Director of Global Advocacy and Communications

Director of Global Advocacy and Communications

CARE International

Flexible Location

Supervisor: Secretary General, CARE International Secretariat
Location: Flexible. Countries where CARE has a registered office and can host the role, and where the candidate has relevant work authorization.
Type of Contract: Contract managed by hiring office, following labour conditions and regulations adhered to by that office.
Travel: 10 – 15% of time on international travel

1. BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW

CARE’s vision is to seek a world of hope, inclusion, and social justice; where poverty has been overcome and people live in dignity and security. CARE¹ puts gender equality, diversity, and inclusion at the centre of all we do because we know that we cannot overcome poverty and social injustice until all people have equal rights and opportunities. CARE’s Vision 2030 places gender equality at the heart of our ambitions and it radiates through all our work at the level of individuals, teams, the organisation, our programs and our partnerships.

CARE International (CI) is among the world’s largest international non-governmental humanitarian relief and development Confederations. Drawing on its 75 years of experience, through its 20 Members, Candidates and Affiliate, as both a practitioner and thought leader, CI’s work reaches over 100 countries worldwide to save lives, defeat poverty and achieve social justice.

At the core of the Confederation is a small, globally distributed Secretariat, which provides coordination and support to its Members in many areas as governance, strategic planning, communications, membership development and accountability and advocacy. CARE International is committed to gender equality and inclusion, gender justice, human rights and women’s and girls’ empowerment. This commitment is manifested at the individual and team level as well as in our programming, communications, fundraising and advocacy.

2. POSITION SUMMARY

The post holder will lead the merger of the CARE International Advocacy and Communications teams and ensure their collective plans build on success and learning from CARE’s experience and the experience of partners and peers. The post holder will drive a coherent ad principled approach to public engagemet across the CI Confederation as well as ensure strategic representation in key multilateral hubs including Brussels, Geneva and New York. A key responsibility of the post holder is to advise and support the Secretary General to maintain and strengthen CARE’s reputation as thought leader in the humanitarian and development sector, as well as leading on global crisis management and risk mitigation issues.

CARE is a Confederation with a lean centre. Advocacy and communications responsibilities are shared across the Confederation and managed by CARE Members, with the CI Secretariat team facilitating, coordinating and driving global coherence across geographically and culturally diverse teams and media markets.

This requires an ability to work strategically across a wide range of thematic and country specific priorities including gender equality, climate justice, food and water systems, women’s economic justice, humanitarian, health equity and rights in ways that drive alignment and focus to the communications and advocacy priorities. It also requires a commitment to implement key advocacy and communications principles as articulated in CARE Vision 2030. These include driving stronger collective brand awareness, decolonisation of the sector and ceding space to the Global South and specifically to women-led organisations that CARE partners with in line with CARE’s program and feminist principles. The role offers an exciting opportunity to grow and build CARE’s ability to deliver on its mission and global strategy.

3. MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES – specifically but not limited to

1. Foster a coherent and principled approach to global public engagement within the team and across CARE, identifying the global priorities in ways that bring strategic focus and added value across the CARE Confederation;
2. Support the Secretary General, driving a strategic approach to their external agenda, providing ongoing advice and ensuring CI’s reputation as a leading voice as a gender transformative humanitarian and development organization is maintained;
3. Lead CARE International’s approach to reputation management and public risk mitigation, including by acting as a senior advisor to the Secretary General and other relevant senior stakeholders;
4. Represent CARE International in relevant spaces relating to advocacy and communications;
5. Build coordination mechanisms for high level joint advocacy and communications engagement priorities across the confederation to support a strengthened global agenda, including by overseeing strong information management and knowledge sharing across communications and advocacy;
6. As the leader of a newly merged-team, build consensus and develop joint workplans, priorities and strategies that build on existing framworks to engender a positive and collaborative working environment that aligns with the vision articulated in CARE’s Vision 2030;
7. Support team to achieve and deliver a solid pipeline and editorial calendar of high quality public materials, troubleshoot issues and support the team to drive message cut through in global traditional and social media;
8. Effectively performance manage the CI Secretariat Advocacy and Communications team, including recruitment, objective setting, feedback and performance appraisal and management and staff development;
9. Ensure strong cross collaboration across CI Secretariat departments in support of joint priorities, including the Governance and Accountability team;
10. As a member of the CI Secretariat Leadership Team, support the effective functioning of the CI Secretariat to ensure the confederation achieves its shared objectives.

Inclusion and Safeguarding:

• Promote, create and maintain a diverse and inclusive organisation where a culture of curiosity, learning and trust is the foundation for all teams and different backgrounds, experiences and opinions are encouraged;
• Promote, create and maintain a safe organisational culture, including championing the CI Safeguarding Policy and preventing sexual misconduct, within the CI Secretariat and as part of your overall role and wider responsibilities across the CI Confederation;
• Ensure that all direct team members are aware of their responsibilities with the CI Safeguarding Policy commitments, including signing of the Safeguarding Policy and Code of Conduct, and completing induction and refresher trainings.

4. KEY INTERNAL WORKING RELATIONSHIPS

Internal:

• National Directors and ExCom;
• CARE International Secretary General;
• The Cl Secretariat Leadership Team of which the post is a member, and other staff members of the CI Secretariat;
• Global Advocacy and Communications Working Groups, and advocacy leaders across the membership.

5. QUALIFICATIONS (Key Selection criteria)

Essential technical competencies for the role:

• Proven experience in reputation management, public risk mitigation and in navigating sensitive and complex issues in the media;
• Commitment to gender equality and to defending women and girls’ rights combined with demonstrable experience working on gender policy. Demonstrated ability and commitment to apply gender and diversity strategies within advocacy and communications work and team management;
• Experience developing and implementing high impact advocacy and communications strategies that integrate lobbying, research, traditional and social media and other approaches and tools in order to engage the public, influence governments, multilateral institutions and other decision-making bodies;
• Ability to balance vision, strategy and pragmatism;
• Strong interpersonal and facilitation skills that include experience with coordination, mediation, and consensus-building with diverse groups in complex, highly matrixed organisations strongly desired;
• Experience of leading the coordination of global humanitarian communications and/or advocacy work a distinct advantage;
• Strong people and project-management skills with experience working in diverse alliances – a proven ability to build bridges and break down siloes;
• Outstanding communications skills, including the ability to communicate effectively in writing in English in a succinct and compelling way;
• Demonstrable experience of effectively representing complex issues before high level decision-makers, colleagues, media and the general public;
• Adaptability and commitment to work within a small, flexible team;
• Ability to work under pressure to tight deadlines;
• Experience living and working in a Global South context desired;
• Diversity: A global citizen that seeks inspiration through working with diverse individuals and teams;
• Inclusion: Committed to a just world where all people live in dignity and security and equality is a reality.

Education or work experience:

• Degree level education (postgraduate degree level required or equivalent professional experience) with significant international advocacy and communications experience in the international development/humanitarian/human rights sector;
• At least fifteen years in a senior team leadership role.

Languages: As a global organisation we celebrate those that can bring different languages to the workplace. Our official working language is English, and fluency is required. However fluency in our other working languages Arabic, French and Spanish are also an advantage.

CARE International is committed to preventing all unwanted behaviour and all forms of misconduct at work, including fraud and corruption and sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse, and child abuse. Everyone who works for CARE is expected to share this commitment and work within CARE International’s Safeguarding Policy and sign our Safeguarding Code and Conduct.

CARE International is committed to a safe recruitment process to help attract and appoint the right staff for the role and responsibilities set out in the vacancy notice. All offers of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and appropriate screening checks, which can include criminal records and terrorism finance checks. We will seek at least two references, one of which must be your most recent employer. In addition, we participate in the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme and will request information from job applicants’ previous employers, about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, child abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By applying, you confirm your understanding and agreement of these checks.

HOW TO APPLY

Interested and qualified candidates should submit their CV and a brief covering letter of interest in English to cirecruitment@careinternational.org by 16 May 2024. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted. Only candidates with the relevant work authorization will be considered.

More Information on CARE International is available at www.careinternational.org.

CARE puts gender equality and social justice at the front of our work. We seek to ensure that who we are as an organisation reflects our vision of a world where ALL people can live in dignity and security. Our diversity is our strength. We encourage people from all backgrounds, nationalities, abilities, beliefs, genders, and experiences to apply.

¹ Throughout the guidance, the term organisation is used to represent the combined total of the confederation, CARE is a confederation of independent globally connected organisation. CARE is not one single organisation; membership is diverse and we are seeking to further diversify it.