JOB SUMMARY:
The Policy and Advocacy Lead holds a senior technical position based at the PEER office in Lomé, Togo. This role involves leading the design and implementation of the CARAVAN project (Strengthening the Resilience of Pastoral and Agropastoral Households in the Transboundary Areas of the Central Corridor of West Africa and the Sahel), which aims to create a policy and regulatory environment conducive to transhumance, livestock trade, and the movement of quality inputs across the central corridor. This position liaises between evidence gathered at the community level and regional multi-stakeholder platforms, translating field experience into concrete advocacy actions and fostering adaptive policy dialogue. The incumbent works closely with the Regional Training and Application Centre in Agrometeorology and Operational Hydrology (AGRHYMET), the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and national governments, and is responsible for the project's learning programme.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Political Economy Analysis and Stakeholder Mapping
- Identification, profiling, and political-economic analysis (PEA) of key national and regional actors involved in transhumance governance, livestock trade policies, and animal health regulations in the seven intervention countries.
- Mapping stakeholder relationships, influence dynamics, informal rules, and decision-making processes related to pastoral policies, with particular attention to the roles and constraints of women and youth.
- Identifying strategic advocacy allies, including private sector actors dependent on transhumance corridor economies and researchers working on animal genetics and pastoral systems.
Learning Programme Development and Management
- Develop a gender-sensitive learning program, leveraging rapid policy gap assessments to identify concrete learning issues related to barriers to pastoral policy implementation, climate-related livestock mobility, and value chain integration
- Coordinate the learning program across all four outcomes, ensuring that data from community dashboards, monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) systems, animal health surveillance, and market information inform evidence synthesis and advocacy
- Facilitate learning exchanges between field offices and ensure bidirectional knowledge sharing between municipalities and regional platforms.
- Produce timely policy briefs, guidance notes, case studies, and success stories related to the learning program themes.
Coordination of Regional and National Policy Dialogue
- Organize and facilitate national forums and multi-stakeholder regional conferences, bringing together pastoral communities, government ministries, private sector actors, researchers, and financial institutions to promote functional coordination and evidence-based dialogue.
- Represent CARAVAN on regional policy platforms (AGRHYMET, CILSS, ECOWAS – or other platforms in the event of a change in ECOWAS composition) and ensure that project evidence informs these processes.
- Advocate for the adoption and updating of ECOWAS protocols related to transhumance, adapting advocacy strategies to the regional governance context.
- Support national governments in addressing identified obstacles to policy implementation (border procedures, disparities in livestock taxation, gaps in veterinary coverage, conflict resolution mechanisms).
AGRHYMET Partnership, Communication and Cross-Consortium Coordination
- Lead and coordinate the partnership with AGRHYMET to operationalize and strengthen the regional early warning system (EWS), including data collection, analysis, validation, and dissemination.
- Oversee the integration and harmonization of EWS systems and data sources, including satellite, field, and community data, to support evidence-based decision-making.
- Coordinate the development and dissemination of EWS products and alerts through multiple communication channels and to local stakeholders
- Develop and implement the project's knowledge management and communication strategy, ensuring the effective collection, documentation, sharing, and use of lessons learned and best practices.
- Manage the production and dissemination of knowledge products, including studies, research notes, guides, dashboards, infographics, webinars, and advocacy materials, in accordance with donor visibility requirements.
