Advocacy Lead

Be You.

The Duke Global Health Innovation Center (Duke GHIC), and its partner organization, Innovations in Healthcare (IiH), have a shared vision of a world where innovation improves health for all. Duke GHIC is a center within Duke University, linking health innovation, health policy, and global health efforts across Duke to improve health. Duke GHIC partners closely with Innovations in Healthcare, a Duke-affiliated non-profit that works with over 100 healthcare innovators in more than 90 countries as well as public and private sector organizations to scale the impact of the world's leading innovations. Together, Duke GHIC and IiH improve access to quality, affordable healthcare worldwide and bring best-in-class capabilities in curating, scaling, and studying health innovations around the world while providing an interface to experts and students across the university.

Duke GHIC is part of the Duke Global Health Institute, which brings together knowledge and resources from across Duke to address the most important global health issues of our time, and collaborates closely with the Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy, which catalyzes Duke University's leading capabilities including interdisciplinary academic research and capacity for education and engagement, to inform policy making and implementation for better health and healthcare.

Duke GHIC and IiH seek a strategic, collaborative, and results-oriented Advocacy Lead. The Advocacy Lead will be 100% paid from grants/externally-sponsored funding sources, and as such, employment is limited to available funding. This position will be full-time for 12-14 months.

The ALIGN Consortium seeks to strengthen decision-making systems for health innovation introduction through whole-of-government coordination, data-driven decision-making, whole-of-market engagement, and portfolio-based planning.

The Advocacy Lead will advance the Consortium's influence agenda by translating evidence, country experience, and emerging lessons into compelling advocacy products, thought leadership, and strategic outreach that promote more effective and efficient approaches to health innovation prioritization and introduction, with particular emphasis on empowering government voices. The role will lead global ALIGN advocacy efforts and collaborate with consortium partners in Senegal, Kenya, and South Africa to advance country-level advocacy goals and elevate ALIGN's work in global, regional, and national policy discussions.

The position requires a highly collaborative individual who can navigate diverse political contexts, build relationships with key stakeholders, and translate technical evidence into clear, actionable advocacy and policy messages. The Advocacy Lead will work with advocacy leads across partner organizations and with the ALIGN Consortium Secretariat team based at Duke University.

Be Bold.

The Advocacy Lead is responsible for developing and implementing ALIGN's consortium-wide advocacy approach, coordinating partner advocacy activities, producing and quality-assuring influential content, leading strategic stakeholder engagement and convenings, and tracking advocacy outcomes and emerging opportunities. The estimated allocation below reflects the expected distribution of effort across the role.

Global Advocacy Strategy Execution and Influence (50%)

• Lead refinement, implementation, and periodic updating of consortium-wide advocacy strategies and annual global advocacy strategy and workplan, ensuring alignment with ALIGN goals, priorities, and learning agenda.
• Execute on the global-level advocacy strategy.
• Translate strategic objectives into sequenced advocacy priorities, activities, audiences, messages, deliverables, and decision points for global, regional, and country-level engagement.
• Identify, cultivate, and capitalize on opportunities to elevate ALIGN evidence and recommendations within policy, financing, market-shaping, and health innovation discussions at global and African regional levels.
• Build and maintain productive relationships with policymakers, government representatives, donors, regional and global health institutions, technical partners, and other influencers relevant to ALIGN's advocacy objectives, developing stakeholder engagement plans that define priority audiences, engagement objectives, tailored messages, appropriate messengers, and follow-up actions.
• Prepare briefing materials, meeting objectives, key messages, background notes, anticipated questions, and follow-up points for consortium leaders and partners engaging external stakeholders.
• Coordinate post-engagement follow-up, capture stakeholder feedback and commitments, and connect insights from external discussions to future advocacy and content priorities.
• Identify opportunities to elevate government voices and country experience to regional and global levels through appropriate platforms, products, dialogues, and speaking roles.
• Lead planning and execution of global and regional-level advocacy-focused roundtables, workshops, webinars, conference sessions, and high-level policy dialogues, defining advocacy objectives, audiences, formats, agendas, desired decisions or actions, speaker roles, and follow-up plans.
• Coordinate with consortium partners and external participants on invitations, content contributions, speaker preparation, briefing materials, and event-related communications, ensuring convenings consistently communicate ALIGN's evidence and recommendations, while creating space for country leadership, partner perspectives, stakeholder dialogue, and follow-up action.
• Capture key discussion points, decisions, stakeholder interests, and follow-up actions, and integrate relevant lessons into subsequent advocacy activities.

Partner Support, Coordination, and Learning (30%)

• Coordinate routinely with partner advocacy leads to align priorities, clarify responsibilities, maintain consistent messaging, and identify areas requiring joint action or adaptation.
• Facilitate cross-consortium advocacy planning meetings, document decisions and next steps, and follow up with responsible partners to keep agreed activities and deliverables moving.
• Develop and maintain practical coordination tools, including advocacy calendars, workplans, messaging resources, and partner input and review processes.
• Monitor developments in health innovation, financing, market shaping, and policy landscapes to identify emerging advocacy opportunities, risks, decision windows, and relevant stakeholder priorities.
• Track advocacy activities, outputs, stakeholder engagement, influence achievements, follow-up commitments, and emerging opportunities across the consortium, and prepare quarterly reports that synthesize advocacy progress, outcomes, lessons, stakeholder feedback, and recommended adjustments to strategy or workplans.
• Gather input from consortium and country partners to assess which messages, products, platforms, and engagement approaches are gaining traction and where refinement is needed, using monitoring and learning findings to adapt advocacy priorities, messaging, outreach, and product development in coordination with partners.
• Maintain organized records of current advocacy products, approved messages, engagement materials, and relevant external developments to support continuity and timely response.

Thought Leadership, Evidence Translation, and Global Positioning (20%)

• Translate technical evidence, implementation experience, and country lessons into clear, persuasive, and actionable messages for policymakers, funders, implementers, and other priority audiences, working with technical and country teams to identify the most decision-relevant findings, test the clarity and usefulness of messages, and preserve the accuracy and context of the underlying evidence.
• Shape product concepts, outlines, audience objectives, calls to action, and dissemination approaches before drafting begins.
• Lead the development and dissemination of advocacy-related policy briefs, issue papers, position statements, donor briefings, presentations, blogs, opinion pieces, talking points, and other outputs, shaping editorial priorities, managing content from concept through release, including coordinating partner contributions and review processes, and ensuring products reach priority audiences through appropriate channels and dissemination strategies.
• Develop dissemination plans that match specific products and messages with priority audiences, channels, moments, and partner networks.
• Establish and apply quality standards for advocacy content, including consistency of evidence, terminology, tone, message discipline, and strategic alignment across consortium outputs.
• Coordinate consistent use of core messages and positioning across consortium outputs and external engagements while allowing appropriate adaptation to country and stakeholder contexts.
• Identify opportunities for ALIGN leaders, partners, and government stakeholders to contribute to publications, panels, conferences, and policy discussions, advancing ALIGN's visibility, credibility, and recognition as a global thought leader and evidence engine for health innovation introduction.

• Deliver and maintain a consortium-wide advocacy strategy and annual workplan that advances ALIGN's influence objectives.
• Implement the global advocacy strategy.
• Produce a portfolio of high-quality advocacy products that elevate evidence and drive stakeholder engagement.
• Develop and implement a messaging and stakeholder engagement framework that strengthens alignment across consortium partners.
• Execute global and regional-level advocacy-focused convenings and stakeholder engagement activities that increase visibility, influence, and evidence uptake.
• Provide quarterly reports on advocacy outcomes, stakeholder engagement, influence achievements, and emerging opportunities.
• Generate strategic content and thought leadership products that strengthen ALIGN's position as a leading voice in health innovation introduction.

• Master's degree in public policy, public health, political science, international development, communications, health economics, or a related field.
• Minimum 6 agencies such as Global Fund, Unitaid, UNICEF, etc.
• Demonstrated success influencing policy, regulatory, financing, or health system decisions.
• Experience working across multiple countries and stakeholder groups.
• Strong understanding of health product development and introduction, health systems, public health policy, and health financing.
• Excellent relationship management and facilitation skills.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills in English.
• Ability to work independently and across multiple time zones.

• Experience engaging ministries of health and national decision-making bodies.
• Experience with health technology assessment, priority-setting, guideline development, or health product introduction processes.
• Existing networks within regional African health institutions and global health organizations.
• French proficiency strongly preferred.
• Experience supporting donor-funded, multi-country initiatives.

Choose Duke.

Join our award-winning team and be part of an inclusive culture that values excellence, innovation, and discovery. Duke University is consistently ranked among the top universities worldwide and is renowned for its cutting-edge research across disciplines. Beyond the engaging work, you'll also benefit from Duke's competitive benefits package, including health insurance plans, generous paid time off, retirement programs with employer contributions, tuition assistance for employees and their children, and more.

Screening of Applications: Screening continues until the position is filled.

Anticipated Pay Range:

Duke University provides an annual base salary range for this position of USD $78,621.00 to USD $127,036.00. Duke University considers factors such as (but not limited to) scope and responsibilities of the position; candidate's work experience, education/training, and key skills; internal peer equity; as well as market and organizational considerations when extending an offer.

Your total compensation goes beyond the dollars on your paycheck. Duke provides comprehensive and competitive medical and dental care programs, generous retirement benefits, and a wide array of family-friendly and cultural programs to eligible team members. Learn more at https://hr.duke.edu/benefits/.