Senior Officer, Community Engagement and Accountability

Organizational Context

Job Purpose

The Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA) Senior Officer will lead the Community Engagement and Accountability approach in Armenia, coordinating between the IFRC Armenia Country Office and Armenia Red Cross Society (ARCS).  The role works closely with the CEA Delegate to the IFRC South Caucasus Cluster Delegation and follows the CEA Regional Strategy.  
 
Working closely with the ARCS CEA Coordinator, the IFRC Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA) Senior Officer will lead efforts to institutionalize and strengthen community engagement and accountability within the IFRC country office’s and ARCS’s ways of working, programmes and operations. This includes building CEA understanding and capacity across the organization, integrating CEA into IFRC and ARCS strategy, plans, policies, guidance and tools and supporting the feedback and complaints mechanism. The CEA Senior Officer will also work with IFRC and ARCS colleagues to integrate meaningful community participation, open and honest communication, and mechanisms to listen and act on feedback, within programmes and operations. 

Job Duties and Responsibilities

The CEA Senior Officer will:

• Lead the institutionalization of CEA within the IFRC Country Office and National Society:
• Advise and guide senior leadership on how IFRC and the National Society can strengthen and institutionalize approaches to CEA
• Build the capacity of staff and volunteers to mainstream and implement CEA by delivering CEA training and briefings to all levels of the National Society
• Support the National Society in establishing a CEA team within the National Society, including CEA focal points at branch level
• Work with the National Society on the development of the CEA Policy, including key performance indicators to measure how the National Society is meeting its commitments to accountability
• Lead the integration of CEA into the IFRC and National Society strategies, annual plans and all relevant policies and tools so it becomes a standard way of working for all staff and volunteers
• Ensure that CEA is integrated in other sectors’ funding proposals
• Work with planning, monitoring, evaluation, and reporting (PMER) colleagues to ensure CEA is included in all plans, with indicators to measure progress, and covered in donor and partner reports
• Supporting the feedback and complaints mechanism:
• Support the ARCS/IFRC community feedback mechanism, ensuring feedback is collected, analysed, responded to, acted on and referred to relevant actors
• Collaborate with information management (IM) colleagues on analysis and reporting on community feedback
• Lead the process of regularly reviewing the feedback mechanism with colleagues and communities to ensure an effective, trusted mechanism that meets their needs and preferences
• Support the roll-out of the feedback mechanism to branches
• Conduct perception surveys to gain a deeper understanding of community perceptions, beliefs, rumors and complaints and trends across the region including in response to migration and other issues of concern

Provide CEA support and guidance to programmes and operations to:

• Train programme and operations staff and volunteers on the minimum actions for CEA, including their role and responsibility in meeting these
• Oversee and develop sector-specific CEA approaches working in collaboration with the relevant sector leads
• Support development and implementation of assessments so they are transparent and participatory, and capture a thorough understanding of the context, peoples’ needs and priorities, and most appropriate approaches for community engagement
• Advocate for programmes and responses to be designed with the involvement and input of community members, including men, women, boys, girls, and any marginalized or at-risk groups
• Integrate CEA activities and indicators in programme and response plans and budgets
• Regularly share information about the programme or response with community members, using the best approaches to reach different groups
• Enable active community participation in managing and guiding programmes and responses
• Share analysis of community feedback and monitoring data with the relevant counterparts who can review, adjust, and improve programmes and operations
• Support the development and implementation of programme and response evaluations so they involve communities, including asking if they are satisfied with the programme or response, how it was delivered, and what could be improved

Job Duties and Responsibilities (continued)

Coordination and representation:

• Coordinate CEA approaches across the National Society and IFRC, including ICRC and partner National Societies in Armenia, as well as with the IFRC South Caucasus Country Delegation
• Identify opportunities for partnerships with external organisations, which could help strengthen CEA approaches within the National Society
• Coordinate CEA efforts with external partners, including relevant interagency working groups, UN agencies, other NGOs, and Government
• Help position the National Society as a lead actor in CEA by capturing and sharing best practices and success stories within the Movement and externally

Education

Required:

• An advanced university degree in a relevant area such as social sciences/ behavioral sciences/ communications or equivalent experience

Preferred:

• Basic delegate training course, IMPACT or equivalent knowledge

Experience

Required:

• At least five years of experience in a CEA-related role, for example, beneficiary communication, social mobilization, community engagement, communication for development, accountability officer
• Experience in emergency response settings including conflict-affected, migration and/or refugee contexts.
• Experience in a coordination role, including with multi-sectoral stakeholders
• Experience of designing and implementing CEA approaches, including community feedback mechanisms, tools for communicating with communities and participatory planning processes
• Experience in leading teams and managing people

Preferred:

• Experience in delivering trainings and building the capacity of staff and volunteers
• Experience within the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
• Experience in an international organization or NGO

Knowledge, Skills and Languages

Required:

• Able to analyse and identify areas for improvements in programmes/operations through the integration of CEA approaches and activities
• Good understanding of current developments in the field of communication with communities, behavioral and social sciences, community engagement processes, strategic communication, research approaches
• Sensitivity to challenging political contexts and understanding of risk management processes
• Excellent interpersonal, communication and networking skills, able to build relationships with people at all levels of the organization and with external partners and organizations
• Highly motivated, self-starter able to take initiative and lead a team or process
• Strong presentation, facilitation, and training skills
• Good knowledge of gender and diversity issues in humanitarian programming
• Willing to travel within the country
• Fluently spoken and written Armenian
• Fluently spoken and written English

Preferred:

• Good command of Russian

Competencies, Values and Comments

• Values: Respect for diversity; Integrity; Professionalism; Accountability.
• Core competencies: Communication; Collaboration and Teamwork; Pro-activity; National Societies and Customer Relations; Creativity and Innovation; Building Trust