ORGANISATION
Oxfam Kenya is an independent prospective Affiliate of Oxfam International. The birth of Oxfam Kenya is a response to Oxfam International’s decision to evolve and build the confederation as a globally balanced and diversified affiliate network. As an autonomous member of the confederation, Oxfam Kenya’s affiliation is expected to promote social change in Kenya, bring Kenya’s voice to the wider confederation, and amplify the East African and Pan African voices.
Oxfam is a worldwide development organization that mobilizes people’s power against poverty. It is a confederation of 22 organizations (‘affiliates’) working together with partners and local communities in over 79 countries.
ORGANISATION’S PURPOSE
A transformed Kenyan Society that challenges poverty and inequality to claim their rights. Oxfam Kenya will work to foster systemic change and strengthen systems across areas we work in with more localized leadership in the development and humanitarian spaces. This will be realized through a One Oxfam Programme approach by implementing four key programmatic focus areas with specific goals that will contribute to the vision. These are: –
- Governance and Accountability: Civil society maximizes civil society space and ensures more equitable raising and spending of financial resources at the county and national levels.
- Natural Resources: Poor and marginalized communities get a fair share of natural resources and their benefits.
- Gender Justice and Women’s Rights: Women gain power over their lives to participate in, and contribute to, public life.
- Humanitarian Systems Strengthening: The severity of future humanitarian crises in Kenya is reduced.
JOB PURPOSE
Oxfam has secured a multiyear, multi-country and multi-partner grant from Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. This project “Humanitarian System Transformation through Local Humanitarian Leadership (HST-LHL)” aims to influence the humanitarian system to be more equal, risk-informed, and better funded locally led system through three mutually reinforcing outcomes:
- A more equitable and locally led humanitarian system – including through strengthening local networked responses, increasing visibility and representation, and reinforcing country-specific localization accountability mechanism.
- A more risk-informed and safe humanitarian system – including through multistakeholder collaboration in identifying and managing risks
- Increased quality and quantity of humanitarian funding – including exploring through innovative financing mechanisms
This is a knowledge and learning project contributing to influencing at national and global levels to transform the humanitarian system through local humanitarian leadership. The project is being implemented in Colombia, DR Congo, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, South Sudan and Yemen from July 2024 to December 2027.
The Local Humanitarian Leadership (LHL) Influencing Lead will provide overall leadership and technical oversight to the project and play anchoring role in bringing all the different stakeholders together for collaborative knowledge, learning and research processes envisioned in the different outcome areas of the project. S/he will coordinate all the project activities with different partners, ensure there is cross-learning and collaboration among the partners, establish and maintain regular coordination and information exchange with the project management unit which coordinates with all the participating countries.
The role will be responsible for ensuring in-depth understanding, practical application and periodic monitoring of Oxfam’s partnership principles and ways of working, including Oxfam’s commitments to the Charter for Change, the Grand Bargain, Pledge for Change, and the Humanitarian Principles of Partnership. The role will also support institutional strengthening of civil society organisations through capacity sharing and exchanges as well as connecting them to the relevant technical focal points of humanitarian aid delivery, peacebuilding, development, durable solutions, nexus programming, CSO networking and alliance building, as per the needs of the respective local actors.
The role will be responsible for effective communications, visibility of partners’ work on LHL and partnerships, coordination with all stakeholders involved, coordination of capacity strengthening and exchange processes in the country.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Project Management (HST-LHL project): Coordination and Convening
- Develop, implement and monitor the influencing strategy for this project in close coordination with the PMU influencing lead and the line manager.
- Lead in bringing all the different stakeholders together for collaborative knowledge, learning and research processes envisioned in the different outcome areas of the project.
- Establish and maintain regular coordination and information exchange with the project management unit which coordinates with all the participating countries.
- Coordinate with partner organizations to ensure that all reports are submitted in a timely manner and in accordance with donor and Oxfam requirements, collaborating early to identify potential delays, challenges or capacity gaps and coordinating with colleagues to address and rectify.
- Represent the country team in partnership and localization focused coordination meetings (such as Kenya C4C working group, AHN processes and as advised by the line manager) and Oxfam internal planning processes.
- Support on partner-led advocacy, influencing and communications activities, in collaboration with the policy and communications/media leads.
- Work closely with the partners at country level as well as at PMU and global level to ensure strategic influencing at national, regional and global levels, including supporting policy and advocacy colleagues to work with programme colleagues to deliver their products to the highest standards.
- Contribute to identifying gaps and needs regarding humanitarian finance, humanitarian system reform, local humanitarian leadership policy and contribute to policy development with the relevant teams and partners at country, PMU and confederation level.
- Strengthen external networks and engagement, in close collaboration with the Director Humanitarian Systems, to increase impact of the influencing agenda and to support partners’ visibility and leadership.
- In close collaboration with Kenya C4C working group and the ASAL Humanitarian Network (AHN), facilitate and contribute to the development of the localization accountability tool for Kenya, and facilitate/support annual reporting on the same.
- Encourage and support civil society organizations, AHN members, WROs etc. to take part in formal coordination structures and activities that will amplify voices of Kenyan local actors.
Partnership Management
- Ensure and support partnership-centric ways of working throughout the different projects and program management cycles in close collaboration with the programme managers and technical coordinators.
- Working with the MEAL Advisor, ensure that partners are equal stakeholders in project management, reporting, and CAMSA, and that the way that we engage with partners in these areas are empowering, principled and fully aligned with the Oxfam LHL & partnership strategy.
- Support Senior Management Team (SMT) and MEAL team in conducting annual partnership learning and review meetings and see through the implementation of agreed action points.
Capacity sharing and exchanges
- Support in the identification of capacity strengthening needs, the development and the delivery of capacity sharing strategies and activities, in collaboration with the programme managers, and technical teams.
- Ensure programme managers and country teams are familiar with Oxfam’s principles of partnership, including the commitments to the localization agenda, Pledge for Change, Charter for Change, Grand Bargain, etc.
Other
- Required to adhere to Oxfam’s principles and values as well as the promotion of gender justice and women’s rights.
- Understanding of and commitment to adhere to equity, diversity, gender, child safety and staff health and wellbeing principles.
Person specification
Most importantly, every individual at Oxfam needs to be able to:
- Live our values of INCLUSION, ACCOUNTABILITY, EMPOWERMENT, COURAGE, SOLIDARITY and EQUALITY (read more about these here).
- Ensure you commit to our ORGANIZATIONAL ATTRIBUTES (including adhering to the Code of Conduct).
- Be committed to our feminist principles, and to applying them in your day-to-day behaviour and your work. Be ready to keep learning, with accountability to those who experience oppression as a result of their identities, such as their gender, race/ethnicity, disability, class, or LGBTQIA identity.”
- Be committed to undertaking Oxfam’s safeguarding training and adhering to relevant policies, to ensure all people who come into Oxfam are as safe as possible.
Technical skills, experience and knowledge
Skills
- Education (master’s degree level) preferably in social sciences, international law, or related humanities field.
- Good understanding of Kenyan, African and International policy context on key themes related to Localization, Local Humanitarian Leadership, Charter for Change, the Grand Bargain, Pledge for Change, Principles of Partnership.
- Strong soft and hard people and project management skills, with experience working in diverse alliances.
- Strong interpersonal skills that include experience with mediation and consensus building.
- Good organizational skills including accuracy, consistency, attention to detail, tenacity, and the ability to work under pressure.
- Ability to lead projects and programmes in a clear and constructive way that inspires people to deliver.
- Ability to manage budgets and processes for results and impact.
- Ability to work independently and with diverse multi-cultural and virtual teams.
- Ability to liaise with a wide range of people, both internally and externally and at many levels, with credibility, tact, and diplomacy.
Knowledge
- Good knowledge of and experience in developing learning, advocacy and campaign strategies and plans and successfully achieving external impact and change.
- Excellent understanding of, and experience with, brokering, developing and managing (humanitarian) partnerships with and among CSOs, INGOs, government, private sector, federations, networks and platforms, academia and research institutions etc.
- Strong knowledge and understanding of development and humanitarian architechture including the political environment, sensitivity to working with CSOs within Kenya and the East African region.
- Knowledge of and demonstrated commitment to Oxfam’s values, mission and work including feminist approach to humanitarian responses and Oxfam’s partnership principles.
- Strong programme management and quality knowledge, with the ability to ensure consistent quality against standards and to implement effective monitoring and evaluation systems to assess and adjust performance.
- Commitment to and good knowledge of working with networks, coalitions, and a partnership approach across the spectrum of Oxfam’s work, including innovative approaches to capacity strengthening.
- Fluency in English with knowledge of Swahili an added advantage.
Experience
- At least ten years of relevant experience in development and humanitarian work.
- Demonstrated competencies in partnership development and management, particularly in humanitarian partnerships and promoting local humanitarian leadership.
- Excellent and demonstrable people, collaboration, and networking skills.
- Effective communication internally and externally towards government and NGOs, donors, and internally towards management, program managers, technical experts and business support specialists.
- Strategic planning skills with ability to contribute to overall programme strategies.
- Good assessment, analytical and planning skills, incl. project management experience.
- A proven capacity for mentoring, facilitation, training, capacity sharing and coaching.
Essential
- Self-Awareness: Ability to develop a high degree of self-awareness around own strengths and weaknesses and impact on others.
- Agility, complexity and ambiguity: Ability to scan the environment, anticipate changes, are comfortable with lack of clarity and deal with a large number of elements interacting in diverse and unpredictable ways.
- Mutual accountability: Ability to explain our decisions and how we have taken them based on our organizational values.
How to apply
Please submit your application using the link below:
More Information
- Job City Kenya
