Job Description:
A stable and prosperous Pakistan is a top priority in international development efforts of the UK Government. Empowerment and voice of women, girls and marginalized social groups is vital for these efforts to succeed. Therefore, enabling them to articulate their needs and influence legislation, policies and practices which affect them is at the heart of the UK’s development assistance. Better access to reproductive, maternal, new-born and child health and nutrition is an important entry point to achieve this objective. DFID signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Government of Pakistan supporting the Provincial Health and Nutrition Programme (PHNP) to achieve RMNCH and nutrition results in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. One of the component of the PHNP programme is Empowerment, Voice and Accountability for Better Health and Nutrition (EVA-BHN).
EVA-BHN is being implemented by the Palladium. The objective of the EVA-BHN is to increase the demand for better RMNCH services and nutrition and empower citizens to raise their voices and hold the service providers to account. Women, girls and children with the greatest needs and from underserved backgrounds will be prioritized. Through its activities, EVA-BHN will complement the supply-side interventions by increasing demand and strengthening mechanisms for greater and effective citizen participation and monitoring of health services. EVA implementation started in 2014 for a period of 3 years initially. It is however now being extended to 2019.
Advocacy and accountability is a cross cutting function within EVA and will support all key components of the project. The primary purpose of this component includes triggering and pursuing citizen-centric health policy and practice changes in EVA target provinces and districts through citizen voices and their inclusion in decision making, resulting into a more responsive health system. The Advocacy and Accountability team has a three-fold function, to contribute towards the success of EVA activities through facilitating stakeholders coming together, undertaking direct advocacy with the decision and policy makers using EVA produced evidence and support and build the capacity of citizens and their allies.
During the first three years of implementation, EVA has established strong linkages with citizens, opinion leaders and elected representatives in addition to decision and policy makers. As part of its engagement with elected representatives, EVA embarked upon including engagement with Local Government as a strategy to scale up the voices of the citizens around their health issues. EVA facilitated citizen engagement with LG candidates in the pre-election period which resulted in continuous engagement of many LG members in EVA forums even after the elections. The Local Government members have become strong allies of citizen demands and are helping address the citizen demands by channelling resources at their discretion towards the resolution of citizen issues as well as leveraging policy reforms by being voices of citizens at provincial levels.
GENERAL POSITION SUMMARY:
Building upon this experience of LG engagement, EVA is broadening its spectrum of political engagement that aims to facilitate citizen demand recognition at the district, provincial and political parties’ levels through creating champions of citizen demands amongst the LG representatives and among the MPs through formation of Health Caucuses in the two provinces.
EVA will try to capitalise the opportunities presented to it in the 2018 elections. The pre-election advocacy will be primarily characterised by bringing citizen health demands into the election discourse through presenting the past performance of the governments in the two provinces vis-à-vis the citizen demands and the party manifestoes. This will be done by creating evidence on performance and topping it up with citizen demands collected through different EVA data sources and forums. The wider need identification to address the health demands of citizens will be created through media discourse and the reinforcement and consolidation will be done through supporting citizens to engage with their constituency representatives along with direct advocacy with province and national actors and strategic groups within political parties.
The main objective of this position will be to provide overall leadership for EVA’s engagement with elected reps and political stakeholders. The Elected Representatives and Local Government Manager will identify the advocacy agendas in the light of the citizen demands and engage with relevant political and allied stakeholders at provincial and district level for pushing through these agendas. The incumbent of this position will be required to work in close collaboration with the other components leads of EVA i.e. advocacy and accountability, community empowerment, research monitoring and evaluation and undertaking both formal and informal advocacy activities for pursuit of the agendas and implementation of the strategies. S/he will also closely work with the monitoring and evaluation teams and communication team for documentation and dissemination of the changes/reforms resulting from EVA interventions and the processes that lead to those changes.
ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS:
Technical
- Develop the key advocacy agendas for political engagement in the light of the citizen demands raised at different EVA forums; especially district and provincial advocacy forums
- Identify and network with the relevant stakeholders at district, provincial and political parties level to create champions of citizen agendas
- Identify the key entry points for pushing the citizen-centred agenda into discourse, especially during the build-up for 2018 elections
- Develop relevant materials to be used for these engagements
- Support and facilitate the participation of the elected represntatives in the EVA forums and events.
- Undertake the relevant documentation of the processes and achievements of engagement for reporting
- Support engagement with media, civil society, public oversight bodies and other key stakeholders for creating buy-in for the citizen demands
- Contribute to the provincial and district political economy analysis (PEA) exercises to be undertaken at regular intervals at different levels (provincial and districts).
- Manage the implementation of the health caucuses to meet the objectives desired of these forums. This will include and not limited to organizing Caucuses meetings, undertaking relevant documentation, reporting and dissemination, Caucus member’s capacity building and follow up of the decisions taken during Caucus meetings.
- Ensure that project activities are technically sound, evidence-based, and responsive to the needs of the province, its people especially women, children, poor and marginalized, and the donor
Management
- Develop, cost and implement the work plan of elected rep engagement activities
- Develop monthly detailed implementation plans
- Manage the relevant STTAs including but not limited to developing their TORs, participating in the recruitment process, ensuring the delivery of TORs, coordination and following up
- Ensure compliance to the Operational and Financial procedures of EVA.
Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E)
- Provide feedback to development of project’s M&E system in close collaboration with the Research, Monitoring and Evaluation component of the project
- Support in documentation of and ensuring incorporation of lessons learned into ongoing programming of EVA-BHN from the policy and advocacy perspectives.
- Support development of M&E tools and indicators for political engagement interventions
- Ensure quality and timeliness of relevant data entry into projects MIS
Qualifications and Skills
Essential
- Relevant post-graduate degree
- A minimum of seven years’ experience in programmes working with elected representatives, including 3 years of management in a lead role of such projects/programmes
- Demonstrated understanding of rights based approaches
- Ability to communicate effectively in English in both verbal and written formats for different types of correspondence as well as information dissemination.
- Strong knowledge of the political institutions, processes, documents and key institutions/organizations related to health in specific and to grievance redress mechanism and accountability in provincial context.
- Strong understanding of advocacy and accountability as concept, the strategies and methods and measurement.
- Demonstrated ability of strategic thinking and improvising for achieving advocacy objectives.
- Ability to liaise effectively with a range of stakeholders, including project partners, donors, private sector, NGOs, and government departments
- Strong results orientation and commitment to accountability and value for money
Strong personal qualities, including integrity, commitment to excellence, equality, openness, inclusiveness, and collegiality
Additional
- Experience of working with the health sector in Pakistan and/or abroad.
- Strong relationships with political stakeholders at provincial level in KP and Punjab
- Demonstrated ability to support other team
- Good understanding of the ongoing reforms in the province especially related to health.