Chief of Communication

The Chief of Communication leads the Communication and Advocacy Section to develop and implement communication strategies supporting UNICEF's country programme objectives. The role involves managing media relations, partnerships, celebrity engagement, global campaign integration, resource mobilization support, and capacity building in a complex humanitarian and development context in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Responsibilities

• Ensure that the Country Office has a clear communication strategy and associated work plan to support the country programme objectives and 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.
• Ensure that 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 UNICEF's cooperation to a wider audience.
• Manage a country communication team to ensure that the Country Office has a well maintained and continually developed contact list of individuals, groups, organizations and fora (including business), whose support is essential to/can assist in achieving the advocacy and communication objectives of the communication strategy.
• Ensure that the Country Office has a well-managed national celebrity relations programme with a well maintained and continually developed contact list of appropriate, nationally-known personalities who have been identified, engaged and support UNICEF’s efforts and who actively participate in special events and activities that support country programme goals.
• Ensure that the Country Office has an effective process in place for integrating and taking action on UNICEF’s global communications priorities and campaigns, both disseminating these elements in a locally-appropriate way, as well as providing/enabling coverage of the work in the country for global use.
• Ensure that global and country level fund-raising are supported by effective advocacy and communication strategy and activities.
• Ensure that the human resources (the communication team) and financial resources (budget planning, management and monitoring) for the communication section of the Country Office are both effectively managed and optimally used.
• Ensure that 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.
• Ensure that the Representative and the country programme team are provided with professional expertise and advice on all aspects of 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.
• Implementation of UNICEF programme (regional) plans, ensuring communication on gender and equity issues are mainstreamed across all programmes.

Requirements

• Advanced university degree in Communication, Journalism, Public Relations or other related fields of disciplines.
• Ten (10) 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.
• Experience in global advocacy engagement, partnership engagement and maintenance, global and local media relations, monitoring and evaluation, and B2B engagement.
• Fluency in French and English are required.
• Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.
• Relevant experience at country level, particularly in development, fragile settings and humanitarian contexts.

Skills

• Communication Strategy
• Media Relations
• Global Advocacy Engagement
• Partnership Engagement
• Print Media
• Broadcast Media
• New Media Communication
• Monitoring and Evaluation
• B2B Engagement
• Emergency Communication
• Resource Mobilization
• Capacity Building
• Humanitarian Communication
• Development Communication
• Campaign Integration
• International Communication
• Bilingual Communication

Languages

French, English