• Ensure that the branding and communication guidelines of Save the Children are uniformly and consistently followed across the Country Office
• Oversee the development of high quality communication materials for the Country Office, including external publications
• Proactively build Save the Children Afghanistan’s profile through the production of high quality, well researched, and well written products reflective of the strategic priorities
• Ensure the development of a clear and effective system for internal communications including the dissemination of newsletters and  other  documents  and  publications  for internal and external stakeholders including being able to scale up the delivery of robust communications material during emergencies
• Develop and maintain a network of media contacts both national and international to enable successful media releases
• Proactively lead the development of press releases in a timely and strategic manner.
• Ensure the regular generation of interesting story ideas and the development of high quality content for media and communications purposes that effectively amplify children’s voices and Save the Children’s key messages.

3. Strategy and planning   

• Provide strategic direction and management of the Save the Children advocacy, campaigns and child rights reporting work, ensuring that advocacy is an integral part of Save the Children’s Theory of Change.
• Support the development of an ambitious strategic vision for Save the Children in Afghanistan that seeks large scale change for children including through influencing strategies that leverage our programme presence and organisational profile to maximum effect.
• Lead in the development and implementation of the advocacy, CRG, campaign and communication strategies ensuring their alignment with the 2019-2021 country strategic plan.
• Ensure safe and appropriate child participation within ACCM activities to ensure the voice of children and communities is amplified and aligned with the country strategic plan and breakthroughs.
• Work with the programme team to ensure integration of advocacy, campaigns and child rights reporting into holistic programme design, planning and implementation, especially ensuring that evidence and best practices generated by Save the Children’s programmes inform advocacy and governance work to achieve results at scale.

4. Monitoring, evaluation and learning 

• Establish monitoring and evaluation processes of advocacy work and ensure that advocacy implementation and impact are effectively monitored and evaluated (including through the use of the Advocacy Measurement Tool)
• Ensure Save the Children’s key performance indicators and standards are met.
• Report on an annual basis as part of the Country Annual report on key achievements of ACCM and a bi-annual basis on the CSP
• Support evidence-based learning and ensure that lessons learned are collected, analysed and shared demonstrating effective advocacy and campaigns activity

5. Staff Management, Mentorship, and Development

• Lead the ACCM team by leading the strategic development and delivery process with the team and building a capacity plan to ensure the team are supported to meet the demands and requirements of the ACCM team
• Performance manage the ACCM team including day to day management, direction and communication and ensuring delivery against clear, measurable objectives, with regular feedback, periodic reviews and fair and unbiased evaluations;
• Coach and mentor and build capacity of staff to achieve their objectives and ensure a succession plan is developed and delivered

SKILLS AND BEHAVIOURS (our Values in Practice)

Accountability:

• Holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values
• Holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities - giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved

Ambition:

• Sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves (and their team), takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages others to do the same
• Widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others
• Future orientated, thinks strategically

Collaboration:

• Builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, members and external partners and supporters
• Values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength
• Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to

Creativity:

• Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
• Willing to take disciplined risks

Integrity:

• Honest, encourages openness and transparency

Skills Required

• COMMUNICATION

Submission Guideline: