Hardship Level (not applicable for home-based)

H (no hardship)

Family

UNOPS LICA7

2025-01-01

December 17, 2024

General Background of Project or Assignment:

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was created in 1950, during the aftermath of the Second World War. Its mandate is defined by the 1950 UNHCR Statute. UNHCR works to ensure that everybody has the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge, having fled violence, persecution, war, or disaster at home. UNHCR operates in over 130 countries, with staff based in a mixture of regional, branch, sub, and field offices.

In an era where crises are becoming more frequent and complex, it is innovation that will make us effective and enable us to achieve our strategic directions — to “Protect, Respond, Include, Empower and Solve”. As such UNHCR’s Innovation Service was established in 2012 to facilitate and promote a culture of innovation across all levels in UNHCR. The Service creates an enabling and safe spaces for experimentation to flourish within UNHCR by equipping headquarters, operations and staff with the knowledge, resources and skills to ensure that we increasingly draw on structured innovation to solve the most pressing challenges across different thematics, whilst instilling a future-oriented approach into how we solve problems and create impact for refugee communities. The Service also works with forcibly displaced and stateless people on innovative ideas they would like to explore as a solution to problems they face during a crisis. These structures are created and aligned to the Global Compact on Refugees to enhance self-reliance and humanitarian protection and are implemented in the Service through programmes and partnerships in innovation covering five areas of focus that include Environment and Climate Action Innovation, Data Innovation, Digital Innovation, Innovation learning and Refugee-led Innovation.

The Service, through its strategic communications team, also helps UNHCR colleagues to apply creative thinking to complex problems and drive innovation as innovators themselves, through changing the narrative, storytelling, and collaboration, as we drive new ways of working with displaced communities.

Overall Purpose and Scope of Assignment:

Concise and detailed description of activities, including measurable outputs and delivery dates, impact indicators (what qualitative and quantitative results would be achieved upon completion of individual contract), performance indicators (timelines, value of the service rendered in relation to the cost, timeliness) and work plan:

For the successful delivery of the Innovation Service’s initiatives and programmes, inspiring and effective communication is vital. As a communications function within the Service, we strive for compelling storytelling, making deep connections with our audiences, creating space for experimentation in our communications work – walking the walk on innovation – with our work not limited to traditional representations of humanitarian activities, but extending to expressive and imaginative interpretations of UNHCR’s mandate and the innovation vision.

We are therefore looking for a creative and skilled individual with a passion to further innovation in UNHCR through their design skills. We expect you to have strong graphic and web design skills and an ability to contribute modern design concepts and communication products to generate interest in innovation and the Service’s programmes.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Design of reports (print and online): Under the five programmes of the Innovation Service, several reports are produced on needs basis, that convey relevant insights to a range of external and internal audiences. You will build out these reports based on existing report templates – where available and needed – and through creative design thinking, to enhance the delivery of the content;

Design of infographics: You will have the ability to interpret complex information and create unique infographics in an attractive and digestible manner on a need’s basis. Every infographic shall be expected to follow the visual communication strategy of the Service;

Presentation Designs: As part of the Innovation Service’s engagement with UNHCR operations and stakeholders, presentations play a key role in summarizing and visually engaging our audiences in driving innovation. You will be tasked with adding a creative design edge to team presentations assigned to you.

Creative design: We will require you to bring a systematic design approach to each communication product you develop, and determine modes to make each stand out while fitting broadly into existing UNHCR brand guidelines, the strategy of the Service and the Service’s Strategic Communications and Design team;

Web content: You will be expected to work with the Strategic Communications and Design team to support the Service in enhancing their web presence, developing rich and engaging visual content for the web and creating new interactive features, delivered through the Innovation Service website and other web portals as applicable;

Accountability: You will be expected to provide updates and feedback to the Service’s teams about the progress of projects and any issues that may arise, offering viable solutions in collaboration with the team on a timely basis;

Knowledge and experience in WordPress and Drupal web platforms.

Key Competencies

Comprehensive knowledge of Adobe Creative Cloud – essential

Demonstrable experience of managing creative projects and working with multidisciplinary teams

Communicate visually with attention to detail and you can shape your output according to strategies and objectives

Ability to work comfortably both autonomously and under creative direction

Strong time management skills, including the ability to work under time pressure, and able to prioritize and communicate the priorities effectively, and to meet agreed deadlines

Demonstrate an ability to organize digital work files and resources that can be shared with other team members for future updates

Experience with remote working tools like Slack, Google Drive, Miro, and Microsoft Office Suite.

Ability to develop wordpress and drupal based platform, websites – both design and building.

Demonstrable experience of collating and implementing good practices and lessons learned across a range of contexts;

Excellent knowledge and fluency of English (both written and spoken) essential.

Standard Job Description

Senior Communications Associate

Organizational Setting and Work Relationships
The Senior Communications Associate is normally supervised by a Communication Officer or other position as decided by the senior management in the area of responsibility (AoR). The supervisor provides the incumbent with regular guidance, who works quite independently on regular assignments with an oversight from the supervisor. S/he keeps frequent contacts with staff at various levels in the office and occasionally with staff at the same level in other duty stations and/or Headquarters; with media, local suppliers, NGO, implementing partners, embassies and UN agencies. The incumbent normally supervises some support staff.

The Senior Communications Associate, depending on the organizational structure and location, may also be required to provide support in executing a range of communications activities in the fields of news and media relations, multimedia content production, social media engagement, video production, Goodwill Ambassadors and other influencers, public outreach and campaigns, fundraising, analytics and brand. The incumbent may also be required to help strengthen coordination and editorial planning in the AoR, support advocacy, awareness-raising and digital fundraising efforts as well as strengthening analytics to inform the social media strategies and work plans.

All UNHCR staff members are accountable to perform their duties as reflected in their job description. They do so within their delegated authorities, in line with the regulatory framework of UNHCR which includes the UN Charter, UN Staff Regulations and Rules, UNHCR Policies and Administrative Instructions as well as relevant accountability frameworks. In addition, staff members are required to discharge their responsibilities in a manner consistent with the core, functional, cross-functional and managerial competencies and UNHCR’s core values of professionalism, integrity and respect for diversity.

Duties
– Support the implementation of communications strategies for countries, situations and special projects within the AoR; help identify thematic priorities and target audiences to meet UNHCR’s global, regional and country-level communications objectives of leading the narrative, generating empathy and mobilizing action for forcibly displaced and stateless people.
– Monitor news and popular trends to insert UNHCR’s messaging into ongoing conversations; identify key moments for proactive communications.
– Help forge strategic partnerships with individuals and organizations who can help produce and promote UNHCR content, activities and messaging as well as provide research insights to improve communications; promote the work of engaged businesses and civil society actors.
– Support the development of news-driven and authoritative content to lead the narrative on forced displacement and show UNHCR’s impact (e.g. interviews, press releases, flagship reports, speeches), create emotive storytelling to generate empathy (e.g. stories, multimedia content) and mobilize action by signposting concrete steps people can take to help refugees (e.g. digital diplomacy, action-driven campaigns, fundraising).
– Help ensure that content created reaches maximum impact by supporting the development of strategies for distribution from the outset, boosting the visibility of our content on relevant UNHCR channels and placing it on external channels.
– Monitor the implementation of communications projects and adjust accordingly.
– Assist in research, preparation, editing and production of professional media and communications materials for target audiences and ensure their timely dissemination via UNHCR’s communications channels, ensuring highest quality standards.
– Continually maintain and upgrade communications skills, keeping abreast of emerging platforms and tools, and systematically reviewing media impact results and other measurement tools for learning purposes.
– May be required to support the implementation of campaigns, events and other initiatives in support of UNHCR’s strategic objectives, including its need for a leading share of voice on refugee and related matters.
– May be required to undertake missions and field trips with media and other official visitors in support of UNHCR and its work.

– Support the identification and management of risks and seek to seize opportunities impacting objectives in the area of responsibility. Ensure decision making in risk based in the functional area of work. Raise risks, issues and concerns to a supervisor or to relevant functional colleague(s).
– Perform other related duties as required.

Minimum Qualifications

Years of Experience / Degree Level
For G7 – 4 years relevant experience with High School Diploma; or 2 years relevant work experience with Bachelor or equivalent or higher

Field(s) of Education
Not specified.

Certificates and/or Licenses
Journalism, Social Sciences, Humanities or related fields
(Certificates and Licenses marked with an asterisk* are essential)

Relevant Job Experience
Essential:
Excellent computer skills and knowledge of MS Office applications. Excellent drafting skills.

Desirable:
Experience implementing communications strategies. Professional writing and editing skills. Experience working on advocacy campaigns.

Functional Skills
CO – Drafting and editing content for International Organizations
CO-International Media Contacts
CO-Journalism (incl. print, broadcast, photography, video, layout & graphics)
CO-Video production for digital platforms (including news organizations)
CO-Editing
(Functional Skills marked with an asterisk* are essential)

Language Requirements
For International Professional and Field Service jobs: Knowledge of English and UN working language of the duty station if not English.
For National Professional jobs: Knowledge of English and UN working language of the duty station if not English and local language.
For General Service jobs: Knowledge of English and/or UN working language of the duty station if not English.

All UNHCR workforce members must individually and collectively, contribute towards a working environment where each person feels safe, and empowered to perform their duties. This includes by demonstrating no tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse, harassment including sexual harassment, sexism, gender inequality, discrimination and abuse of power.

As individuals and as managers, all must be proactive in preventing and responding to inappropriate conduct, support ongoing dialogue on these matters and speaking up and seeking guidance and support from relevant UNHCR resources when these issues arise.

This is a Standard Job Description for all UNHCR jobs with this job title and grade level. The Operational Context may contain additional essential and/or desirable qualifications relating to the specific operation and/or position. Any such requirements are incorporated by reference in this Job Description and will be considered for the screening, shortlisting and selection of candidates.

Required Languages

,

,

Desired Languages

,

,

Additional Qualifications

Skills

CO-Digital content production, CO-Drafting and Documentation, CO-Editing, CO-International Media Contacts, CO-Journalism (incl. print, broadcast, photography, video, layout & graphics), CO-Preparation of key messages/talking points/speeches, CO-Public Speaking, CO-Spokesperson skills, CO-Video production for digital platforms (including news organizations), IT-Web Content Management

Education

Bachelor of Arts (BA): Communication, Bachelor of Arts (BA): International Relations, Bachelor of Arts (BA): Journalism, Bachelor of Arts (BA): Media, Bachelor of Arts (BA): Political Science, Bachelor of Arts (BA): Public Information

Certifications

Other information

Home basedThis position doesn’t require a functional clearance

Home-Based

Yes

Level of Education: Bachelor Degree

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: No requirements