The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) seeks to recruit a Team Leader – Advocacy and Engagement to lead national-level advocacy, stakeholder engagement, and multi-stakeholder platform facilitation for the Global Livestock Advocacy for Sustainable Development (GLAD) project.

This leadership role is pivotal to building an enabling system to unlock social, policy, and institutional barriers that constrain the scaling of livestock innovations in livestock health, animal feed and nutrition and animal genetics across focal countries including Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Senegal.

The position holder will drive strategies that align public, private, and regulatory actors to accelerate the uptake of livestock solutions. The role focuses on strengthening enabling environments, facilitating partnerships, and ensuring that innovations move effectively from research to delivery.

The Team leader will also lead ILRI’s work on global advocacy and engagement and coordinate with staff working on policy engagement, knowledge brokering and advocacy across the institutes.

The ideal candidate is a versatile relationship builder who can rapidly enter new contexts, has experience in understating political economy, can leverage existing networks and partnerships as entry points, and cultivate the coalitions/partnerships necessary for program execution. The candidate should also have experience in working across the pathway from generating evidence, to translating, socializing and embedding evidence in decisions, policies, and practice The role demands the ability to quickly understand stakeholder landscapes, identify strategic allies, and build trust-based relationships that translate into tangible delivery outcomes.

ILRI is the only CGIAR research centre dedicated entirely to livestock, working across Africa and Asia to support food and nutritional security, climate resilience, and inclusive livelihoods. Co-hosted by Kenya and Ethiopia, ILRI partners with governments, investors, development agencies, and the private sector to ensure that high-quality research translates into real-world change. Learn more at www.ilri.org

Key Responsibilities

Relationship building and strategic partnerships

• Rapidly map stakeholder landscapes in focal countries and identify strategic entry points through ILRI colleagues, partners and existing networks.
• Build and sustain high-trust relationships with government officials, private sector actors, cooperatives and civil society across diverse country contexts.
• Identify, cultivate and manage relationships with private sector delivery partners.
• Leverage partner relationships as bridges to new stakeholders, using collaborative approaches to expand engagement.
• Coordinate with cooperative leadership and/or county/local governments to design and roll out scalable delivery models.

Project management and reporting

• Manage activity scheduling, budgeting, and financial tracking
• Manage project consultants working with the local level actors
• Prepare periodic activity reports, progress updates, and risk assessments.
• Manage contracts and deliverables for national partners and consultants.
• Ensure timely organization of workshops, consultations, high-level meetings and missions.
• Work closely with the MEL specialist to ensure that influence–engage–inform indicators are tracked.

Stakeholder Engagement, Facilitation & Political Economy Work

• Support the establishment and operationalization of the different types of stakeholder platforms and facilitate stakeholder consultations to diagnose regulatory, institutional and delivery bottlenecks.
• Support design and delivery of targeted communications and advocacy materials, communications campaigns and community-level engagement around the different components
• Monitor political economy dynamics and provide real-time strategic intelligence for adaptive implementation.
• Ensure the process is inclusive and attentive to gender, youth and marginalized groups.
• Monitor dynamics to address misinformation and disinformation and more broadly

Support linkages to regional and global agendas

• Support the management of the ILRI Advocacy and Investment Hub
• Identify ways to frame and position project outcomes for global and regional processes
• Track risks, misinformation trends, emerging policy issues in for global partners to pre-emptively address.
• Provide technical advice and support to ILRI projects and programs around advocacy and engagement
• Document project learning, outcomes and impacts to regional and global processes

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in public policy, development studies, agricultural economics, political science, communications or related field.
• Proven experience (10+ years) in leading international, regional and national advocacy and external engagement initiatives.
• Proven experience (10+ years) leading advocacy and engagement at all levels and with different stakeholders including government, civil society and private sector
• Experiences working with African regional institutions such as AU-IBAR, PANVAC, AU, etc
• Demonstrated ability to influence policy and investment decisions within the livestock, agriculture, or food systems sectors.
• Strong track record building and managing strategic partnerships and alliances with diverse stakeholders, including governments, donors, NGOs, research institutions and private sector actors.
• Project management skills, delegating responsibilities effectively, ensuring clear roles and accountability and aligning communication initiatives with institutional priorities.
• Ability to build social capital with partners and within ILRI and work with multiple teams.
• Experience in project monitoring, evaluation and learning
• Well-versed in using different communication, multi-media approaches and techniques, with a clear focus on targeting stakeholders effectively and achieving measurable impact.
• Commitment to excellence, ensuring high quality outputs under tight deadlines.

Post location: The position will be based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Terms of Appointment: This position is at job level HG 19, and it is open to both national and international applicants. The position is a three (3) year contract, renewable subject to satisfactory performance and availability of funding. ILRI offers a competitive international salary and benefits package which includes pension, medical insurance, life insurance and allowances for: education, housing, security, relocation, and home leave.

Applications: Applicants should send a cover letter and CV expressing their interest in the position, what they can bring to the role, and the names and addresses (including telephone and email) of three referees who are knowledgeable about their professional qualifications and work experience. The applications will be addressed to the Head of People and Culture and submitted through our recruitment portal by clicking on "Apply Now" on or before 17 March 2026.

The position title and reference number: CAKM/ 2124/2026 should be clearly marked on the subject line of the cover letter.

ILRI does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process (application, interview meeting, processing, or training). ILRI also does not concern itself with information on applicants’ bank accounts.

ILRI is an equal opportunity employer.

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