Vacancy for a Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA) Officer at IFRC

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian network, reaching 150 million people each year through its 190 member National Societies. The organization acts before, during and after disasters, crises and health emergences in order to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people.
IFRC’s work is guided by seven Fundamental Principles (humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality) and by Strategy 2020, which voices the organization’s collective vision and determination to move forward in tackling the major challenges that presently confront humanity.

The Africa Regional Business Group is organized through cluster offices covering the National Societies in Eastern Africa, Southern Africa, West Coast, Sahel and Central Africa as well as country offices in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Republic of South Sudan, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia. The IFRC, in its commitment to build strong National Societies and to support scaling up of National Societies’ services to the most vulnerable populations, has established presence in Nigeria since 2013.

We are recruiting to fill the vacant position below: 



Job Title Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA) Officer
Ref No: IFRC-A-CEA-008
Location: Abuja (with frequent travel to field)
Classification Level: TBC
Immediate Supervisor’s Title: Disaster Management Delegate
Technical Manager’s Title: Regional CEA Senior Advisor
Reporting to: The Disaster Management Delegate, the Community Engagement and Accountability Officer
Job Purpose
 

  • Under oversight of the Disaster Management Delegate – or the CEA Delegate, if in place – and technical supervision of theRegional CEA Senior Advisor for Africa, the CEA Officerwill support the implementation of approaches and activities to enhance community engagement, communication and participation within the of the Nigeria Complex Crisis Operation (NCCO).
  • The CEA Officer will support theNRCS-IFRC operation team to integrate effective and appropriate participation and feedback, behaviour change communication and ‘information as aid’ activities within the NCCO.
  • The post-holder will work closely with the NRCS community engagement team, building on the previous beneficiary communication work.

Job Duties and Responsibilities
The CEA Officer will: 

  • Support the process of carrying out consultations with communities in the operational areas to ascertain information needs and trusted and accessible communication channels
  • Support all programme sector teams to set up and manage mechanisms for sharing relevant, timely and appropriate information with communities about the operation, such as beneficiary selection criteria, processes for distributions and changes in operational plans
  • Identify and utilize appropriate communication channels for providing life-saving and recovery information to communities as part of ‘information as aid’ activities
  • Build the capacity of NRCS to integrate CEA in its way of working through providing the skills and knowledge to mainstream CEA tools and approaches into regular programmes, including via trainingand mentoring
  • Work closely with programme sector teams and key external stakeholders to drive and advocate the roll out of appropriate technology and innovation for CEA (with a focus on the use of existing platforms and messaging systems)
  • Support evidence-based learning by assessing and monitoring levels of community engagement through research, impact surveys, perceptions studies and case studies.
  • Lead in training frontline staff and volunteers on essential CEA aspects, including complaints handling skills and ensuring that community feedback loops are closed
  • Support all programme sector teams to increase levels of engagement and accountability to people and communities, through the establishment of appropriate feedback mechanisms
  • Support the programming teams in the process of establishing community resilience committees
  • Support health and WASH teams to establish innovative and effective behaviour and social change activities to encourage communities to adopt safe and healthy practices as part of social mobilization

Duties applicable to all staff:

  • Actively work towards the achievement of the Federation Secretariat’s goals
  • Abide by and work in accordance with the Red Cross and Red Crescent principles
  • Perform any other work related duties and responsibilities that may be assigned by the line manager

Position Requirements
Education: 

  • Professional qualification in communications or equivalent experience
  • A university qualification in a relevant area such as communication, behaviour change communication, community engagement or community media

Experience: 

  • Two years’ experience in community engagement initiatives, beneficiary communication, risk communication, or social mobilisation activities in development programmes or operations
  • Experience with behaviour change campaigns
  • Experience with monitoring and reporting tools
  • Experience of working for the Red Cross/Red Crescent
  • Good understanding of the humanitarian environment, specifically complex crisis situations
  • Solid experience in delivering communication and community engagement capacity building efforts with local organizations, including on accountability tools and feedback mechanismsin complex and delicate situations
  • Experience working withcommunication channels such as radio, TV, SMS, cinema/drama and complaints and response mechanisms

Knowledge and Skills: 

  • Good understanding of – or training in – current developments in the field of communication with communities, behavioural and social sciences, or community engagement and accountability, community media;
  • Ability to analyse feedback and translate into recommendations
  • Ability to convey complex topics in a simple fashion
  • Good knowledge of the region and capacity to practice political and cultural sensitivity
  • Excellent interpersonal, communication and networking skills
  • Fluent in written and spoken English.
  • Written and spoken Hausa
  • Good understanding of disaster management issues
  • Ability to work under stressful conditions, meet deadlines and travel extensively to support field operations
  • Strong written, presentation, facilitation and training skills


How to Apply

Interested and qualified candidates should send their Curriculum Vitae and Cover Letter (with 03 referees professional email-addresses + phone contacts) to: HRAbuja@ifrc.org quoting the Reference Number which is underlined on the subject title. 
Note

  • Only selected applicants will be contacted.
  • No hand delivered applications will be accepted.


Deadline  15th June, 2017.

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *