Senior Advisor, Community Engagement And Accountability

Education

• An advanced university degree (masters) in Communication or Social/Behavioural Sciences i.e. Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology or Health Education or relevant experience is required.
  

Experience

• Seven years’ experience working in community engagement and accountability for a humanitarian or development organisation. Required
  
• Experience of developing CEA strategies and plans for a large organization, including ensuring the integration of CEA approaches into broader organizational strategies and other sectors’ operational plans. Required
  
• Solid experience of designing and implementing CEA approaches, including community feedback mechanisms, tools for communicating with communities (radio, social media, social mobilization) and participatory planning processes. Required
  
• Proven experience in planning and implementing targeted and appropriate behaviour change communication strategies. Required
  
• Experience integrating CEA into emergency response operations, including hands-on experience through emergency deployments to humanitarian disasters or complex crises. Required
  
• Experience of coaching and developing staff and volunteers to build long-term capacity and create ownership, including developing, planning, and delivering training courses. Required
  
• Proven experience of successfully advocating for the inclusion of CEA within programmes, operations and organizational policies, processes and tools with staff at different levels, including senior leadership and technical teams. Required
  
• Coordination experience, with the capacity to build and manage effective partnerships with internal and external actors. Required
  
• Experience of managing and leading a team to achieve shared goals, providing support, and mentoring as needed. Required
  
• Project management experience, including developing plans, budget management, monitoring, reporting, and fundraising. Required
  
• Experience of working within Africa. Preferred
  
• Experience working with Red Cross/Red Crescent National Societies. Preferred
  

Knowledge, Skills and Languages

• Advanced analytical skills, able to identify areas in need of improvement and design interventions to address gaps and challenges. Required
  
• Strong advocacy and negotiation skills, able to convince colleagues at all levels on the importance of integrating CEA within ways of working. Required
  
• Strong leadership and coordination skills, able to motivate and guide others towards common goals including people across multiple countries and cultures, both in person and remotely. Required
  
• Good understanding of monitoring and research approaches, able to identify examples of good practice and how to roll these out to others. Required
  
• Highly motivated proactive self-starter, able to set and achieve goals using own initiative. Required
  
• Excellent interpersonal, networking and written/verbal communication skills. Required
  
• Strong presentation, facilitation, and training skills. Required
  
• Ability to multi-task and work under stressful conditions to meet deadlines. Required
  
• Good knowledge of Red Cross Red Crescent planning and disaster management cycle, including planning and response procedures. Preferred
  
• Good knowledge of gender and diversity issues. Preferred
  
• Good understanding of National Society development issues and challenges. Preferred
  
• Willing to travel (up to 30% of the time). Required
  
• Fluently spoken and written English. Required
  
• Good command of French. Preferred
  

Education

• An advanced university degree (masters) in Communication or Social/Behavioural Sciences i.e. Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology or Health Education or relevant experience is required.
  

Experience

• Seven years’ experience working in community engagement and accountability for a humanitarian or development organisation. Required
  
• Experience of developing CEA strategies and plans for a large organization, including ensuring the integration of CEA approaches into broader organizational strategies and other sectors’ operational plans. Required
  
• Solid experience of designing and implementing CEA approaches, including community feedback mechanisms, tools for communicating with communities (radio, social media, social mobilization) and participatory planning processes. Required
  
• Proven experience in planning and implementing targeted and appropriate behaviour change communication strategies. Required
  
• Experience integrating CEA into emergency response operations, including hands-on experience through emergency deployments to humanitarian disasters or complex crises. Required
  
• Experience of coaching and developing staff and volunteers to build long-term capacity and create ownership, including developing, planning, and delivering training courses. Required
  
• Proven experience of successfully advocating for the inclusion of CEA within programmes, operations and organizational policies, processes and tools with staff at different levels, including senior leadership and technical teams. Required
  
• Coordination experience, with the capacity to build and manage effective partnerships with internal and external actors. Required
  
• Experience of managing and leading a team to achieve shared goals, providing support, and mentoring as needed. Required
  
• Project management experience, including developing plans, budget management, monitoring, reporting, and fundraising. Required
  
• Experience of working within Africa. Preferred
  
• Experience working with Red Cross/Red Crescent National Societies. Preferred
  

Knowledge, Skills and Languages

• Advanced analytical skills, able to identify areas in need of improvement and design interventions to address gaps and challenges. Required
  
• Strong advocacy and negotiation skills, able to convince colleagues at all levels on the importance of integrating CEA within ways of working. Required
  
• Strong leadership and coordination skills, able to motivate and guide others towards common goals including people across multiple countries and cultures, both in person and remotely. Required
  
• Good understanding of monitoring and research approaches, able to identify examples of good practice and how to roll these out to others. Required
  
• Highly motivated proactive self-starter, able to set and achieve goals using own initiative. Required
  
• Excellent interpersonal, networking and written/verbal communication skills. Required
  
• Strong presentation, facilitation, and training skills. Required
  
• Ability to multi-task and work under stressful conditions to meet deadlines. Required
  
• Good knowledge of Red Cross Red Crescent planning and disaster management cycle, including planning and response procedures. Preferred
  
• Good knowledge of gender and diversity issues. Preferred
  
• Good understanding of National Society development issues and challenges. Preferred
  
• Willing to travel (up to 30% of the time). Required
  
• Fluently spoken and written English. Required
  
• Good command of French. Preferred
  

For humanitarian emergencies and health outbreaks in the region the post holder will:

• Lead RCCE for health responses, including designing a strategic approach that helps prevent the spread of infection and builds community trust in the response, revising as needed to meet emerging needs and changes in the outbreak. This will involve working alongside, and under the overall leadership of, the health teams.
  
• Ensure CEA is well integrated in the IFRC Africa Emergency Plan of Action and budget and supports the overall aim of the operation.
  

• Lead the IFRC Africa CEA team to ensure National Societies receive the support they need to plan and implement high quality participatory and people-centred approaches and activities within their operations, including;
  

  • Establishing systematic community feedback mechanisms to understand community perceptions, questions, complaints, and suggestions and using this, as well as other sources of social science data, to guide the response and update health approaches.
    
  • Sharing timely, accurate information using social mobilization and trusted mass communication channels to help people adopt safe practices and reduce fear, stigma, and misinformation.
    
  • Working with communities to develop and support community-led solutions for tackling identified issues in the response or outbreak and ensuring that there are participatory approaches in place for community members to take a lead on decision making
    
• Provide technical support to response pillar leads to integrate CEA into the design and delivery of their strategies and activities, ensuring communities are informed, can participate, and ask questions, including raising sensitive complaints.
  
• Roll out online and face-to-face trainings to National Societies, IFRC and PNS staff, including building National Society capacity to collect and analyse community feedback and perceptions.
  
• Provide the operation with key analysis on community perceptions and feedback to ensure decision-making and direction is guided by community needs.
  
• Develop technical guidance and resources to help National Societies and partners operationalise key CEA approaches and activities, and address harmful rumours, misinformation or stigma as identified through the feedback and social science data
  
• Capture and share best practices and support peer learning between National Societies through webinars and case studies.
  
• Work with communications to enlist the support of national and local media to help address common rumours and misinformation through webinars and factsheets.
  
• Co-chair the interagency RCCE working group for East and Southern Africa alongside UNICEF, including setting priority areas of focus, ensuring the wider response is informed by community feedback, and supporting other working groups on RCCE.
  
• Provide technical leadership and management of the interagency RCCE Collective Service, a long-term partnership with UNICEF and WHO, including supporting strategic decision making, technical support for the team and leading on fundraising efforts.