We are looking for a communications officer!

Job Title: Communications Officer

Department: Strategy & Development, Dakar

Reports To: Strategy & Development Director

ORGANISATIONAL BACKGROUND

Headquartered in Dakar, Senegal, with offices in New York, NY, Speak Up Africa (SUA) is a creative health communications and advocacy organization dedicated to catalyzing leadership, enabling policy change, securing resources and inspiring individual action to drive sustainable development in Africa. By leveraging the power of the media to reach millions with life saving messages, we inspire multi-sectoral action in the fight to reduce child mortality, combat preventable diseases, and unlock resources in the public and private sector.

JOB PURPOSE

The Communications Officer sits within the organization’s Dakar-based Strategy and Development (S&D) team and is responsible for supporting SUA’s global level external communications, advocacy and resource mobilization requirements. The role also has an additional, and wider, remit which is to work with the S&D team across a range of external communications and advocacy activities to share organizational learning, helping to build recognition of SUA’s brand and technical excellence.

The post holder shall work with key members of the Programs team, in charge of organizing advocacy and behavior change communication activities, to produce and share progress, learning and challenges of the programs in support of the achievement of their goals.  The post holder has responsibility for planning, developing and disseminating reports, briefs and publications, multi-media outputs and managing content for the websites and social media networks. The post holder will provide support for national and global level communications and advocacy activities and ensure that effective sharing of information is achieved across the project.

Beyond this aspect of the role, the post holder will work closely with S&D team to help position the organization with donors and decision makers through the delivery of targeted thematic areas of focus. Key to this is the collating and sharing of learning outputs and using new and existing tools to measure the impact of this shared learning on the target audiences. An important element of this activity is supporting production and delivery of information and data in formats that make them useful for wider dissemination to key influencers. 

DUTIES

Institutional Communication

1. Work with the S&D team to develop high quality data, evidence and ‘marketing’ materials on specific thematic areas to support engagement with donors, policy makers and other key audiences.
2. Support the development, production and delivery of organizational information and data in new and engaging formats for wider dissemination to key influencers.
3. Play a key role in dissemination of learning outputs, finding creative ways of measuring effectiveness of systems used and developing sound evidence of impact.
4. Work with the Creative Designer to ensure all external materials and communications follow organizational brand, quality and other protocols and requirements.
5. Translate from French into English and vice-versa key project documents.
6. Support the development and implementation of annual institutional communications plan, working closely with Programs teams to meet programs’ global external communications and advocacy aims in support of predefined goals.
7. Lead on the development, production and distribution of advocacy materials, ensuring high levels of accuracy and quality are maintained and approvals processes followed.
8. Upload SUA materials to data sharing system to ensure such data banks are kept up to date.
9. Develop and maintain an up to date archive of all external communications outputs generated by SUA (including news releases, printed materials and photos) accessible to partners and other staff as necessary.
10. Support the development and production of any broadcasting and production activities documenting SUA’s work.
11. Identify and follow through on opportunities to raise the profile of SUA’s work through events and other activities, in particular the placement of news and stories in international and regional media, web and other outlets.

General

1. Provide reports and updates as required.
2. Responsible for SUA’s social media activities.
3. Represent the project/organization at external meetings as appropriate and required.
4. Responsible for keeping the contact and photo databases up to date.
5. Provide support to the S&D team and other colleagues as required.
6. Support coordination between SUA’s Dakar and New York in terms of communication strategies and materials and the promotion of cross-project learning. 

QUALIFICATIONS

Essential:

• Fluency in French and English.
• Degree in Communications, Marketing or other relevant discipline or equivalent professional experience.
• Substantial experience in communications, advocacy, marketing, donor relations, fundraising or related field in an international development NGO.
• Exceptional oral and written communication skills, including writing strategies, briefing papers, press releases, concept notes, use of social media, etc., and ability to synthesize key concepts and convey messages to diverse audiences
• Excellent organization, planning, communication and follow-up skills.
• Strong experience in effective dissemination of high quality communications outputs and M&E of impact.
• Strong analytic, strategic thinking, and planning skills.
• Proven skills in editing, proof reading and research, with excellent attention to detail.
• Experience of working in partnerships and/or coalitions.
• Excellent computer skills (MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint).
• Ability to take initiative and manage assignments from conceptualization to completion.
• Ability to prioritize and manage multiple projects with conflicting time frames.
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to interact effectively with all levels of associates, including management.

Desirable:

• Knowledge of public health and development sectors in Africa
• Experience of project management
• Familiarity working with different media outlets (photography, film, TV, radio, newspapers, etc.) for communications purposes
• Experience of health sector advocacy work
• Experience of event planning and management
• Experience in social media community management
• Experience of contacts databases  

OTHER KEY INFORMATION

The position is based in Dakar, Senegal, with up to 20% of time spent visiting projects mainly in West Africa.