International Consultant – Strategic communication, partnership and donors reporting

The link between security, humanitarian and development issues around the Lake Chad Basin has led to an intractable extremist insurgency since 2009 that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced an estimated 2.5 million people. To date, more than 10 million people in the Lake Chad Basin, particularly the northern and far north regions of Cameroon, HadjerLamis and Lake provinces in Chad, the Diffa region in Niger and the states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, are affected and in urgent need of assistance. In response to this threat, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2349 (2017) was adopted, followed by a series of high-level conferences, including the Oslo Advisory Group on Prevention and Stabilization conference in the Lake Chad region, held in Berlin, calling for strengthening regional collaborative capacity to address the crisis and the African Union and Lake Chad Basin Commission conference on developing a framework for a regional stabilization.

In the context above and with the aim of addressing the root causes of the conflict and ensuring the long-term stabilization of the region, a regional strategy for stabilization, recovery and resilience (RSS) of the Lake Chad Basin areas affected by Boko Haram, was adopted by the Council of Ministers of the Lake Chad Basin Commission in August 2018 and approved by the African Union Peace and Security Council (CSC-AU) in December 2018. A Regionl Stabilization Facility (RSF) has been put together to support the implementation of the RSS. The Facility pursues three main objectives under pillar 1 of the RSS:

• Community security and safety are improved;
• Basic infrastructures and social services are functional;
• Livelihoods are available.

RSF has four national windows covering Niger, Nigeria, Chad an Cameroon.

As for RSF-Chad, the project targets 6 localities in each of the two provinces covered. The project document was adopted on 14 October 2019 by the Project Board after lengthy bottom up consultations that brought on board line ministries, governors of target provinces, administrative, traditional religious and social leaders, youth groups, women unions and associations etc, under the leadership of the Ministry of Economy, development planning and international cooperation (MEPDCI). Consultations led to the development of Joint Action Plans (JAPs) for each target locality, documenting their priorities in the three obove mention RSF outputs.

For the initial phase, two localities were targeted : Guité (Haldjet Lamis province) and Ngallamia (Lake Province). Project implementation effectively started in April 2020 and so far many milestones have been covered towards achieving the planned results. However, while the project has been holding the leading role in terms of delivries, communicating on results and building a common understanding among stakeholders has been a challenge.

In order to address this challenge as a matter of urgency, UNDP is seeking to support of an experience expert in the area of strategic communication, donors reporting and partnership.

The Consultant, hired as strategic communication Expert under the direct supervision of the Head of the Stabilization Service Center, and in collaboration with the Communication Specialist, will perform the following functions:

Project and donor reporting

• Ensure proper and timely reporting to donors and other partners on RSF Chad implementation, the achievement of outputs, and progress towards outcomes and impact;
• Improve RSF-Chad impact reporting and propose in the development of information management requirements to improve impact reporting;
• Develop RSF-Chad reports (monthly, quarterly, mid-year and annual) in a timely manner while meeting the required quality standards;
• Produce donor-specific reports that are required by donor agreements and ensure that donor-specific reporting adheres to guidelines of donor agreements;
• Ensure lessons learned from the field are incorporated and shared in donor reporting;
• Ensure that reporting adheres to UNDP reporting guidelines;
• Coordinate with theRsf Chad M&E Team on qualitative data collection requirements for reporting.

Support the team to develop a Communication strategy and an implementation plan for RSF-Chad

Develop and propose innovative communication tools that ensures donor stratetic information and community outreach

• Through reporting, ensure donors and the Government have access to and are aware of project progress, and understand opportunities and challenges;
• Ascertain and monitor donor reporting requirements, ensuring that FFS reporting meets donors’ informational needs;
• Assist RSF Communications Team in content development, especially with regards to reporting of program impact, beneficiary figures, and project progress to external audiences;
• Assist Communications Team in the development of presentations with accurate information;
• Promote information sharing and coordination with various implementing partners and donors;
• Ensure that data communicated by the M&E and Communications Team is consistent with donor reporting;
• Assist the Communications Team to identify opportunities to highlight donor-specific communications opportunities;
• Assist the Communications Team and Head of Donor Relations unit (Mobilization Specialist) in adhering to communications requirements required by donors.

Supports Program Team with technical assistance through sharing lessons learned

• Utilizing the captured lessons learned, advise the Program Team on project activities to ensure they contribute to the strategic direction of the program as prescribed by the Project Document;
• Incorporate lessons learned from other conflict and stabilization contexts in the region to monitor and measure program’s contribution to the Stabilization pillar’s strategic goals.

Liaise with the M&E team to ensure conflict sensitivity data is captured in reporting.

• Good organizational skills, proven experience in coordinating with national stakeholders and expert teams, organizing multi-stakeholder consultation processes, gathering documentation of results;
• Good analytical and organizational skills of baseline documentation gathering, organization and communication to support experts;
• Good understating of national policy and institutional structures, and ability to advice on institutional capacities and relations;
• Able to support, motivate and liaise effectively with communities and community groups;
• Sound cross-cultural, gender-awareness, interpersonal and networking skills;
• Proven ability and experience in workshop facilitation;
• Good interpersonal capabilities;
• High flexibility and adaptation capacities;
• Fully proficient in the following software applications: MS Pack Office and/or equivalent.

Education:

• Master’s Degree in strategic communication, social policy, public policy, politics, economics, development studies or a related area or equivalent.

Experience:

• At least 5 years of experience creating and producing reports, papers, and other documents for external audiences;
• Proven infographic skills (imaging, graphics, charts etc);
• Demonstrated strong applied writing and analytical skills;
• Demonstrated experience in conducting assessments, analyses, and applied monitoring and evaluation in development and/or conflict contexts;
• Demonstrated experience working with donors and host-nation governments to advance relations in crisis settings;
• Previous experience working with the United Nations is an asset.

Language:

• Excellent verbal and writing communication skills (fluency) in English and French.