Organizational Context

Job Purpose

The Coordinator, Risk Communication and Community Engagement supports the coordination of the interagency (IFRC, WHO, UNICEF) Collective Service for Risk Communication, Community Engagement and also leads IFRC health-related Risk Communication and Community Engagement activities in both development and humanitarian settings.

The Coordinator supports inter-agency efforts (IFRC, WHO, UNICEF) for collective and coordinated community engagement approaches to the health and humanitarian architecture. The incumbent will also lead the health and RCCE agenda within IFRC’s Health and Care Department.

The job holder represents the Risk Communication and Community Engagement Collective Service in relevant operational and coordination fora reporting on the priority Risk Communication and Community Engagement issues and advises Collective Service members on appropriate courses of action.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

Coordination:

• Align, coordinate and advocate with and among partners, donors and experts working in Risk Communication and Community Engagement and catalyse partnerships and funding to improve the sustainability, reach and effectiveness of community-centred approaches.
• Specific tasks include:
  Coordinate the Global Collective Service Core Group and ensure the delivering of the results defined in the Collective Service developed by IFRC, UNICEF and WHO and ensure regular reporting to the Steering Group.
  Lead the revision of the Risk Communication and Community Engagement strategy through consultative and inclusive processes and regularly update and adapt interagency strategies and workplans based on the evolution of emerging health issues and behavioural insights.
  Oversee the deliverables of the Collective Service Secretariat and Core Group, to ensure it fulfils its goal, helping partners to identify risks and opportunities throughout its implementation, champion the use of social data and population insights by senior response leadership to improve overall response effectiveness, and raise the profile of the field.
  Lead the wider engagement of global actors brokering the expansion of the partnership across a diversity of international actors, through the global health architecture and the IASC, including traditional and non-traditional actors to improve collaboration and coordination of activities.
  Lead the strengthening of relationships with regional interagency groups. Provide guidance and support through regular interactions with regional platforms in line with global standards and commitments. Maintain up-to-date mapping and networking with regional and country level coordination capacities and roles and responsibilities of the main partners involved.
  Identify key Risk Communication and Community Engagement challenges impacting the effectiveness of emergency responses and discuss common approaches to address them.
  Ensure that all Risk Communication and Community Engagement collective work is integrated and reflected in other pillars of the response by participating in key meetings and providing relevant information to stakeholders across the health and humanitarian architecture.
  Catalyse synergies and collaboration with other coordination networks to create new and better ways of working and promoting integration, improving preparedness and response to future humanitarian and health emergencies.
  Reinforce coordination of Risk Communication and Community Engagement support implementation and methodology within Health and Care programs in both development and humanitarian settings.
  Provide technical input into Risk Communication and Community Engagement documents including workplans, training curriculum, guidance documents.
  

Advisory and strategic guidance:

• Promote adoption of quality standards for community engagement in health and humanitarian
• Advocate for the central role of communities in emergencies and crisis through and by leveraging the Collective Service governance and leadership.
• Coordinate global strategic guidance and support to regions and partners advocating for the highest priority Risk Communication and Community Engagement issues within the response operation and the most effective and strategic means to address them.
• Facilitate the use and adaptation of tools and guidance that promote integration of Risk Communication and Community Engagement standards and principles in health and humanitarian crises.

Job Duties and Responsibilities (continued)

• Engage global stakeholder groups and regional platforms to support and mobilise appropriate tools and resources for strengthening capacities of governments and local actors including developing inter-agency Standard Operating Procedures (So Ps) for different contexts and response-wide approaches.
• Enable, sharing of knowledge, innovations and learnings for targeted technical support (and standby capacity) and capacity strengthening efforts (i.e: IM, Social behavioural science, CFM, surge).
• Facilitate and share the analysis of trends in social and behavioural data and community feedback and propose recommendations to all pillars to address those, ensuring advocacy and dialogue with other pillars leadership.

Advocacy:

• With the co-leading agencies, coordinate advocacy on the Risk Communication and Community Engagement priorities across programs and response pillars, ensuring that decision-makers have access to related information and methodology.
• Represent the Service and the priority Risk Communication and Community Engagement issues during coordination group meetings (i.e: TWG, humanitarian and health clusters groups, including IFRC Health & Care network).
• Strong humanitarian diplomacy for Risk Communication and Community Engagement agenda at different high- level fora.
• Advocate, educate, and forge consensus among all those involved in the humanitarian context, on the tools and approaches for establishing effective community engagement.
• Provide strategic guidance on resource mobilisation efforts and donor engagement activities to ensure sustainability of the collective Service support.

Duties applicable to all staff:

Education

Required

• Advanced university degree (master's degree or equivalent degree) in public health, behavioural/social sciences, international studies or a related field.

Preferred

• Experience in and knowledge of project management.

Experience

Required

• Minimum 7 years of relevant professional experience in coordination and management in public health and humanitarian context with focus on advocacy, donors liaison and programme management including having worked on Community Engagement.
• Demonstrable experience (7 year+) of successfully leading and coordinating multi- stakeholder working groups to achieve common goals in public health and humanitarian actions, with technical experience in risk communications, social and behaviour change communication and community engagement.
• Experienced project manager able to work and coordinate multiple stakeholders to develop and manage clear strategies and joint results.
• Experience of working with multi organisational coordination Teams, clusters and health/ humanitarian coordination systems.
• Experience of leading and supporting multi-disciplinary and geographically remote teams.
• Ability to work collaboratively as part of a team in a challenging and highly fluid environment, flexibility, and the ability to handle constant change.

Preferred

• Experience in building partnerships with community and civil society organization.
• Experience of working within a community and civil society constituency.
• Red Cross Red Crescent movement experience and health background.

Knowledge, Skills and Languages

Required

• Fluent spoken and written English.
• Conceptual and strategic analytical capacity, including ability to analyse and articulate the humanitarian dimension of complex issues that require a coordinated response across multiple partners.
• Knowledge of wide range of humanitarian and emerging health issues with a focus on coordination of risk communication and community engagement.
• Highly motivated, self-starter and team player able to lead a process, engage others and create ownership.
• Sound knowledge of the humanitarian and public health coordination system, structures and mandates
• Ability to multitask, work under pressure and with tight deadlines.
• Ability to work efficiently in a multicultural, multilingual and cross-functional setting as well as with remote teams.

Preferred

• Good command of another IFRC official language (French, Spanish or Arabic).
• Ability to negotiate and to influence others to reach agreement.
• Demonstrated problem-solving skills and judgment in applying technical expertise to resolve a wide range of complex issues/problems.

Competencies, Values and Comments

Values: Respect for diversity; Integrity; Professionalism; Accountability.
Core competencies: Communication; Collaboration and teamwork; Judgement and decision making; National society and customer relations; Creativity and innovation; Building trust.

Application Instruction
Please submit your application in English only.