Knowledge Leadership Manager – Urgent Action Fund-Africa (UAF-Africa)

Deadline: 29 January 2021 (11pm)

Position Location: North Africa
Reporting to: Programmes Director
Contract Type: 3 Year Fixed Term

Organisational profile
Urgent Action Fund-Africa (UAF-Africa) is a feminist, pan-African, Rapid Response Fund committed to transforming power relations through resourcing African feminists and women human rights defenders and their formations as an act of solidarity. Recognising the need to move resources rapidly on a continent where opportunities and threats arise and decline quickly, UAF-Africa uses a Rapid Response Grantmaking mechanism to support unanticipated, time-sensitive, innovative, and unique initiatives that promote women’s agency in peace and political participation, social and economic power building as well as natural resources governance and stewardship. The Fund works to support African Women Human Rights Defenders (AWHRDs), particularly in the feminist and women’s rights movements, in their actions, which enable them to support and sustain themselves, each other, and their work before, during, and after urgent situations.

UAF-Africa mobilises resources from a broad base of international and increasingly local funders committed to protecting and advancing women’s rights and feminist agendas in Africa. Our primary purpose is to provide funding to AWHRDs and their groups, organisations, and movements to help them prepare for and navigate urgent situations with appropriate actions.

UAF-Africa is registered in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Operating as a virtual organisation, the Fund boasts of strategic physical presence in East Africa: Nairobi, Kenya, and Kampala, Uganda; North Africa: Cairo, Egypt; Central Africa: Bujumbura, Burundi, and Yaounde, Cameroon; Southern Africa: Harare, Zimbabwe, Antananarivo, Madagascar, and West Africa: Abuja, Nigeria, Cotonou, Benin and Dakar, Senegal.

Objective of the Knowledge Leadership Programme
The objective of the Knowledge Leadership programme is to work with others to build a culture of learning within and external to UAF-Africa for deeper consciousness, consistently theorising and articulating a feminist, pan Africanist perspective, and translating this to solidarity and action.

Intervention strategies
Learning as an integral part of the movement and organisational culture, strengthening the power, love and self and collective care and healing of and for feminists and AWHRDs more broadly; Documenting the contexts, the lived realities and the organising, activism, and work of feminists and AWHRDs more broadly; Research and Publications that educate and make a case for the work and wellbeing of feminists and AWHRDs more broadly; Pilot and incubate Special Projects to apply to learn and meet real needs that emerge through our work and the work of movements; Information Management through archiving and registries, amongst others and ensure this knowledge is accessible and serves women.

Position overview
The Knowledge Leadership Manager will support UAF-Africa to consolidate learning from its work and that of its constituencies: inter alia WHRDs, feminist and women’s rights formations, feminist and women’s rights students and academics as well as feminist and social justice practitioners contributing to the struggle for women’s rights. Being a feminist learning organisation, UAF-Africa values different ways of knowing and different forms of knowledge; theoretical, conceptual, practical, and experiential. Through connecting theory and practice, the Knowledge Leadership Manager will lead the development, facilitation, and oversight of UAF-Africa’s Knowledge Leadership strategy, knowledge production processes, and deliverables. They will drive UAF-Africa’s quest to produce and publish justly researched and written, relevant and contemporary knowledge from the ground, and from African women and their communities. The Manager will facilitate a strategic, political, and systematic sharing of insights, experiences, and ideas with a broad audience of UAF-Africa stakeholders. This knowledge will be shared using multifaceted mediums and formats that are compatible with our environmentally friendly and information democracy values, ensuring that principles of access, affordability, equality, equity, and justice are centered throughout the value chain. The candidate reports directly to the Programmes Director.

Roles and responsibilities
Responsible for ensuring the strategic coherence, collaborative development and timely production and dissemination of UAF-Africa knowledge; Oversight and management of knowledge leadership portfolio staff and consultants; Managing knowledge development planning including defining priorities and assessing key knowledge needs and opportunities; Tracking the resulting knowledge development projects including staying in touch of each process ensuring projects on target and time; Managing the creation and launch of Feminist Republik Healing Justice Research, Registry and Evolving Ideas series including coordinating with an internal UAF-Africa team on overall direction and key editorial and content decisions, conceptual design and organization of materials; Coordinating, facilitating and supporting dedicated transnational learning across UAF-Africa’s key constituencies and stakeholders from which key thematic threads and trends are uplifted, distilled and systematically tracked and documented as part of UAF-Africa’s Trends Analysis Reports; Facilitating deeper cross functional integration and conceptual coherence across UAF-Africa especially in collaboration with the Solidarity & Support, MEAL, Communications & Media and Partnerships & Development programmes using shared learning and language, impact stories and knowledge consolidation; Developing feminist knowledge production tools that enable WHRDs document their experiences using multi-media and creating dissemination methodologies that are just and security focused; Coordinating UAF-Africa’s contribution within UAF Sister Funds network and Count Me In! consortium’s collaborative research initiatives that sustain WHRDs worldwide; Flexible and willing to perform other tasks as assigned, in a fast-paced, team-oriented work environment.

Qualifications
Master’s Degree in Social Sciences, Women/Gender Studies, International Relations, Law, Human rights, or other relevant fields.

Skills and experience
Minimum of 8 years’ relevant work experience working in knowledge development (research) related programmes at the national, regional or international level preferably with women’s rights, social justice or development-oriented organisations; Knowledgeable of feminist, human rights and participatory based knowledge production ethics, particularly with marginalised women, gender non-conforming, women with disabilities and young women; Sound knowledge and experience working on feminist organising, women’s rights programming, and movement building nationally, regionally or internationally; Strong background and understanding of women’s human rights issues in Africa, with a sharp focus on sustaining WHRDs; Holistic security, safety and well-being of WHRDs, self and collective care, the concept of healing justice and violence against women more broadly; Proven commitment to social justice and power shift within the international gender justice and women’s rights sector more specifically including in philanthropy more generally; Excellent proficiency in written and spoken English. Someone who is responsive, thoughtful, culturally humble, and able to convey complex content in clear ways to a range of audiences. Fluency in written and spoken French or Arabic is desirable; Passionate about UAF-Africa’s mission, committed to quality decision-making based on a mixture of analysis, wisdom, experience, and good judgment; Strong group facilitation, presentation, and community organizing skills; Detail-oriented, time conscious with the ability to manage and track big picture data and deadlines across multiple projects; Builds appropriate rapport with partners; works harmoniously with others; uses and understands diplomacy and tact; encourages collaboration; seeks opinions; is candid with peers; values working relationships. Readily puts in extra effort to accomplish tasks; A self-aware, action-oriented, and strategic thinker who thrives in complexity and ambiguity-possessing strong organisation and rigorous logic-based problem-solving skills; A cultural mindset that supports new ideas, fosters experimentation and drives continuous improvement to deliver valuable products that grow the women’s rights filed; Proven experience working effectively in a cross-cultural and virtual team; UAF-Africa is part of a global UAF-Sisterhood network and staff are expected to occasionally work collaboratively with the UAF-Sister Funds.

Work environment
This is a regional position that involves some national, regional, and international travel. UAF-Africa is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate in its hiring practices. In order to build the strongest possible workforce, UAF-Africa actively seeks a diverse applicant pool. The Fund is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. This position will be based on the successful candidates’ North African country of residence.