Pacific Surge Roster - Communication Officer, Pacific Sub Regional Office

Job Description

The Communications Officer is responsible for advising the Country Representative and Emergency Response Team on all aspects of external and internal communication. This includes responsibilities around relevant information flow and visibility of UNFPA emergency assistance that highlights sexual and reproductive health, gender and gender-based violence in humanitarian response. More specifically, the incumbent will ensure public visibility of UNFPA issues and activities through media engagement, production of visual assets, national and local communication campaigns; oversee internal communication activities including SitReps and country updates; oversee communicating with communities and affected populations.

Under the overall supervision of the UNFPA Country Office (CO) Representative and /or Head of Office, and the direct supervision of the PSRO Humanitarian Specialist/Emergency Response Coordinator, the incumbent will assist the Country Office in the planning, coordination and implementation of UNFPA’s humanitarian interventions focusing on the four key emergency thematic areas of Gender Based Violence in Emergencies (GBViE), Sexual and Reproductive Health in Emergencies (SRHiE), Youth in Emergencies, and ensuring the appropriate collection, analysis and management of relevant (humanitarian) data in such circumstances.

The scope of the activities listed below may vary, depending on the length of the assignment and phase of the crisis.

• Engage with electronic and print media sources
• Identify UNFPA stories of interest to the media and proactively pitch them to national, regional and global press corps.
• Provide timely and field-driven content, such as print and video stories, for UNFPA’s regional and global websites and Voices.
• Provide UNFPA’s regional and country social media platforms with relevant updates and work closely with the Headquarters social media teams to integrate the humanitarian response into UNFPA’s social media outreach. Draft press releases, fact sheets and other rapid response information materials for use by UNFPA Headquarters and Regional and Country Offices.
• Assist in UNFPA advocacy activities, including support to public events, visits of senior UN officials, field visits and other UN and UNFPA initiatives.
• Scan the international and local media for stories about or relevant to UNFPA’s work in-country and find ways to connect to these stories.  
• Provide Public Information Support to Country Office: (report to Country Rep and RCA as needed)
• Assist the UNFPA Representative and Regional Communication Adviser in preparing written materials, including talking points, articles, press releases, responses to coverage about the UNFPA in the media, etc.
• Establish close working relationships with the United Nations Country Team, senior UN staff and communication officers to identify communication synergies and ‘one UN’ opportunities
• Cultivate and maintain effective working relationships with local, regional and global media and other relevant partners and identify opportunities for advocacy and communication partnerships.
• Serve as the UNFPA focal point for the Communication to Disaster Affected Community (CDAC)
• Liaise with CDAC partners on on-going activities
• Work with country team to ensure gender and GBV related information are incorporated through CDAC
• Provide information on CDAC projects to HQ based media team, which can be pitched to international journalists
• Capacity Development - Provide coaching to newly recruited communications staff and consultants, where appropriate;
• Coach and build communications capacity of staff members and staff of implementing partners responding to emergency/humanitarian crisis, as needed.
• Perform other tasks as assigned by the Representative.

Requirements, Qualifications and Experience:

• Masters Degree in communications, public relations, journalism, advertising or related field.
• Minimum 3 years of experience in communications, public relations, journalism or advertising; preferably some experience with public relations or information campaigns.
• Experience in or familiarity with a humanitarian setting is a major asset.
• Fluency in English language is required and depending on the duty station, another UN language such as French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese or Russian may be required.