Country: United States of America
Closing date: 01 Jul 2015
Namati is seeking a gifted advocate who will translate our grassroots experience into large-scale structural reform.
About Namati
In a world where billions of people live outside the protection of the law, Namati is dedicated to putting the law in people’s hands. We’re building a global movement of grassroots legal advocates who work with communities to advance justice. These advocates are fighting on the front lines to ensure that people can protect their land, access essential services, and take part in the decisions that govern their lives.
We draw on that grassroots experience to seek large-scale structural changes – we have already achieved policy changes that affect millions of people in multiple countries. And our ambitions don’t end at the national level – our global campaign for internationally agreed justice targets has been endorsed by 260 organizations and four former Heads of State.
As we move into our next phase of development we’re growing a global team of passionate, results-oriented, and big-hearted advocates. We are united by a common mission and a strong culture. And we have some hefty supporters, including an advisory board with leaders like Amartya Sen, Mo Ibrahim, Fazle Abed, and Madeleine Albright.
We’re just beginning. Please consider joining us.
For more information about Namati, please visit www.namati.org/about
About the Position
Our grassroots legal advocates track data on every case they handle. This provides a powerful map of how law is working in practice, information which often no one else has. Their data can help provide targeted answers to important questions: Where is corruption or discrimination happening? Why are drugs not getting delivered to primary health clinics? Which kinds of environmental regulations are going unenforced?
The advocacy director will help us draw on that grassroots experience to advocate for systemic, large-scale reforms. In Myanmar, for example, our community paralegals have supported thousands of farmers to protect their land rights. We want Myanmar’s new land law—to be finalized this year—to reflect what we’ve learned, including better systems for addressing past land grabs and for recognizing the land rights of women. But the law making process in Myanmar is opaque. How do we influence it?
The advocacy director will help our team in Myanmar to design and execute a strategy, one that involves our staff, our paralegals, our clients, and the wider public. We want a director who can operate at multiple levels, from high level meetings and expert submissions to online petitions and public rallies.
At the international level, the director will lead our efforts to improve the policy environment for legal empowerment. The post-2015 global development framework is likely to recognize justice as essential for development – a historic change that our network has fought hard for. Building on that momentum, we plan to argue for greater financial commitments to support grassroots justice efforts, possibly in the form of a global fund. The director will also conduct advocacy for governments to fund Namati.
We rarely engage in advocacy alone. We host a network that includes hundreds of grassroots justice organizations from every region in the world. The director will work in coalition with network members.
For many people, laws and policies are things that happen to them. This is an opportunity to change that: to achieve laws that grow out of the experience and aspirations of ordinary people.
Here are some of the tasks you might have tackled in the previous week in this role:
· Work with our designer and our Sierra Leone team to produce memes that convey, in simple terms, key demands regarding Sierra Leone’s new policy on large-scale land acquisitions. These will be circulated through social media, with links that allow people to send messages to their parliamentarians.
· Hold a call with members of the World Economic Forum to plan for a panel at Davos next year regarding global financing for access to justice. Plot a strategy for securing financial commitments that could be launched at the event.
· Work with our citizenship team to write a brief to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, arguing that the Commission should 1) expand their campaign against statelessness to include the de facto stateless – that is, the millions of people who have citizenship rights in theory but lack any form of legal identity, and 2) endorse community paralegals as a powerful way of bringing de jure citizenship rights to life.
· Figure out who in the U.S. government has the power to approve a dream we’ve proposed—that fines collected under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act should go towards grassroots efforts to combat corruption around the world, rather than sit in the U.S. Treasury, as they do now—and set up meetings for you and our CEO.
About You
You’ve got the experience and confidence to operate at the highest levels of international diplomacy, plus the patience and curiosity to learn about how politics works in a country you’ve never visited. You’ve successfully mounted advocacy campaigns that led to positive policy change, and your advocacy experience includes engaging a diverse community of stakeholders.
You work well in teams and coalitions. You don’t sweat the small stuff and are focused on results.
You’re a great communicator – whether face-to-face or in written form – and you deftly adapt your writing style for different audiences. You are proactive and creative and are known for seeing projects through to completion with excellence and flair.
Location: We’d prefer that you be based out of one of our offices in Washington DC, USA; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Maputo, Mozambique; Yangon, Myanmar; New Delhi, India; or Oakland, USA. However, we’re willing to consider remote working arrangements.
Compensation: Competitive.
How to apply:
To Apply
Please email resume, writing sample and cover letter to: employment@namati.org . In your cover letter, please be sure to address how you have orchestrated a successful advocacy campaign that led to positive policy change. In your email, please also identify where you saw the job posting.
Applications will be considered on a rolling basis.
Namati is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
For more information about Namati, please visit www.namati.org/about