Community Engagement & Accountability Officer

[Erbil,Iraq ]

The Rooted in Trust project works to combat COVID-19 rumors and misinformation in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Colombia, Brazil, Mali, DRC, Zimbabwe, Sudan and South Sudan. We work to create impact at the local level and inform approaches to rumor management at the global level. The project is supported by a Global Technical Advisory team made up of media, humanitarian, data science and information management experts.

 

In Phase 1 of the project, we collected more than 19 thousand rumors in 14 languages and supported more than 30 local trusted information providers. In this critical phase of the pandemic, we will build on these efforts to listen and respond to the information challenges faced by vulnerable groups in humanitarian contexts, encouraging open dialogue between citizens and scientists and stronger and more collaborative partnerships between information providers (such as local media) and humanitarian and health sources.

 

ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY

The Community Engagement & Accountability Officer will highlight the community’s perspectives and COVID-19 rumors for health, humanitarian, and civil society stakeholders. The CEAO will also ensure that project staff are up to date with the latest developments in the humanitarian and health response. In doing so, the CEAO will be in regular contact with officials from the UN and national and international NGOs and will be an active participant in relevant coordination meetings. This is a remote, work from home position that involves liaising with a local country team as well as global technical advisors located outside of the country.

 

 Our Commitment to Fostering a Culture of Belonging

We are an organization of dynamic, mission-driven individuals who are passionate about our core values and about supporting positive change in the world. We pride ourselves on our commitment to innovation and flexibility. We believe that diverse teams are strong teams and work to support an ethic of belonging, dignity, and justice for all people. Our current team includes a mix of genders, parents, and non-parents, and people of multiple races, nationalities, ages, sexual orientations and socio-economic backgrounds. We are EEO employer and encourage candidates of all races, genders, ages, orientations, ethnicities, and national origins to apply, and welcome those with alternative backgrounds and experiences.

DAY-TO-DAY TASKS will include:

• Develop, maintain and establish excellent working relationships with a wide range of humanitarian responders (Civil Society, UN agencies, NGO partners etc.) making them aware of the project and its objectives and find potential collaboration;
• In coordination with the Project Team, ensure that feedback gained from the project activities is made available to humanitarian organizations (i.e., brief presentations at coordination meetings and other relevant forums), and government officials, required;
• Share with the rest of the Project Team the latest humanitarian updates to enable them to turn it into useful, actionable, accurate and engaging content that communities can relate to/understand;
• Contribute to the production of products that present analysis of rumors and misinformation and sociological research activities to understand the behavioural drivers behind rumours;
• Actively participate in relevant humanitarian coordination forums to identify critical information gaps in the information and engagement response to the pandemic;
• Organise events to bring together media and humanitarian actors to advocate for journalist’s space in humanitarian and health responses;
• Contribute to the discussions and developments of new guidelines, resources, rules and regulations as issued by governments and UN agencies, to ensure the community’s perspectives are taken into account, local media is included and supported, and the overall health and humanitarian response is accountable to the affected populations;
• Become aware of agreed upon protocols regarding the health response and regulations, and stay up to date with the latest Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) surveys concerning the health crisis;
• Identify funding and partnership opportunities;
• Support gender mainstreaming of all aspects of the project;
• Ensure all content produced within the project follows core humanitarian principles, often summarized but not limited to “Do No Harm”;
• Support the project lead with project management as and when needed;
• Understanding of and demonstrated commitment to upholding Internews’ Core Values.

QUALIFICATIONS WE’RE LOOKING FOR

Required

• Strong Monitoring and Evaluation, Research and Learning background, especially using a mix of qualitative and quantitative, observational and participatory data collection and analysis methods, working in complex, humanitarian contexts;
• Master’s degree in social sciences, international development, evaluation, or a related field
• At least 5 years’ experience conducting research;
• Experience researching information preferences and barriers, media dynamics or risk communication;
• Fluency in spoken and written English;

• Fluent in written and spoken Kurdish and Arabic;

• Excellent inter-cultural communication skills/cultural sensitivity and the ability to forge strong cross-cultural relationships and build trust demonstrated through previous experience;
• Strong co-design facilitation, presentation, writing and communication skills;
• Familiarity with the latest literature on mis- and disinformation, trust and related research emerging from political, social and communication science;
• Strong understanding of the humanitarian principles to ensure data collection and provision follows the Core Humanitarian Standards;
• Relevant experience working with data collection and analysis software, including Kobo Toolbox or similar software;

 

Preferred

Note: Candidates who do not have these preferred qualifications, but are interested and willing to learn, are encouraged to apply.

• Data visualization skills and knowledge of relevant software to produce infographics is a plus
• Knowledge of humanitarian communications, public health communications, and crisis response techniques considered an asset, particularly related to COVID-19
• Awareness of, and familiarity with, the issues and dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic in Iraq and/or other health crises in humanitarian contexts a strong asset

Interested candidates shall send their CVs to

[email protected] with the subject title “Community Engagement Officer-RiT” not later than (05 December 2021)

 

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for an interview, applications sent beyond that date will not be considered.

Reviewing applications will be on rolling basis, as such, Internews reserves the right to close the advertisement before the deadline.

CVs in formats other than PDF and Word will be disregarded.