Chair
Appointment Brief May 2021
Photo: Etinosa Yvonne/ActionAid
ACTIONAID INTERNATIONAL | CHAIR
Photo: Etinosa Yvonne/ActionAid
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Introduction
Dear Candidate, Thank you for considering the role of ActionAid International (AAI) Board Chair. This is a truly unique and exciting opportunity to lead the governance of a global federation with a vision for a just, equitable and sustainable world in which every person enjoys the right to a life of dignity, freedom from poverty and all forms of oppression. ActionAid is a global justice federation. We believe that transformative change is possible for communities, and particularly women living in poverty and exclusion. We mobilize, organize and work with communities living in poverty and exclusion, people’s organizations, and women’s movements, networks, and solidarity groups to understand, tackle and overcome the structural systemic causes of poverty and injustice. We put women and their leadership at the center of our work to support them in asserting their rights and challenging patriarchy and other intersecting forms of oppression, developing just, sustainable and equitable alternatives. AAI is currently undertaking significant organizational changes to ensure we are an agile, impactful and dynamic organization, including the re-imagination of how the Global Secretariat works. This also includes an externally facilitated review of our governance. Simultaneously, we are also considering our niche and identity, our geographic footprint and our federation model to consolidate our presence and focus where we can have the most impact. Our next Chair, who will be elected by Assembly in October, will be an inspirational ambassador who brings significant global leadership and governance experience. This is a voluntary role, and the Chair leads the Board through strategic discussions and collective decisions in line with our feminist leadership principles, provides support and oversight to the Secretary General and Global Secretariat and the Federation as a whole. AAI’s Chair is highly visible internally and externally, and will require the ability to build our profile and support global movements on core issues such as international aid, anti-poverty, diversity, climate justice and women’s rights. If you would like to join us on a bold and ambitious journey to achieve social justice, gender equality and end poverty globally, please do get in touch with our advisors at Prospectus to learn more about our Chair opportunity and recruitment process. In solidarity, Julia Sanchez Secretary General
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A Social Justice Federation Who we are and what we do Photo: Ashley Hamer/ActionAid
ActionAid has a vision of a just, fair and sustainable world in which every person enjoys the right to a life of dignity and freedom from poverty and oppression. Our mission is to achieve social justice, gender equality, and poverty eradication by working with people living in poverty and exclusion, their communities, people’s organizations, activists, social movements and supporters. Women living in poverty and exclusion are central to what we do. We aim for a fairer share of power and resources, ensuring that women can claim and enjoy their human rights. We work with young people as vital drivers of change. When emergencies occur, we support affected communities and seize opportunities to drive just alternatives, working with communities and broader alliances to transform societies. Throughout the world, ActionAid works to strengthen the capacity and agency of people living in poverty and exclusion, especially women, to assert their rights. We work with communities, people’s organizations, women’s movements, groups and networks, social movements and other allies to overcome the structural causes and consequences of poverty and injustice. We create platforms for collective action and solidarity by enabling people around the world to unite and contribute to social justice struggles in various ways - as citizens, supporters, staff and volunteers. Around the world, ActionAid is rooted in the contexts where we operate and proudly upholds our primary accountability to the people most affected by unequal power relations.
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ACTIONAID INTERNATIONAL | CHAIR
Our Strategy 2028 Action for Global Justice represents the next step in our evolution, rooting us more deeply where we work, and with the people whose rights and visions we work to achieve. Our learnings and our predictions demand that we evolve as a global federation, and unite with allies in collective actions to contribute to deeper and wider structural change, building on our rootedness in communities. The rapidly changing context that we work in also calls upon us to be agile in our decision making, innovative and adaptive to major external shifts.
Where we work and members ActionAid was founded in the UK in 1972 and today has 32 members and 14 country programs across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, we have Global Secretariat Hubs in London and Nairobi.
Our Strategic Context How we will do it ActionAid has evolved the way we fight poverty and injustice ever since our foundation, getting closer to the people and communities we work with and moving power to the countries where we operate. This journey continues with our ten year strategy - Action for Global Justice. Within the period of the strategy, ActionAid will build international momentum for social, economic and environmental justice, driven by people living in poverty and exclusion. ActionAid will become even closer to the people we work with, involving them more in what we do. We will work closely with other groups that share our values and vision for a just world. Building on our history of successful and ground-breaking local programmes, ActionAid will connect the people, partners and communities with whom we work with broader people’s organizations and social movements.
Our work •
We work to achieve social justice, equality, and poverty eradication by challenging and redistributing power and resources, strengthening the resilience of communities and movements, and fulfilling the rights of people living in poverty and exclusion.
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We focus on the structural causes and consequences of poverty, inequality and injustice, focusing on one major international campaign at a time, to make the most impact.
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We work with people living in poverty and with social movements to increase civic participation in decision making that shapes the delivery of public services.
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We co-operate with women’s movements to address the structural causes of violence against women.
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Our local programmes are designed and based on empowering people, expressing solidarity, campaigning and arguing for alternatives.
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We pursue climate justice by holding wealthy countries responsible and accountable for compensating affected countries, and helping communities adapt to climate change.
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We promote women-led emergency preparedness, response and prevention, grounded in human rights, to make the system more locally led and accountable.
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We rally support for national struggles and social justice causes.
How we will work •
We will become more agile and innovative, with more devolved decision making and greater participation by the people we work with.
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We will measure and demonstrate the impact of our work, generating new knowledge and evidence-based policies.
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We will co-operate with those who share our vision and values, as well as continuing to engage long term supporters.
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We will invest in digital transformation to revolutionise our ways of working, and use digital communications to strengthen the direct connections between our supporters and the people we work with.
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We will continue our internationalisation journey so that each ActionAid member becomes a strong and independent player in its own country, coming together as equals in an international federation.
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Our work in the next three years The Strategy Implementation Framework 2021-23 (SIF2) In 2016, when the AAI Assembly unanimously adopted the global strategy, Action for Global Justice, (2018-2028), it was agreed that the strategy would be implemented in 3 year cycles. This would enable us to be agile in responding to the ever shifting external and/or internal contexts. Given the evolving external context, the Strategy Implementation Framework 2021-23 (SIF2) outlines a bold vision to ensure that ActionAid International remains a relevant and strategic actor, contributing to a postCOVID world that is more equitable, just, and sustainable. It proposes two interlinked thematic priorities: system change for economic justice and for climate justice. In our interventions around these priority themes, we will embed the longer-term work of building resilience and linking longer-term programming and humanitarian responses. It affirms five organizational priorities to leverage the strength of the Federation towards these higher goals. In addition, it emphasizes humanitarian response and resilience, campaigning, public engagement, and programme quality and Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning as key approaches to maximize ActionAid’s impact and cement its relevance. In setting global priorities for the next three-year period (2021-23), SIF2 mobilizes collective resources and action across the whole Federation to deliver the goals and commitments of Strategy 2028. These global priorities do not, however, impede countries from continuing to pursue other priorities, as defined in their individual Country Strategy Papers (CSPs) and consistent with the broader goals of Action for Global Justice.
Implications of COVID-19 The 2008 global financial crisis and now COVID-19 have laid bare the startling volatilities and gendered inequities of the current economic system. As global disruption by COVID-19 continues, we have no certainty about how long it will last, how it will end, and what a post-pandemic world will look like. More than other recent crisis, COVID-19 has accelerated trends that were already in motion. It has exposed the fault-lines and failures of the dominant system, including the underlying racial inequalities and injustices which have had a disproportionate impact on women, indigenous and racialized communities and other excluded and marginalized groups. In exposing the fault lines of the status quo, the pandemic presents an opportunity to transform systems of exploitation, patriarchy, and injustice. ActionAid is committed to modelling and fighting for a transition out of the current crisis, one that prioritises the protection and promotion of human rights generally, women’s rights more specifically, and the environment. This transition is feminist, just, and green at the same time: •
feminist in addressing the glaring power imbalances of gender and other forms of discrimination such as class, race, and sexual orientation;
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just in ensuring that no one is left behind; and
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green in providing a path to a sustainable balance of our current needs with those of future generations and other forms of life around us.
We affirm and remain committed to the four organizational shifts articulated in Action for Global Justice:
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To be a more agile, unified and networked Federation;
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To build a culture of learning and quality M&E that generates knowledge and evidence-based alternatives and communicates impact;
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To collectively prioritise securing resources from diverse sources aligned to our vision and values to meet strategic funding needs and build a culture of fundraising innovation;
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To embrace a culture of innovation and actively undertake digital transformations that revolutionise our ways of work throughout the Federation.
ACTIONAID INTERNATIONAL | CHAIR
An Overview of AAI Governance ActionAid was founded as a charity in 1972, and throughout our history we have innovated and evolved our approach to better address the structural drivers of poverty and injustice. In the 1990s, we adopted a Human Rights Based approach to development, which we continue to apply. In 2003, we established the ActionAid International federation, comprising members in every region of the world, and headquartered in South Africa. AAI is structured and governed as a democratic federation. This particular institutional design is both a vehicle that embodies AAI’s vision, mission and values, and an engine that advances that vision, mission and values. This particular way of working (and governing) is a deliberate choice that AAI believes will enable deeper organizational impact and greater consistency with HRBA. Although AAI’s democratic federation is still a work in progress, it is the treasured outcome of a process of internationalization that distinguishes AAI from many other INGOs. In 2009, ActionAid International changed its registration in the Netherlands to that of an Association. This enabled it to have a membership-based two-tier governance structure consisting of an Assembly and a Board.
The Members are Associates and Affiliates, each a legally registered organization in a different country. The two tier structure was developed after extensive study of options in 2007-2008, including the experience of other organizations. It aims to meet two partly contradictory requirements: •
Democracy, participation and accountability through a governance body that includes one Representative from each Member (the Assembly);
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Efficiency and effectiveness through a governance body that meets every few months and is small enough to provide day-to-day governance (the Board).
AAI is distinctive for its two-tier (General Assembly and Board) governance system at the international level as well as the national level. At the international level, ActionAid is governed by an Assembly representing all members (meets annually) and an International Board (meets three or four times a year). The Global Secretariat is the overall management structure of AAI and is headed by the AAI Secretary General. At the national level, most members have National Boards and General Assemblies. In members, the Country Director (sometimes also referred to as Executive Director, Secretary-General or Chief Executive) heads the management structure, and reports to his/her own National Board. Apart from members, AAI also has pre-members consisting of a number of Country Programmes (previously foreign branches of AAUK or AAI) and New Joining Organizations, which report to the Global Secretariat via their respective Country Coordination cluster (a variant of regional management).
APPOINTMENT BRIEF | MAY 2021
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ACTIONAID INTERNATIONAL | CHAIR
Election
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Audit & Risk
Finance & Funding
Human Resources & Organizational Development
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BRAND
Directors’ Forum
FEDERATION LEADERSHIP TEAM
Governance & Board Development
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Committees
Assembly organizing
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Committees
VISION
International staff team
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POLICIES
International Leadership Team
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STANDARD
Chief Executive
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SECRETARIAT
(Independent)
BOARD
(Representatives from AAI Members)
ASSEMBLY
VALUES
POSITIONS
COUNTRY PROGRAMMES
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
AFFILIATE MEMBERS
MISSION
INTERNATIONAL STRATEGY/PLATFORMS
CONSTITUTION/REGULATIONS
Our Collective Achievements Joint Work under International Platforms and our Global Campaign International Platforms Programme priority 1 Addressing the structural causes of violence against women and girls, and securing economic justice;
Programme priority 2 Ensuring increased civic participation and state accountability for the redistribution of resources and delivery of quality, gender responsive public services;
Programme priority 3 Resilient livelihoods and climate justice; Programme priority 4 Drive transformative women-led emergency preparedness, response, and prevention.
The world is changing and so are we How the Federation is Changing Internally ActionAid’s four organizationalal change areas represent strategic shifts that will help us to deliver the global strategy, Action for Global Justice 2028. There are several updates in the last year on all the shifts but what we present in the sections below are highlights of selected ones. Strategic Shift 1: a more agile, unified, and networked Federation.
Strategic Shift 3: collectively secure resources from diverse sources aligned to our vision and values to meet strategic funding needs and build a culture of fundraising innovation.
Strategic Shift 2: to build a culture of learning and quality M&E that generates new knowledge, evidencebased alternatives and communicates impact.
Strategic Shift 4: to embrace a culture of innovation and actively undertake digital transformations that revolutionize our ways of work throughout the Federation.
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Values MUTUAL RESPECT, requiring us to recognise the innate worth of all people and the value of diversity; EQUITY AND JUSTICE, requiring us to ensure the realisation of our vision for everyone, irrespective of gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, race, ethnicity, caste, class, age, HIV status, disability, location and religion; INTEGRITY, requiring us to be honest, transparent and accountable at all levels for the effectiveness of our actions and our use of resources and open in our judgements and communications with others; SOLIDARITY WITH PEOPLE LIVING IN POVERTY AND EXCLUSION shall be the only bias in our commitment to the fight against poverty, injustice, and gender inequality; COURAGE OF CONVICTION, requiring us to be creative and radical, bold and innovative - without fear of failure - in pursuit of making the greatest possible impact on the causes of poverty, injustice, and gender inequality; INDEPENDENCE from any religious or party-political affiliation; HUMILITY, recognising that we are part of a wider alliance against poverty and injustice.
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ACTIONAID INTERNATIONAL | CHAIR
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Photo: Jean Bizimana/ActionAid
APPOINTMENT BRIEF | MAY 2021
Role Description Objectives To provide strategic leadership to ActionAid International in close collaboration with the Board and Secretary General. To inspire and influence across the Federation, shaping thinking in relation to core issues in development and across the communities where ActionAid works. A strong advocate for our rights-based approach and a bold thinker on the future of development and the role of the international Secretariat.
Person Specification •
Dedicated to ActionAid International’s mission and values, including feminist leadership principles;
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The ability to build and harness global movements for social justice across ActionAid’s focus areas of gender, economic and environmental justice;
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Integrity, diligence and capacity to uphold ActionAid International’s values in all aspect of the Board’s proceedings;
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Credible and engaging with the ability to represent ActionAid International and influence externally;
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Highly developed governance skills, including chair experience, gained from complex international contexts;
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Deep understanding of international development with a commitment to a rights-based approach and global justice issues;
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A visible leader with the ability to shape strategy, influence thinking and drive agendas forward;
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A collaborative working style, open to different views and an active listener;
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The time available to meet the requirements of the role.
Responsibilities These are the responsibilities of the Chair as outlined in ActionAid International’s Governance Manual. •
Serves as ActionAid International’s chief volunteer;
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Provides leadership to the Board, to which the Secretary General is accountable;
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Provides guidance to the Board and steers the Board towards achieving its objectives and carrying out its responsibilities;
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Ensures that the Board contributes as a team by encouraging the optimum participation of all Board Members;
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Regularly engages with each Board Member informally to ensure their continued motivation, participation and sense of membership;
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Chairs meetings of the Board after developing the agenda with the Secretary General;
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Encourages the Board’s role in strategic planning;
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Assists the Conveners of Committees;
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Is an ex officio member of the Governance & Board
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ACTIONAID INTERNATIONAL | CHAIR
Development Committee with the right but not the obligation to serve as the Committee’s Convener; •
Can choose whether or not to join any other Committee, and may attend the meeting of any other Committee when invited;
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Guides, supports and where appropriate challenges the Secretary General as her/his line manager and respecting the governance/management boundary;
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Discusses issues confronting the organization with the Secretary General;
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Appraises the Secretary General with support from the Board Members in accordance with the procedure set out in ActionAid International’s Governance Manual and with the existing template on Secretary General assessment;
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Performs other responsibilities assigned by the Board;
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In her/his absence delegates full responsibility to the Vice Chair.
The Board Chair also received an annual review to assess their effectiveness, conducted by other Board Members.
Chair Appointment Process
Following the initial search and assessment process, which concludes in July 2021, confirmed Chair candidates are required to engage in a nominations process outlined in ActionAid International’s governance protocols. August 6 Deadline for nominations. Details of nominated candidates (CV, supporting statement from the candidate, and supporting documents from the nominating member) will be circulated to the General Assembly. August 20 List of nominated candidates confirmed. Candidates are expected to engage with key ActionAid International stakeholders between nomination and election, enabling Board Members and others to get to know the candidates before the elections take place. October 20 Day one of General Assembly. Board elections held. The candidates elected to the Board can now stand for election as Chair. October 21 Day two of General Assembly. ActionAid International’s Chair is elected by the General Assembly from its Board Members. Those candidates that are not elected as Chair, are encouraged to remain Board Members of ActionAid International and contribute actively towards our governance and global impact.
How to Apply Please forward a CV together with a supporting statement (maximum two pages of A4). Please ensure that you have included mobile, work and home telephone numbers, as well as any dates when you will not be available or might have difficulty with the recruitment timetable. At Prospectus we believe passionately that a truly inclusive workplace leads to increased social impact. We are committed to supporting our clients build more inclusive teams. To understand how we are performing, we ask that you kindly complete the brief equal opportunities questionnaire when you submit your application via our website. Please be assured that your responses are kept confidential, separate from your candidate record, are not part of any application you make, and that the consultants never see individual responses to the questionnaire. Applications should be made via the Prospectus website:
Timetable Closing date: June 28 Prospectus interviews: July 7, 8, 9 Shortlist confirmed: July 15 ActionAid International interviews: July, August
Queries If you would like to have an informal discussion about the opportunity, please contact our retained advisors Borge Andreassen or Joan Mwangi at Prospectus on +44 (0)20 7691 1920, or email: borge.andreassen@prospect-us.co.uk joan.mwangi@prospect-us.co.uk
jobs.prospect-us.co.uk/jobs/details/HQ00178463
APPOINTMENT BRIEF | MAY 2021
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Photo: Nora Awolowo/ActionAid
Glossary of terms: •
Assembly: The Assembly is the over-arching governance body of AAI which has overall responsibility for the collective governance of AAI and which is the vehicle for ensuring participation of all Affiliate Members and Associate Members in high level decision-making;
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Board: The Board is responsible for the day-to-day governance of the organization;
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Secretariat: The Secretariat is AAI’s multi-location management structure and is accountable to the Board;
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Associates and Affiliates: Associate membership is normally a temporary status for organizations in transition towards full Affiliate membership. It normally lasts about 2-3 years and it is intended that, in time, all Associate Members will become Affiliate Members;
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Country programmes: national level branches of AAI or a Member that are line managed and coordinated by the Secretariat.
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