About Sonke
With a full-time staff of about 100 people working from offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Agincourt, Sonke works globally, and especially across Africa, to strengthen government, civil society and citizen capacity to take action to promote gender equality, prevent domestic and sexual violence and reduce the spread and impact of HIV and AIDS (see https://genderjustice.org.za/).
About the position
The Regional Campaigns Specialist supports Sonke’s regional work on legal analysis, policy advocacy and accountability and leads on the unit’s work in regional advocacy.
1. Regional law and policy processes
- Monitors emerging issues in the region related to gender justice, sexual and reproductive health and rights, LGBTI rights, human rights and leads on Sonke’s related activism and advocacy work;
- Coordinates and supports Sonke’s advocacy work towards the African Union (AU), East African Community (EAC) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) in terms of strengthening their work on gender justice, including their engagement with men and boys for gender equality in line with key regional commitments made in the Beijing Platform for Action, the SADC Gender Protocol, the Maputo Platform for Action, UNSCR 1325, the 2014 UN Human Rights Council SOGI resolution;
- Works with regional partners, including the MenEngage Alliance to participate in country reviews within the Universal Periodic Review process at the UN Human Rights Council, including submitting NGO reports, engaging permament missions in Geneva and New York, and ensures active involvement of domestic constituents to hold country’s accountable to their commitments to gender equality, health and human rights;
- Builds close working relationships with organisations in Africa working to advance gender equality, SRHR, LGBTI rights and the right to health, and ensures close working relationships with the MenEngage Alliance;
- Maintains organisational partnership with the AU, EAC and SADC in order to strengthen Sonke’s relationship with these organisations and provides technical input into their gender, human rights and health laws and policies;
- Supports MenEngage Africa (MEA) members and Sonke staff to understand and participates in national and regional law and policy processes and ensure MEA members are informed of progress with regards to engagement with regional organisations (AU, EAC, and SADC).2. CSW, Post-2015 Development and ICPD Processes
- Coordinates Sonke’s and MenEngage’s participation in CSW and ICPD beyond 2014 processes and liase with liase with MenEngage Global Secretariat on the same;
- Support MenEngage and Sonke’s involvement in the process of developing the new global Post-2015 development agenda and promote MEA’s priorities within this new development framework;
- Co-ordinate and support Sonke’s involvement in national stakeholder meetings, regional meetings and international meetings on the Post-2015 development agenda;3. Conflict and post-conflict work
- Support MEA members in specific countries to advocate for their National Action Plans on UNSCR 1325 to involve men as partners and allies;
- Undertake regional training of relevant MEA members in conflict and post conflict settings (e.g. Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone) on using the One Man Can manual and/or gender transformative programming approaches.
4. Strategic partnerships
- Contributes to stakeholder analysis/mapping at national and regional levels of strategic partners, including human rights organisations;
- Strengthens collaboration with key partners from other social justice movements, United Nations agencies and Governments at national, regional and global levels, to support joint campaigns and advocacy activities;
- Support joint national policy advocacy activities with identified strategic partners on human rights, SRHR, LGBTI, GBV and child rights.
4. Research and analysis
- Undertake policy analysis and legal research to support advocacy campaigns; and
- Publish articles, conduct research and analysis that are beneficial to Sonke.
5. General tasks
- Network strategically with existing community networks, educational institutions, Non-for- Profit organisations and government;
- Ensures that Sonke’s national advocacy activities speak to Sonke’s regional advocacy work.
Competencies
- Analytical skills and ability to conduct legal research on a range of relatively complex and intricate issues;
- Ability to work independently, balance multiple tasks simultaneously and meet deadlines;
- Excellent organisational and planning skills with the ability to prioritize time and work effectively;
- Pays attention to detail, displays a high level of integrity, able to multi-task and is deadline driven.
Qualifications and experience
- Masters Degree in public health, health and human rights development; Preferable: LLM, MPH, or PhD
- 5 to 7 years work experience in global advocacy, international law, human rights or a related field, with strong expertise in gender;
- 5+ years of working in the field of sexual and reproductive health rights, human rights, preferably with a focus on gender and engaging men for gender equality;
- Professional experience in law and social development, including legal analysis, research and writing;
- Working knowledge of existing regional policy work and research being done in Africa;
- Understanding of theoretical and practical applications of working with men and boys around gender justice-related work;
- Experience in mainstreaming gender and women’s rights into policy and program formulation;
- Demonstrated experience with various accountability processes, including Universal Periodic Review (UPR), peer review mechanisms & country reports.
