Career Opportunities: Communications & Reports Officer (NOA) Damascus VA020-2023 (826878)

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WFP seeks candidates of the highest integrity and professionalism who share our humanitarian principles.

Selection of staff is made on a competitive basis, and we are committed to promoting diversity and gender balance.

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS

All applications should be received no later than 18 of May 2023

CONTRACT TYPE & LOCATION

Contract Type: Fixed Term NOA

Duration: 12 months

Duty Station: Damascus

Number of required employees: 1

ABOUT WFP

The United Nations World Food Programme is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. The mission of WFP is to help the world achieve Zero Hunger in our lifetime. Every day, WFP works worldwide to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry and that the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly women and children, can access the nutritious food they need. In 2020, WFP was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to fight hunger globally, including its work during the coronavirus pandemic.

In Syria, WFP provides food assistance to more than 4.6 million people each month. This includes families who require emergency assistance when affected by conflict and displacement and also those who need help to improve their nutrition and food security. WFP supports children across Syria with healthy meals and snacks at school, mothers with nutritious diets, and families and communities with sustainable livelihood projects.

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE/ACTIVITY:

One of the core functions of the Food Security Sector (FSS) is to support communication, advocacy and resource mobilisation with a key focus on strengthening communication of specific food security information needed for decision making; reinforcing active participation in inter-cluster, inter-agency standing committee work and IASC subsidiary bodies and enhancing advocacy with national governance, international humanitarian and development organizations and financial partners. The FSS is responsible to communicate clear messages to decision makers on the situation and severity of food security needs of the affected population through informed and well-targeted situation reports.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:

In order to prevent the food security situation to deteriorate, communication should start at the onset of a food security crisis, or when Early Warning Signals indicate high levels of risk in order to immediately advocate for lifesaving interventions at the earliest possible stage. Throughout the response, the FSS develops regularly updated communication products, such as alerts, bulletins or newsletters to inform all stakeholders about the evolution of the food security situation over time. The FSS also supports strategic dissemination of monitoring and other assessments’ findings and ensures systematic use of such material for response analysis and decision-making. This includes organizing round table discussion with donors and decision makers to advocate on appropriate food security strategy and funding for the FSS partners. The FSS sustains its social media engagement with partners to communicate in real time the key activities, achievements, constraints and challenges at country level. Ultimately, the FSS develops its own resource mobilization strategy to mobilize necessary funds to support coordination mechanisms ahead and during food security crises. The overall objective of this position is to hence strengthen internal and external communication and reporting with the aim of achieving one of the core functions of the sector of supporting advocacy and resource mobilisation as detailed above.

The Communication and Reports Officer will work in collaboration with Food Security Sector colleaugues and widely liaise with partners to ensure input in communication products. She/he will ensure that communication materials are prepared and disseminated in a timely manner to sector partners, donors and other audiences to ensure that advocacy messages and other relevant reporting and communication products get the necessary attention in a timely manner.
 

Supervision received:

This post is based in Damascus, Syria under the direct supervision of the Food Security Sector Coordinator

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

Within delegated authority, the Communication and Reports Officer will be responsible for the following duties: 
•    Design the Syria FSS communication action plan and the communication strategy aligned with the FSC global strategic plan with the support and guidance of the head of unit and the global Food Security Cluster (gFSC).
•    Within the communication strategy, identify targeted audience groups, platforms and key messages to maximize the visibility of Syria FSS activities and its endeavors to respond to food insecurity across the country.
•    Act as a liaison between partners to identify communication needs of the different activities and be responsible for the production of communication and visibility materials (photos, videos, stories).
•    Provide communication expertise in line with FSS standards to, when necessary, externalizing the production of communication material to external stakeholders.
•    Take the lead to produce content, develop and scale-up the implementation of social media platforms, as communication, advocacy and fundraising tools for national and international audiences;
•    Improve and increase donor visibility activities on the impacts of Syria FSS interventions through traditional and non-traditional communication material.
•    Monitor and analyse traditional and social media to inform the development and/or evaluation of communication activities and strategies.
•    Support in generating donor specific visibility content including text, photos, videos and audio for use across a range of integrated online platforms, in order to contribute to global and country fund-raising activities, ensuring consistency with corporate messages.
•    Support and train, when necessary, colleagues and field staff to produce communication material (photos, videos, stories) to be used for broad dissemination using different platforms.
•    As required, coordinate and translate press releases, opinion editorials and other public documents.
•    Play an active role in interagency UN advocacy and media opportunities; in coordination with partners feed and update FSS, UN Syria and other relevant social media and website by developing high quality communication materials reflecting the work of FSS in the country.
•    Liaise and interact with FSS staff and external counterparts to support aligned activities and a coherent approach to communications within the FSS.
•    Collate outreach data, contribute to the preparation of accurate and timely reports, support communications activities that enable informed decision making and ensure consistency of information presented to stakeholders.
•    Perform other duties as required.

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education:

Advanced University degree in Journalism, International Relations, Public Relations, Communications or other relevant field, or First University degree with additional years of related work experience and/or trainings/ courses.

Experience:

With an Advanced University Degree: At least 1 year of responsible post graduate relevant professional experience in a relevant  field of work, with a background and interest in international humanitarian, work experience in the humanitarian field specifically within the food security sector and other cluster coordination systems or experience with UN agencies or NGOs in communication and reporting, including the compilation and production of weekly, monthly and quarterly reports, dashboards and factsheets particularly in food security, livelihoods and nutrition or related field.

With a First University Degree: At least 3 years of responsible post graduate relevant professional experience in a relevant  field of work, with a background and interest in international humanitarian, work experience in the humanitarian field specifically within the food security sector and other cluster coordination systems or experience with UN agencies or NGOs in communication and reporting, including the compilation and production of weekly, monthly and quarterly reports, dashboards and factsheets particularly in food security, livelihoods and nutrition or related field.

Knowledge & Skills:

Strong written and oral communication skills, including substantive analysis and report writing skills. Additionally, is a great team player and can work with minimum supervision.

Language:

Fluency in both oral and written communication in Arabic and in English.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

• Please upload your professional CV in English in PDF format making sure to include the following in terms of “Experience”:
  • Company/Organization name and scope of work of the organization
  • Exact Position Title
  • Contract type: part-time, full-time, volunteer, consultant, or freelancer
  • Start and End date of Employment for each position: From (dd/mm/yyyy) to (dd/mm/yyyy)
  • Responsibilities: To mention the main responsibilities that highlight your gained skills and experience
• A proof of your experience will be required in the final stage of recruitment.
• Only shortlisted candidates will be invited to the next stage of the selection process.
• Candidates must get an auto confirmation email once application is submitted.

HOW TO APPLY

Follow the links below to submit your application. If any of the links do not work by clicking on it, please copy and paste it in the browser address bar: 

Ensure that your VPN is connected before clicking on the link below.

Internal candidates: 

https://performancemanager5.successfactors.eu/sf/jobreq?jobId=826878&company=C0000168410P

External candidates:

https://router.job-listing.wfp.org/sfcareer/jobreqcareer?jobId=826878&company=C0000168410P

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Female applicants and qualified applicants  are especially encouraged to apply

WFP has zero tolerance for discrimination and does not discriminate on the basis of HIV/AIDS status.

No appointment under any kind of contract will be offered to members of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), FAO Finance Committee, WFP External Auditor, WFP Audit Committee, Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other similar bodies within the United Nations system with oversight responsibilities over WFP, both during their service and within three years of ceasing that service.