Community Engagement and Accountability External Liaison Delegate

Strong candidate identified

Closing date (Geneva time zone):18-11-2019

Duty station:North Kivu – DRC

Country:CONGO, THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE

Duty station status: Non Family Duty Station

Accompanied status: Non-Accompanied

Duration:3 Mois

Category of Staff: Delegate

Grade: C1

Vacancy No:IFRC03490

Background

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, with 190 member National Societies. As part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, our work is guided by seven fundamental principles; humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality.

Organizational Context

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC or “the Federation”) is the World’s largest volunteer-based humanitarian network. The Federation is a membership organization established by and comprised of its member National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Along with National Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Federation is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The overall aim of the IFRC is “to inspire, encourage, facilitate, and promote at all times all forms of humanitarian activities by National Societies with a view to preventing and alleviating human suffering and thereby contributing to the maintenance and promotion of human dignity and peace in the world.” It works to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people before, during and after disasters, health emergencies and other crises. The Federation is served by a Secretariat based in Geneva, with regional and country offices throughout the world. The Secretariat is led by the IFRC Secretary General and provides the central capacity of the International Federation to serve, connect, and represent National Societies. Ebola is endemic to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In May 2018, the DRC Ministry of Health (MoH) officially declared the 9th epidemic of the Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Equateur province. This was the ninth Ebola outbreak in the country, and the first in the province. The humanitarian community, including the Red Cross and Red Cross Crescent partners, quickly mobilized resources to face this new EVD outbreak and on 25 July the outbreak was officially declared over. This epidemic caused a total of 33 deaths for 54 cases reported (38 confirmed and 16 probable) in three affected health zones of Wangata (Mbandaka), Bikoro and Itipo. One of the key Red Cross response during the active outbreak phase was SDBs. Over 100 RC volunteers were trained in SDB and teams responded to over 80 SDB alerts. On the 1st August the MoH officially declared a new EVD outbreak in Mabalako Health Zone, Beni territory. Following an alert from the North Kivu Provincial Health authority about a cluster of cases in Mangina end of July 2018, four samples out of six tested positive for EVD. On 6 August 2018, the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) confirmed by genetic sequencing that this latest outbreak is caused by the Zaire ebolavirus species and is not connected to the recent outbreak in Equateur Province. As of 26 April 2019, a total of 1,396 EVD cases have been reported in the region, 1,330 of which have been confirmed and 66 which are probable. Confirmed or probable cases are localized to five health zones in North Kivu, and one neighboring health zone in Ituri Province.

Job Purpose

Community engagement and accountability is at the core of Red Cross and Red Crescent programming and operations. It is an approach geared towards putting people and communities, vulnerable to and affected by crisis, at the centre of what we do. It encompasses a set of activities that embed and integrate participation, communication, feedback and learning throughout the programme cycle, in service delivery and in strategy development.  The goal is to enable people and communities to lead and shape positive, sustainable change in their own lives, communities and society.

The CEA external liaison delegate will work closely with the CEA Coordinator with focus on external coordination for Risk Communication and Community Engagement and co-leading the feedback working group to help response partners use community insights to shape the response. The CEA liaison will oversee the community feedback systems, ensuring community feedback are timely shared and acted upon by the pillars. The role will also be expected to coordinate closely with all Risk communications and community engagement partners to influence strategic decision-making and join efforts in rolling out a harmonized strategy tailored to communities needs and feedback.

The position will provide strategic and technical advice, supervision, and training to improve the use of feedback data across response partners and strengthen community ownership and participatory planning supported by Red Cross staff and volunteers.

The person will be the alternate when the CEA coordinator is outside DRC. He/she will support therefore with the development, implementation, supervision, and evaluation of risk communication and community engagement activities for the Ebola response in DRC, along with ensuring CEA is built into National Society (NS) and IFRC ways of working for this emergency operation and recovery activities. The person will also ensure regional support to EVD preparedness countries and support.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

External liaison with EVD multi-sectoral stakeholders including the Risk Communication and Community Engagement Commission and partners and other stakeholders, with focus on the feedback coordination work

Guides coordination efforts across the Movement components and supports inter-agency coordination with a wide range of partners and stakeholders to ensure synergy, integration, coherence, and harmonization of community engagement actions and community feedback work

Oversights the strengthening and adaptation of feedback methods and systems (with focus on health zones’ feedback coordination) to gain a deeper understanding of the community feedback, including perceptions, beliefs, rumours and complains

Ensures community feedback are regularly analysed and shared with key operation teams and decision makers to inform course correction and changes in community engagement approaches;

Guide use across Red Cross teams of the most relevant social-cultural data and sources of vulnerabilities information to guide epidemic response efforts

Coordinate and support cross-analysis of community insights and feedback data with the social science cell team the use of as part of the ongoing social sciences research, impact surveys and perception data (including social-cultural data,  sources of vulnerabilities, community structures and power dynamics) to ensure a comprehensive set of behavioural data inform evidence-based risk communication and community engagement action and influence response changes

Support, with the CEA coordinator, the planning, rolling out and coordination of risk communication and CEA tools, methodologies, trainings and activities based on the needs assessment and ensure those are mainstreamed into strategies, plans and budgets to bring about positive changes and enhance levels of ownership, accountability

Ensure Safe and Dignified Burial (SDB) and Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) teams are equipped with effective community engagement techniques, including negotiation skills and tools to improve acceptance and reduce volunteers’ security risks for volunteer

Provide the necessary support to SDB and IPC teams to improve the acceptance and ownership of activities in the community

Engages in dialogue with key stakeholders’ leadership to ensure community engagement issues and insights drive humanitarian action

Guides teams to create opportunities for communities’ voices to influence local and national level decision making processes.

Identifies partnership opportunities with key local and international partners.

Education

An advanced university   degree in a relevant area such as social sciences/behavioural/communication sciences  or equivalent experience

Basic delegate training course, IMPACT or equivalent knowledge

Experience

5 years of experience in a risk communications, social and behaviour change communication and  CEA related role, with focus on health programming and epidemics

3 years of experience in the Global South, including in epidemics response settings

Experience in a coordination role, including with multi-sectoral stakeholders

Experience in setting up and managing community feedback approaches and systems

Experience in leading community engagement approaches and capacity building g efforts of local organizations

Experience in setting up and managing community engagement tools (including technological solutions) such as social media, radio, TV, SMS, cinema/drama and rolling out risk communication approaches.

Experience within the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement

Experience in an international organization or NGO

Knowledge, skills and languages

Good analytical skills and knowledge of quantitative, qualitative and participatory research methodologies and analysis

Good understanding of – or training in – current developments in the field of behavioural and social sciences, community engagement processes, strategic communication, research approaches

Basic understanding of risk communication, behaviour change and community engagement issues in emergencies contexts

Sensitivity to challenging political contexts and understanding of risk management processes

Good planning skills, with the ability to identify areas for improvements in programmes, operations and NS/IFRC ways of working through the integration of CEA approaches and activities

Good knowledge of gender and diversity issues in humanitarian programming

Facilitations and training skills

Languages

Fluently spoken and written English and French

Good command of another language (Swahili)

Competencies and values

Movement context, principles and values

The Movement in the humanitarian sector

Coordination

Assessment

Programme management & reporting

Information management

Resource management

Direction setting and operational objectives

Safety and Security

Community engagement and accountability

Protection, gender and inclusion

Environmental sustainability

Collaboration and teamwork

Conflict management

Interpersonal communication

Cultural awareness

Judgement and decision making

Motivation

Personal resilience

Integrity

Technical Competencies

Mainstreaming

Capacity Building

Community Participation

Community Understanding

Behaviour and social change communication

Evidence-based advocacy

Sexual and Gender-based Violence Prevention and Response

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