Strategic Communications Director

Background:

Chemonics International seeks applications for a long-term, full-time, Strategic Communications Director for the five year, $44.95M USAID-funded Urban Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (Urban WASH) Activity. Urban WASH supports accelerated access to safe, adequate, inclusive, and resilient WASH services targeting urban and peri-urban areas in ten cities. The activity aims to enable and professionalize WASH service providers; foster markets for pro-poor and inclusive WASH services; strengthen WASH planning, budgets, and service delivery oversight; and strengthen accountability among urban WASH sector actors.

Job Summary:

The Strategic Communications Director is responsible for ensuring the Government of Ethiopia, the Ethiopian public, development stakeholders, and those that view Urban WASH outputs, products, and deliverables are aware of the impacts being achieved and the benefits to the Ethiopian community of USAID interventions. The Director will develop, refine, curate, and amplify internal and external communications for Urban WASH to maximize impact and visibility while ensuring culturally appropriate messaging. The Director will report directly to the Chief of Party and oversee the Communications Officer.

This position has the following primary responsibilities:

Lead in the development and delivery of strategic, appropriate, and high impact external communications and outreach products and activities of Urban WASH

• Work closely with project leadership and USAID to develop and implement a coherent and strategic communications vision and identity for the Activity.
• Update and execute the Urban WASH Communications Strategy, ensuring compliance with USAID Branding and Marking, Graphic Standard and Partner Co-Branding Guide, standard release and story development formats, Urban WASH Branding Implementation and Marking Plan (BIMP), Communication Strategy and Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Plan.
• Support development of project deliverables, as appropriate and required
• Create Urban WASH success stories, case stories, and features that highlight impacts for Activity beneficiaries and stakeholders for Urban WASH that can be shared through a range of platforms and channels, including USAID sites and communications channels as well as audio-visual storytelling.
• Conduct audience engagement surveys which include, but not only limit to, mainstream and social media audience reach and engagement, its impacts in their behavior and forward recommendations.

Build capacity in strategic communications, behavior change and outreach in support of Urban WASH objectives and targets.

• Capacity development of Urban WASH staff in main aspects of effective WASH-related communications with the purpose of strengthened program implementation including, but not limited to SBC, storytelling, documentation, use of communications to improve knowledge management and learning, USAID branding and marking, effective use of photos, interviewing approaches, consent rules, and organizing community fora.
• Assess the communication, knowledge management, and outreach practices of utilities and regional water and energy bureaus and create capacity development plans.
• Provide training, coaching and mentoring, as appropriate, for counterpart public relations/communications experts

Lead communications-specific efforts for behavior change, learning and adaptive management across the urban WASH sector, as necessary, in support of Urban WASH goals and objectives.

• Support Urban WASH counterpart public relations departments to prepare customer and community outreach, such as PSAs and SMS.
• Leverage contacts with media organizations to promote the reporting of achievements of Urban WASH and successes of counterpart organizations in target cities.
• Support public accountability activities with development of effective design and dissemination of results from items such as community scorecards, etc.

Specific Duties and Responsibilities:

• Under the supervision of the Chief of Party, the Strategic Communications Director will be responsible for the following:
• Lead development of communication strategies and products for Urban WASH
• Lead capacity building of public relations departments of water utilities and sanitation service providers and other key Urban WASH counterparts, as appropriate, in customer outreach and public communications.
• Oversee media relations, story development, social media content development, audiovisual storytelling and documentation, knowledge management and learning as well as branded communication materials
• Lead the development and implementation of the Activity communication strategy/plan and annual workplan for communications asset production, dissemination, and monitoring, ensuring full compliance with USAID branding strategy and marking
• Manage any strategic communications partners (subcontractors, grantees, or other partners) engaged through Urban WASH interventions
• Deliver trainings and capacity building support in areas of strategic communications and outreach as needed.
• Design or provide input into scopes of work for strategic communications procurements, such as media product development for campaigns focusing on WASH services.
• Provide input into work plans, reports, and key technical deliverables.
• Lead development of regular content and postings for a variety of social media channels (i.e. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) with Urban WASH local partners, key personnel, and relevant stakeholders.

Qualifications:

• University degree in communications or related field required. Masters degree preferred.
• Minimum (12-15) years of progressively responsible communications, outreach, public relations, knowledge management or related experience required; work on USAID or other donor programming strongly preferred
• Experience developing and executing strategic communications plans, including content development, with experience in the international development arena strongly preferred and experience in the WASH sector highly desired.
• Demonstrated high quality writing and content development skills in both English and Amharic, including visual design skills. Must exhibit demonstrated ability to prepare succinct and effective executive communications products and mixed media content, including social media.
• English and Amharic fluency, with excellent presentation skills andstrongability for impactful written communication at native fluency in both languages.
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook)
• Proficiency in social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)
• Proficiency in Canva, Visio, Adobe, InDesign, or other graphic design software preferred.