Global Advocacy Officer – Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative At BRAC

Career with BRAC International

BRAC is an award-winning international non-governmental development organization, with the vision of a world free from all forms of exploitation and discrimination, where everyone has the opportunity to realize their potential. BRAC is a leader in developing and implementing cost-effective, evidence-based programs to assist poor and disadvantaged communities in low-income countries, including in conflict-prone and post-disaster settings. It is an organization of and for the people of the Global South, pioneering new development and social enterprise approaches to equip communities to achieve prosperity. As well as being the world’s biggest NGO by the number of staff and people directly reached, BRAC has regularly been ranked the number one NGO in the world by the Geneva-based NGO Advisor, an independent organization committed to highlighting innovation, impact, and governance in the non-profit sector. BRAC retained the top spot in 2020 among the top 500 NGOs for the fifth consecutive year.

BRAC was founded in Bangladesh in 1972 by Sir Fazle Hasan Abed. It started its first program outside of Bangladesh in Afghanistan in 2002 and has since reached more than 6.5 million people in 11 countries in Africa and Asia. BRAC has a holistic approach to development that uses a wide array of programs that include microfinance, education, health, agriculture, gender, and human rights. BRAC invests in communities’ own human and material resources, catalyzing lasting change and creating an ecosystem in which the poor have the chance to seize control of their own lives.

About the Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative

The Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (“UPGI”) is a global unit of BRAC that was founded in 2016 to build off the success of BRAC’s Ultra-Poor Graduation program in Bangladesh. BRAC UPGI aims to position the Graduation approach as a key driver to eradicate extreme poverty worldwide. It does this by:

• Advocating for uptake of the Graduation approach by policymakers, national governments, multilateral institutions, and non-governmental organizations; and
• Effective adaptation and implementation of the Graduation approach in countries around the world, supported through technical assistance and capacity strengthening for external stakeholders.

In 2002, BRAC pioneered the Ultra-Poor Graduation (“Graduation”) approach in Bangladesh – a holistic intervention to help people lift themselves from extreme poverty – after recognizing that existing poverty alleviation programs were not reaching the poorest people. Through the provision of livelihood assets, cash transfers, and continued mentoring and training, the Graduation approach addresses participants’ multidimensional needs within the local context and ‘graduates’ people from extreme poverty into sustainable livelihoods.

Graduation is an evidence-based, scalable intervention proven to break the poverty trap for the long term. So far, BRAC’s flagship Graduation program has impacted over 2 million Bangladeshi households—totaling over 9 million people. To help eradicate extreme poverty, BRAC UPGI is working to scale globally by integrating Graduation into existing government programs and help 21 million more people lift themselves from extreme poverty by 2026.

But BRAC UPGI cannot do it alone. This is beyond the means and capacity of a single organization- no matter how ambitious or innovative. Sustainability and scale demands change at the systems level with active government engagement. BRAC UPGI is committed to creating effective solutions that leverage the available resources and existing programming to achieve the long-term benefits demonstrated by Graduation. The organization is partnering with governments, as well as multilateral institutions, NGOs, and civil society, in countries where BRAC UPGI thinks it can have maximum impact and drive greater uptake for Graduation.

About the Position

The BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI) seeks to hire a Global Advocacy Officer to support BRAC UPGI’s efforts to scale the Graduation approach. The Global Advocacy officer will support the Policy and Advocacy Unit on the execution of UPGI’s global advocacy strategy to support the scale-up of the Graduation approach in line with global and regional (Africa and Asia) policy agendas. The candidate should have an interest in poverty reduction, social protection, women’s empowerment, and a commitment to BRAC’s mission.

The position will report directly to the Senior Manager of Global Advocacy, and will work in collaboration with the Head of Advocacy and Advocacy Unit staff in addition to other functional teams across the department.and advocacy colleagues from various BRAC affiliates..

While the position may be based in many possible locations, it would be advantageous if this were near a BRAC or BRAC International office facility in London, Kigali, or Nairobi. Irrespective of location, work hours will br broadly based around the 10am – 6pm GMT timezone in order to align with members of the team this role will work closest with.

Responsibilities

• Develop and help cultivate partnerships with global and regional policy stakeholders to elicit support for and maximize impact of strategic objectives; serving as an advocacy liaison to certain partners.
• Provide advice and expertise to managers, and other colleagues on a range of advocacy and outreach issues, methods, and approaches
• Report on developments, trends, shifts, and attitudes regarding Graduation and key policy agendas
• Conduct research to identify relevant policy initiatives, and advocacy partners and targets
• Support planning, development and implementation or participation in global advocacy events working with various partners – multilateral entities, NGOs, private sector, and affected communities
• Draft advocacy material, including content for newsletters, reports, promotional materials, knowledge products, policy briefs, and talking points for senior managers.
• Work with MEL colleagues to establish metrics for measuring impact and to evaluate results and impact of advocacy activities;
• Work with Senior Manager to facilitate and leverage the contributions of a group of advisors/ambassadors to support the overall outreach objectives of UPGI.
• Ensure global advocacy efforts align with and support national advocacy
• Administrative duties as needed, including but not limited to, ensuring meetings are captured in Salesforce, scheduling and organizing global advocacy meetings, etc
• Other duties as assigned.

Safeguarding Responsibilities

• Ensure the safety of team members from any harm, abuse, neglect, harassment, and exploitation to achieve the program’s goals of safeguarding implementation.
• Practice, promote and endorse the issues of safeguarding policy among team members and ensure the implementation of safeguarding standards in every course of action.
• Follow the safeguarding reporting procedure in case any reportable incident takes place, and encourage others to do so

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required, Masters degree an advantage, with a preference given to candidates with degrees in international development, or public policy or other relevant field
• Understanding of the multilateral and global policy-making landscape around the sustainable development, social protection and ‘leave no one behind’ agendas.
• 3-5 years experience working in international development or humanitarian sector and advocacy preferred
• Strong ability to communicate and tailor messages in a compelling way to key audiences and partners;
• Familiarity with climate adaptation policy agendas preferred.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively as part of a remote, multicultural team;
• Highly organised with ability to take initiative and effectively manage competing work streams and deadlines;
• Diplomatic, with strong interpersonal skills, and a high degree of cultural sensitivity;

Excellent writing and speaking skills in English required. Additional languages a plus.