Policy Analysts and Advocacy at Never Again Rwanda: (Deadline 29 July 2022)

Job Title

Policy Analysts and Advocacy

Reports to

Deputy Executive Director in charge of programs and Quality Assurance

Internal relationships

Senior Management Team (SMT), Programme Team Leaders

Job location

The job is based in Kigali; however, the post holder should expect to spend up to 10% of the time occasionally in different provinces of Rwanda.

Contract Duration 

Renewable Annually

Job Purpose

The overall purpose of the assignment is to conduct a policy influencing preparedness/ readiness analysis and empower CSO partners in that regard and draw an evidence-based policy advocacy/influencing strategy and plan. In addition, the expert will lead and oversee NAR advocacy and policy influencing efforts, produce a detailed report of advocacy efforts and its impact, design and update Advocacy tracking tool.

Will coordinate the policy analysis process and support CSOs and media to engage in public policy process. The candidate will support strategies of advocacy and ensure documentation of advocacy processes.

Specific Responsibilities

• Conduct a quick desk review of programmatic documentation and related reports to garner an understanding of CSO design and particularly its new direction towards national policy influencing;
• Review organizational documents (corporate policies, strategies, action plans and activity reports) of CSOs to make sense of their policy influencing mainstreaming practices or approaches and take stock of pending advocacy issues that arose from the CSC process;
• Conduct and facilitate a methodology workshop with NAR & other CSO’s partners.
• Collect primary data from key resource persons through individual and group interviews (FGDs) with the core staff and management of NAR and other exiting beneficiaries as well as relevant programme boundary partners.
• Take stock of unaddressed key issues of concern to citizens which arose from CSC process in previous years;
• Organize and facilitate cross-learning workshops for partner CSOs to share, prioritize & discuss most pressing yet pending citizens’ issues that arose from the CSC process in past years and explore collaboration and coalition opportunities to advocate citizens’ interests with one voice;
• Design and develop a joint advocacy strategy to guide partners’ engagement efforts;
• Assess partners’ organizational capacities in (evidence-based) policy advocacy and process documentation;
• Develop a detailed action plan for the implementation of the joint advocacy strategy;
• Present both the draft joint advocacy strategy and action plan during pre-validation and validation workshops with partners.
• Qualifications

 Ability to write up powerful change influencing materials (policy notes, issue-based policy briefs, background papers, discussion documents, human interest stories, etc.) and to engage high-ranking government policy-makers;

• PhD or Master’s degree in Governance studies, political sciences, development studies, law or other relevant field in social sciences;
• Extensive working experience with civil society or international cooperation in a policy influencing or advisory role;
• Proven record of delivering high quality professional outputs
• Excellent speaking and writing skills in English
• An ability to work within tight deadlines

The desired skills and experience of the expert include the following:

• At least 8-10 progressive working experience in a policy making or policy analysis and or policy advisory role;
• A strong understanding of the Government machinery including national policy-making process and key moments of planning;
• A strong knowledge and understanding of post-genocide Rwanda’s political culture, rules of government system engagement and governance principles;
• Strong understanding of the Rwandan governance context and policy landscape;
• Previous experience with Civil Society Organizations and development partners
• Strong knowledge and understanding the drivers of future growth in Rwanda as well as national vision policies (e.g. Vision 2020, NST1, blueprint Vision 2050) and their relationships;
• Expert skills in policy analysis and issue-based stakeholders’ relationships analysis;
• Sensitivity to details and inclusion issues;

Application instructions

• Interested candidates should submit their CVs and motivation letter to info@neveragainrwanda.org  no later than July 29th, 2022, at 5pm. “Senior Policy Analysts” MUST BE included in the subject line of the application email to be considered.
• Please note that due to high volume of applications, ONLY short-listed candidates will be contacted.
• NAR is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender. Individuals from vulnerable groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply.
• All applications will be treated with the strictest confidentiality.
• NAR does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.
• A work plan of yearly objectives will need to be produced between the line manager and employee at the start of the year in January, after the annual planning of yearly programme activities and events have been completed.
• The list of responsibilities is by no means exhaustive, and the post holder may be requested to undertake other relevant and appropriate duties as required. The job description may be subject to regular review and appropriate modification.