Chief of Communication

How can you make a difference? 

• The Chief of Communication will lead the Communication and Partnerships section, which aims to create, and promote initiatives and alliances with a diverse range of public and private entities – government, development agencies, media, business actors, civil society, influential personalities, and individuals – to increase awareness of child deprivations, support child rights advocacy, leverage resources for children and manage corporate communications in support of UNICEF’s work in South Africa.
• The Chief of Communication manages the section and provides strategic guidance to the three components: 1. Public Awareness and Advocacy; 2. Private Fundraising and Partnerships; and 3. the Volunteer programme to ensure synergy and complementarity.
• The dual roles of UNICEF in South Africa as both a ‘programme’ as well as a ‘fundraising’ office requires a sophisticated and multi-dimensional communication framework to position UNICEF’s many facets carefully and properly among various audiences.

Summary of key functions/accountabilities:

• Communication strategy: The Country Office has a clear communication which includes communication for development, partnerships with private sector and fundraising strategies, and associated work plan to get children’s issues into the public domain, strengthen political will in support of UNICEF’s mission and objectives, and enhance the organization’s credibility and brand.
• Media relations: The Country Office has a well-managed country communication team that maintains and continually develops a contact list of journalists and media outlets covering all media – print, TV, radio, web etc. – and a successful process of communicating and maintaining regular contact and close collaboration with the media to communicate the story of the situation of children in the country and UNICEF’s response to a wider audience. New ways are identified to increase positive exposure and leverage that prominence for new opportunities for UNICEF.
• Networking and partnerships: The Country Office has a well-managed country communication team that maintains and continually develops a contact list of individuals, groups, and organizations across private sector, civil society, and academia, to engage on priority child rights issues at the core of advocacy and communication objectives of the communication strategy with a special focus on partnerships with private sector. Network of partners supporting child rights advocacy and fundraising is developed, strengthened, and maintained, alongside strong cooperation with the UN Country Team, UN communication counterparts and high-level counterparts in key partner organizations.
• Celebrities and special events: The Country Office restructures its approach to engaging with national celebrities and potential ambassadors with the goal of supporting effective child rights advocacy and fundraising. Relationships developed are carefully screened to reduce any issues of risk reputation. Where relevant, nationally known personalities engage with and support UNICEF’s work through online engagement, special events and activities that support country programme goals. Among these high-profile individuals, where relevant support global work through close coordination with DGCA and the regional office to extend their impact and use beyond national borders.
• Global priorities and campaigns: The Country Office has an effective process in place for integrating and taking action on select UNICEF’s global communications and advocacy priorities, campaigns, and partnerships, aligned to country level priorities, disseminating these elements in a locally appropriate way, as well as providing/enabling coverage of the work in the country for global use.
• Resource mobilization support: Global and country level fund-raising activities are supported by effective advocacy and communication strategy and activities, including a focus on private sector fundraising. The Country Office has an updated Resource Mobilization Strategy that provides the direction to build a significantly stronger funding base to enable the office to mobilize and leverage domestic, public, and private resources for children in South Africa.
• Volunteer programme: The Country Office builds a volunteer programme that supports advocacy, brand-awareness, programme implementation and fundraising.
• Management: The human resources (the communication, advocacy, and partnership team) and financial resources (budget planning, management, and monitoring) for the communication, advocacy and partnership section of the Country Office are both effectively managed and optimally used.
• Monitoring and evaluation: Communication baselines are established against which the objectives of the communication strategy are regularly evaluated; analysis is undertaken to continuously improve the effectiveness of communication strategy, approach, and activities; results and reports are prepared and shared on a timely basis. This includes identifying and reporting on country level results in global systems, such as the results assessment module (RAM).
• Capacity building and support: The Representative and the country programme team are provided with expert advice on all aspects of external relations communication as required Opportunities for development among the country communication team and other colleagues are identified and addressed; opportunities to build communication capacity among media and other relevant partners are identified and addressed.
• Advisory support and communication for strategic results: Develops communication approaches and guidelines, including those most effective for gender mainstreaming across all programmes.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

Minimum requirements:

• Advanced university degree in Communication, Journalism, Public Relations, or other related fields of disciplines.
• Ten years of progressively responsible and relevant professional work experience.
• International and national work experience in both developed and developing countries.
• Professional experience in communication, print, broadcast, new media.
• Background/familiarity with Emergency situations.
• Fluency in English and another UN language.

Source: https://jobs.unicef.org/en-us/job/573727/chief-of-communication-p5-pretoria-south-africa-00092998-open-for-non-south-african-nationals