Humanitarian Affairs Advisor

Overview:
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare. These programs are run through five operational centres. MSF Italy is a primary partner of the Operational Centre Brussels (OCB) and a secondary partner of the Operational Centre Barcelona and Athens (OCBA). MSF Italy is also working in cooperation with the three other Operational Centres of Amsterdam (OCA), Geneva (OCG) and Paris (OCP).

As a partner section, MSF Italy is engaged in saving lives and alleviating suffering through fundraising; communication and advocacy, recruitment and deployment of field workers; as well as running operations in Italy and supporting international operations through expertise and other kinds of direct support.

Being employed by MSF means adhering to MSF’s humanitarian principles: neutrality, impartiality and independence. The beneficiaries of MSF - the patients - are at the core of everything that MSF does. Medical ethics and voluntarism are part of the MSF spirit.

The Humanitarian Affairs Advisor is a member of the Humanitarian Affairs Unit, based within the Programmes Department Under the supervision of the Head of Humanitarian Affairs Unit, the Humanitarian Affairs (HA) Advisor contributesto the analysis and advocacy activities on topics relevant to MSF medical-humanitarian operations and in line with the priorities of the unit (e.g. context of crisis, humanitarian space, food security)..

S/he workson dedicated advocacy dossiers in coordination with the Head of Humanitarian Affairs Unit. S/he works in collaboration with other colleagues within the unit/department and the MSF Italy office to implement relevant advocacy activities (like events, letters, briefing paper, research report and text production).

The Humanitarian Affairs Advisor also supports the strategic goals of HAU to ensure that key stakeholders in government and parliament as well as NGOs, Ministries, academia and other relevant sectors of civil society are aware of and support MSF’s primary concerns and priorities related to its humanitarian work and the needs of its patients.

**Responsibilities**:
**CORE OBJECTIVES**
- Independent networking and lobbying with political contacts on the topics and contexts of relevance for MSF as well as with other NGOs and think tanks.
- Research and monitor the positioning and policies of the Italian government on key areas of MSF interest.
- Undertake actor mapping and stakeholders’ analysis for national-level organizational positioning.
- Monitor and compile regular updates on humanitarian aid system dynamics to increase the leverage capacity and the national impact of MSF lobbying in line with operational priorities and medical-humanitarian advocacy objectives.
- Represent MSF Italy at external events, conferences and meetings as well as media work on topics of interest.
- Develop and implement advocacy strategies, defining content of own portfolio interacting with MSF’s operational and analysis centres to provide updated contextualized medical-humanitarian content.
- Define, draft and review advocacy messages on MSF strategical topics and contexts.
- Target the main stakeholders to raise awareness of medical-humanitarian issues at national level (including dissemination strategies).
- Support external communication and advocacy by drafting letters, background papers, reports and other material.
- Support internal reporting and planning processes.
- Undertake field assessments and other work-related traveling as required at Italian as well as at European/international level.

**REPRESENTATION - COMMUNICATION**
- Contribute to the design and organization of debates, conferences, humanitarian dialogues in collaboration with Communication department of MSF Italy and in line with the humanitarian affairs strategy.
- Provide recommendations and be a propositional voice for opportunistic communications (unplanned) from operations/medical activities’ analysis.

Qualifications:
**EDUCATION**:University degree in a relevant discipline for Humanitarian Affairs. Specific studies in migration and/or conflict analysis represent a plus

**EXPERIENCE**:

- Essential: experience with MSF
- Essential: previous working experience of at least 5 years in humanitarian affairs, international development and/or humanitarian aid.
- Essential: Experience working in an international environment

**LANGUAGES**:
**English** speaker/ high level of skill in English essential
**C2 level required**).
**Italian** speaker/ high level of skill in Italian essential
**C2 level required**)

**IT SKILLS**: Essential computer literacy (Office 365, word, excel and digital media)

**TECHNICAL SKILLS**
- Good writing skills
- Good networking and relations skills
- Good research skills
- Good communication skills

**BEHAVIOURAL COMPETENCES**
- Commitment to MSF