MSF Access Advocacy and Communications Advisor

Title of the function:  Advocacy and Communications Advisor

Department: MSF Access Asia Pacific

Reports to: MSF Access Asia Pacific Head of Hub  

Working time: 100%

Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The candidate must be from the Asia Pacific region with at least 6 years’ experience.

I.                    MSF INTERNATIONAL

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, healthcare exclusion and natural disasters. MSF offers assistance to people based only on need and irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation.

MSF International is the legal entity that binds MSF’s 24 sections, 27 associations and 18 branch offices together. Registered in Switzerland, MSF International provides coordination, information and support to the MSF Movement, as well as implements international projects and initiatives as requested. 

MSF Access 

Médecins Sans Frontières works tirelessly to improve the accessibility, availability, affordability, appropriateness and quality of products for health care for the populations it assists and their communities. While this is a collective effort across the organisation, the MSF Access team plays a central role as it identifies and implements a priority selection of access projects, offers expert support for access activities elsewhere in MSF, and brings together information and analysis relevant to MSF’s access work. The MSF Access team, overseen by an Executive Board, is based around five regional hubs: Kuala Lumpur, Nairobi, Brussels, Dakar and Rio de Janeiro. 

II.                 CONTEXT

MSF Access works on creating accessibility, availability, affordability, appropriateness, and quality of products for healthcare for the populations MSF assists and their communities. MSF has been engaged in a wide variety of ways to improve this access in past decades. The relatively new MSF Access team now supports the movements access to products for healthcare agenda, and is overseen by an Executive Board. 

MSF Access has the following responsibilities:

Gather input for common priorities for Access and propose them to the MSF movement

Design and implement Access initiatives to respond to the agreed common priorities

Provide, or help to find, support on Access matters to MSF entities that request it

Maintain an overview of Access initiatives across MSF, and report on them annually

Research, and stay informed of, the Access landscape globally

II.                 PURPOSE 

Reporting to the Head of Hub Asia Pacific, the Advocacy and Communications Advisor contributes to the design and implementation of effective advocacy and communication strategies towards governments, non-governmental stakeholders, health product companies, and the research community in order to overcome access hurdles for agreed strategic objectives and priorities.

Communication strategies aimed at building awareness, public and political support, and engagement on agreed advocacy priorities and objectives at local and regional levels will be developed and implemented by the candidate. The Advocacy and Communications Advisor is responsible for developing and maintaining the necessary networks and contacts with key partners, MSF entities in the region and media relevant to the objectives of the Strategic Plan and key external partners.

MAIN ACTIVITIES

Identify key political events and policies to be influenced.

Develop strategies and tactics, coordinate inputs to influence these political processes

Develop and strengthen the engagement with key regional stakeholders.

Mobilize, brief and manage engagement of MSF access, advocacy and communications in the region.

When requested and relevant, support MSF access  initiatives of MSF sections in the region.

Lead on the development, implementation, and assessment of a portfolio of communication strategies based on agreed key advocacy objectives.

Provide support to the team on communications opportunities that could be relevant and instrumental to building advocacy efforts and eventually targeted campaigns, including by proposing inputs to annual and strategic plans.

Coordinate internal communications activities to inform and mobilize the MSF network in the region on key advocacy communications initiatives relevant to Access objectives, including by conducting briefings on Access communications priorities.

Manage, prepare, and disseminate communications packages to the MSF communications network in the region and key external audiences, including media, event attendees, civil society networks, and other targets.

Ensure coherence of access communications work being conducted at country-level and regionally, with global Access messages and strategies.

Build and maintain relationships with external actors, to, where relevant, coordinate and collaborate on communications and campaigns initiatives.