Mali: Humanitarian Liaison Officer

OVERVIEW

The Rooted in Trust project aims to disrupt and mitigate the flow of misleading, inaccurate or malign information for vulnerable populations affected by humanitarian crises during COVID-19. Internews’ methodologies are part of the wider humanitarian Community Engagement and Accountability efforts and contribute to Risk Communication & Community Engagement (RCCE) efforts from health and humanitarian partners, by ensuring that community perspectives are captured to inform RCCE strategies and that concerns, rumors and questions are addressed with reliable information that comes from, and is created by, local media or other reliable information providers on a variety of both traditional and social media platforms.

This approach galvanizes and supports local media, particularly those trusted and used by vulnerable communities experiencing humanitarian crises, to fully play their role as information providers, as facilitators of conversations within their communities, and as watchdogs and agents of accountability for responders and service providers. Internews will ensure that the work of humanitarian and health organizations is shaped by and responsive to the expressed needs of vulnerable communities and local contexts as the pandemic unfolds.

The main task of the Humanitarian Liaison Officer (HLO) is to highlight the community’s perspectives within the wider humanitarian system and, in return, make sure that the project staff are up to date with the latest developments and verified information from the humanitarian and health response. In doing so, the HLO will be in regular contact with officials from the UN, national and international NGOs and the national and local government. The HLO will participate in relevant coordination meetings and will work to build the profile of the project and identify areas of collaboration with humanitarian and health partners.

SCOPE OF WORK

• Develop, maintain and establish excellent working relationships with a wide range of humanitarian responders (UN agencies, NGO partners, etc.) and government representatives (MoH, MoI, etc.). Make them aware about the project and its objectives;
• Represent the coordination and liaison work of the project and actively participate in all relevant humanitarian coordination forums to identify critical information gaps regarding the recovery;
• Liaise with UN agencies and partner NGOs to gather and disseminate content for and from the Humanitarian Information Service – rumor bulletins, audio content and feedback analysis;
• Contribute to the discussions and developments of new guidelines, resources, rules and regulations as issued by governments and UN agencies, to ensure the community’s perspectives are taken into account, local media is included and the overall health and humanitarian response is accountable to the affected populations;
• Share with the rest of the Project Team the latest humanitarian updates to enable them to turn it into useful, actionable, accurate and engaging content that communities can relate to/understand;
• Support the content production team to identify and connect with relevant experts within humanitarian agencies and/or local and national government institutions;
• Become aware of agreed upon protocols regarding the Health response and regulations, and stay up to date with the latest Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) surveys concerning the health crisis;
• Work closely with the rest of the team to ensure that all content and messages are accurate and 1) improve knowledge among local populations; 2) follow approved protocols and 3) improve resilience among the local community;
• In coordination with the Project Team, ensure that feedback gained from the project activities is made available to humanitarian organizations (i.e., brief presentations at coordination meetings and other relevant forums), and government officials, as required;
• In close coordination with the humanitarian data analyst and content manager, liaise with relevant humanitarian agencies in the production of humanitarian updates and information to disseminate important messages, news and information for local communities;
• Maintain and update a database with all the relevant contacts (i.e. spokespersons and focal points) from the different organizations and government ministries/units involved in the recovery;
• Support gender mainstreaming of all aspects of the project;
• Ensure all content produced within the project follows core humanitarian principles, often summarized but not limited to, “Do No Harm”;
• Produce regular multimedia materials (i.e. blog posts, photos, photo slideshows, etc.) documenting the project for external audiences, as required;
• Contribute to the wider communications for the project as a whole, with excellent writing and communication skills;
• Support the project lead with project management as and when needed;
• Understanding of and demonstrated commitment to upholding Internews’ Core Values.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Extensive experience working in complex relief operations in challenging environments, preferably in humanitarian and/or health crisis contexts;
• Very good knowledge of the mandates and modalities of the international humanitarian sector;
• A thorough understanding of the work of humanitarian and development agencies, including working within the UN cluster system;
• Proven interpersonal and networking skills to liaise authoritatively with figures from the aid and donor communities and host governments;
• Experience in Communication with Communities (CwC) and Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) projects, with a strong focus on ensuring feedback from the communities is taken into account within the humanitarian system;
• A good understanding of technical language and jargon used by humanitarian agencies – and demonstrated experience of turning this into engagement content with “human speak” for people who are not familiar with it;
• A good understanding and experience of accountability platforms and tools – experience working with communities to gather their concerns and issues, turning these into engaging content;
• Strong communication and diplomatic skills;
• A self-starter and proactive problem solver who enjoys communication and collaboration in a multi-stakeholder environment;
• Proven ability to develop and monitor workplans and training plans;
• Fluent in written and spoken French;
• Fluent in written and spoken English;
• Sensitivity to cross-cultural dynamics in the workplace and experience supervising staff;
• Must be self-reliant, resourceful, a good problem-solver, good humored, and flexible.