Reports to: Senior Manager, Communications Unit

Location: Cairo, Egypt

Main Purpose of the Position

The Communications Team at ICARDA is responsible for a wide range of activities aimed at marketing the organization’s work, news, and achievements. The team operates in a fast-paced environment, primarily focusing on digital outputs such as social media and website content while also engaging in traditional press, hard-copy publications, event coordination, and partner relations. Additionally, the team provides marketing tools and style guides and supports internal communications to ensure consistent external voice and branding.

The role of the Communications Officer is crucial for team coordination and time management, as well as producing high-quality, compelling materials that align with ICARDA’s mission and strategic goals. This position will support ICARDA’s Communications Team by overseeing the events calendar, supporting press outreach, and creating diverse content formats that effectively convey the organization’s work, news, and achievements to a global audience. Additionally, the role aims to enhance engagement, ensure brand consistency, and support both internal and external communications, guaranteeing that ICARDA’s messaging is clear, accurate, and impactful.

About ICARDA

The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) is a treaty-based international non-profit research organization supported by CGIAR.ICARDA’s mission is to reduce poverty, enhance food, water, and nutritional security, as well as environmental health in the face of global challenges including climate change. We do this through innovative science, strategic partnerships, linking research to development, and capacity development that take into account gender equality and the role of youth in transforming the dry areas. ICARDA works in partnership with governments, universities, civil society, national agricultural research organizations, other CGIAR Research Centers, and the private sector. With its temporary Headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, ICARDA operates in regional and country offices across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. For more information: www.icarda.org.

All CGIAR Centers are currently engaged into a reform process (“One CGIAR’”) that will help ICARDA and CGIAR achieve better impact through more strategically integrated research, unified governance, an integrated structure, and new research modalities across participating Research Centers. This transformation is supported by CGIAR donors who have committed to increased funding as a result of these reforms.

Main Responsibilities

The Communications Officer will carry out a wide range of communications activities including:

• Oversee the Communications Unit’s events calendar.
• Support in media outreach and response.
• Draft written content that highlights ICARDA’s research, projects, and achievements in an engaging and accessible manner.
• Support the development of high-quality content for ICARDA’s digital platforms.
• Support the development of multimedia content (videos, infographics, brochures, etc.) to enhance storytelling and audience engagement.
• Optimize content for SEO and track performance metrics to improve engagement and reach.
• Assist in the planning and execution of communication campaigns.
• Support internal communications by creating content for staff newsletters, and internal announcements.

Requirements

Education, Experience, and Qualifications

Essential Qualifications and Competencies

• Bachelor’s degree in communications, journalism, marketing, or a related field.
• 3–5 years of experience in content creation, journalism, or communications.
• Excellent writing, editing, and proofreading skills in English.
• Experience in event coordination
• Proficiency in MS SharePoint, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Proficiency in digital content creation tools and content management systems.
• Strong understanding of SEO principles and digital media best practices.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Ability to work effectively as part of a team in a multicultural and multidisciplinary work environment.

Desirable Qualifications and Competencies

• Experience in the agricultural or environmental sectors.
• Basic design skills, knowledge of tools for A/V content production, and understanding of photography.
• Knowledge of Arabic or French.
• Experience with analytics tools to measure content performance and make data-driven decisions.

Benefits

Terms of appointment, salary, and benefits

This is a nationally recruited position open to Egyptian nationals for which ICARDA offers an attractive compensation package including a competitive salary, medical insurance, 30 days of annual leave, five months’ maternity leave, 15 days’ paternity leave. The successful candidate will be offered an initial contract of 3 years, renewable subject to continued need for the position and satisfactory performance. The first year will be a probationary period.

ICARDA is committed to increasing women representation in its workforce and strongly encourages applications from women.

Applications will be acknowledged, but we apologize in advance as due to the large number of applications only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.