Communication Expert

UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.

UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management and human resources.

Working with us

UNOPS offers short- and long-term work opportunities in diverse and challenging environments across the globe. We are looking for creative, results-focused professionals with skills in a range of disciplines.

Diversity

With over 4,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,000 personnel recruited on behalf of UNOPS partners spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a wide range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced, diverse workforce — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs, and continually strive to improve our gender balance through initiatives and policies that encourage recruitment of qualified female candidates.

Work life harmonization

UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.

UNOPS Hub in Amman

The UNOPS Hub in Amman covers Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen, and implements projects in partnership with bilateral donors, national governments, and other UN agencies.  With an established presence across the region, the office runs operations including large-scale procurement, project development, and technical management, and provides financial, human resources, and infrastructure-related services. The functional objective of UNOPS Hub in Amman is to deliver its projects in an efficient and effective manner and in line with the principles, rules and regulations of UNOPS, in order to support the response to the current needs and national priorities in the region.

The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.

UNOPS is committed to achieving a fully diverse workforce.

Project Background

The Iraq Information Centre (IIC) was launched in 2015 following an inter-agency assessment into the information and communication needs of displaced populations in Iraq. Responding to one of the most complex humanitarian crises in the world, the Humanitarian Country Team agreed to the establishment of an inter-agency accountability mechanism that allows affected populations to directly influence the evolution of humanitarian response in Iraq.

The Iraq IIC is implemented by UNOPS and is funded by a range of partners. Since its launch, the Iraq IIC has handled more than 170,000 calls, giving information to more than 1 million individuals. The Iraq IIC’s primary objective is to promote two-way communication between affected populations to:

• Empower communities through the provision of accessible and timely information on how to access humanitarian services and resources required to improve their situation;
• Help ensure efficient and effective coordination of humanitarian actors operating in Iraq by collecting and circulating information about the urgent needs and priorities of affected populations, as well as the information gaps between them and delivering actors;
• Support an environment of transparency and accountability by establishing an easy-to-access and safe mechanism through which critical feedback and complaints can be submitted and referred to humanitarian actors to influence humanitarian programming and shape advocacy.

After almost four years of its launch, the impact of the Iraq IIC is getting bigger within the beneficiaries and the humanitarian community and therefore it is expanding in its size and services in order to response to peoples demand. For that purpose, a proper advocacy and communication strategy is required in order to give the visibility that Iraq IIC needs in order to reach most vulnerable. In addition to that, Iraq is transitioning from emergency to an early recovery period and the Iraq IIC needs to adapt its services to the current situation and reach people’s voice to humanitarian partners and stakeholders.

Purpose and Scope of Assignment

UNOPS is seeking a Communication Expert with IT background to enhance IIC outreach structures. The incumbent reports to the Project Manager, and will work closely with the Communications & Reporting Officer and the Community Engagement staff, in order to contribute to the overall project objectives.

The Communication Expert will perform the following duties with transparency and integrity, and in adherence to the humanitarian standards provided by the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance (ALNAP), the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) and the Sphere Handbook.

 The incumbent will conduct the following tasks:

Expected Key Deliverables:

-          Develop an IIC outreach and community engagement strategy and associated work-implementation plan for IIC for provision of information at the right time in the right format to the affected population. Strategy and work plan include an environmental and stakeholder assessment; objectives; target audiences; channel of communication, key messages and media mix; resources; specific actions, activities and products.

This could include, but is not limited to providing:

-          Strategic advice on Community engagement for IIC to develop contextual tools;

-          Develop communication for communities products, including informative materials such as posters and contribute to the design of a website targeting the affected population, prepare Standard Operating Procedures and Focus Group Discussions templates for community engagement.

-          Specify appropriate communication channels, dissemination methods and media such as video, print, web/online media, traditional media, and social media, among others, to effectively communicate key messages to specific stakeholders;

-          Developing and delivering a national awareness campaign to promote IIC featuring at least TV Commercials, radio and print advertising and a key messaging brief;

-          Study additional services to be provided by the IIC to partners taking into account the new context in the country (from emergency to early recovery and development);

-          Develop new ways of communication between the IIC and affected populations;

-          Any other communications activities which may be required by the project;

• Advanced university degree (Master degree or equivalent) in protection, communication with communities, international development, or communications.
• A first level university degree with a relevant combination in International Affairs, Economics, Social Sciences and 2 years of additional relevant experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
• At least 5 years of work experience in the field of accountability to affected populations or communication with communities, outreach and/or community engagement;
• Previous experience in the country or in the Middle East region is required;
• Strong knowledge of communications
• Detailed knowledge of the UN System and NGO humanitarian community;
• Strong analytical skills and ability to work with and as a part of teams;
• Strong writing skills in English language;
• Excellent leadership, coordination, and communication management skills;
• Strong background in data collection, analysis and presentation;
• Strong experience in usage of Microsoft Office software package (MS Word, Excel especially);
• Knowledge of Accountability to Affected Populations, and Communicating with Communities;

1. Contract type: ICA
2. Contract level: I-ICA 2
3. Contract duration: Short-Term ICA – ‘Short-term ICA – Maximum duration 3 months’]

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• Work life harmonization - UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. This policy applies to UNOPS personnel on all contract types
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.  

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns. Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.