PURPOSE OF JOB:

The Senior Advocacy Lead is a brand new role at Comic Relief that will drive impact for the poorest and most marginalised on a global scale. The successful candidate will have an unparalleled opportunity to shape Comic Relief’s entrance into this exciting area of work, embedding advocacy as a core work-stream internally and amplifying Comic Relief’s objectives on the international stage. The first priority under our advocacy pillar will be to implement a high-level Global Advocacy Strategy to influence the transformation of malaria prevention, control and response ahead of Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in 2020. The Senior Advocacy Lead will work closely with the Senior Policy and Research Manager at Comic Relief on a major partnership programme with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), developing the policy and advocacy component. As a creative thinker and persuasive communicator, the successful candidate will influence key donors and governments to sustain and increase funding allocations to this critical international development issue.

Key responsibilities:

• Lead the implementation of our first Global Advocacy Strategy, focused on malaria.

• Coordinate with internal and external partners to secure tangible policy and advocacy outcomes around malaria investment, including through strategic engagement with coalitions in the UK.

• Strategically engage priority international stakeholders such as the UK Government, Gates Foundation and multilateral organisations in pursuit of our Global Advocacy Strategy.

• Identify proactive and reactive opportunities for effective influencing of international malaria programming.

• Work closely with the Influence Team and the GSK Programme Manager at Comic Relief to magnify programme impact through policy and advocacy.

• Oversee strategic engagement with local and national partners in priority countries, including delivery of advocacy strategy work-plans for Sierra Leone and Ghana.

• Work with partner organisations to build local platforms and alliances and to develop an advocacy agenda, including creating new country strategy work-plans for Tanzania, Mozambique and the Greater Mekong Region.

• Catalyse grassroots change by working collaboratively with local organisations to involve and amplify the voices of those affected by malaria.

• Working closely with the Chief Storyteller and the Learning team at Comic Relief, identify and disseminate success stories and key learning around social change rooted in Comic Relief’s principles of documenting real lived experience.

• Support development of compelling communications materials to influence change, engaging with key internal to generate tailored products for target audiences and events e.g. policy makers, global meetings, social media.

• Be an ambassador for collaborative cross-functional working both within the Impact and Investment Team, Influence Team and across the wider organisation.

• International travel will be required within this role.

Essential Skills and Experience:

• Significant experience of leading strategic advocacy successes within the international development context.

• Solid experience of international and domestic policy influencing in the global south and in the UK, with a firm understanding of the global health sector and ideally of malaria.

• Strong interpersonal skills and political awareness, with the ability to influence targets and build and sustain excellent relationships.

• A creative and strategic thinker with strong analytical skills and a proven ability to inspire change.

• A confident, collaborative, cross-functional professional with an engaging personal communications style.

• Strong planner with outstanding attention to detail and time management.

• Highly effective communication skills, written and oral.

• A proactive, positive and fun professional with high resilience.

• Strong empathy and sensitivity to working in a diversity of cultural contexts.

Interviews will occur on the week commencing 21st of January.