About UNFPA
UNFPA is the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. Our mission is to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.
We promote gender equality and empower women, girls, and young people to take control of their bodies and their futures. We work with partners in more than 150 countries to provide access to a wide range of sexual and reproductive health services. Our goal is ending unmet need for family planning, preventable maternal death, and gender-based violence and harmful practices including child marriage and female genital mutilation by 2030.
UNFPA Surge Roster
Surge is the rapid scale up of humanitarian professionals and resources in emergency settings. Due to growing humanitarian needs, over the last few years, UNFPAhas increasingly deployed highly experienced humanitarian response personnel to support Country Offices and their emergency responses during the onset or sudden escalation of crises. These needs are met by using UNFPA’s Surge Response Roster, a staffing modality that provides technical experts to surge.
Selected candidates will be added to UNFPA’s Surge Response Roster and contacted for any surge opportunities that meet their profile.
Crisis Communications Surge positions:
- UNFPA is currently recruiting communications professionals to join its Surge Response Roster. Selected candidates will be added to UNFPA’s Surge Roster and contacted for any surge opportunities that meet their profile.Deployments will range from 3 to 6 months, as part of UNFPA’s emergency humanitarian response.
- This is an opportunity to contribute to raising awareness about the impact humanitarian crises have on the lives of women and girls, and help advocate for the protection of the health and rights of women and girls.
Role and Responsibilities:
- Develop and implement communications plans.
- Enhance visibility of UNFPA emergency response while highlighting the sexual and reproductive health, gender and gender-based violence priorities of women and girls in humanitarian settings.
- Identify opportunities for communications and provide strategic communications advice and recommendations to UNFPA Representative and senior team members.
- Support internal reporting systems for effective information flow across UNFPA, gathering and sharing accurate timely data, key messages and other material with Country Office, Regional Office, Humanitarian Response Division and Division for External Relations colleagues.
- Support external communications by undertaking project visits, identifying strong stories, capturing or commissioning the gathering of photos and videos of affected women and young people, and write press releases and news alerts. Liaise with the media to set up interviews with the UNFPA Representative, Head of Office and Project Managers and support spokespeople with talking points, and where necessary, media training.
- Develop or coordinate timely, accurate UNFPA Situation Reports and contribute to UNOCHA situation reports.
- Develop messaging and multimedia content for social media platforms, including pieces-to-camera from operational settings.
- Support programme teams with the development of IEC materials, including flyers, posters, radio messages, etc.
- Where required, support the capacity-building of communications staff in the Country Office to enhance their understanding and skills of crisis communications.
- Write a mission report, with key achievements, learnings and recommendations at the end of deployment.
Qualifications, Experience and Skills:
- Advanced degree in communications, public relations, journalism, advertising or related field.
- 5+ years of experience in communications, public relations, or journalism.
- Experience developing and implementing communications strategies and plans.
- Experience writing press releases, opinion pieces and liaising with and pitching stories and new articles to journalists.
- Audiovisual skills, including capturing photo and video content.
- Experience conducting video interviews, particularly on sensitive topics, with an understanding of ethical considerations.
- Experience crafting content for various social media platforms.
- Experience working in a humanitarian setting.
- Proficiency in English is required. Working knowledge of another language (particularly Arabic, French or Spanish) is a strong asset.
- Understanding of working in cross-cultural contexts and ability to work collaboratively and respectfully with colleagues and other stakeholders.
- Highly organised, able to hit the ground running and take initiative.
Recruitment Process:
- Resume & Application Review: UNFPA vetting committee will examine your resume and application to determine if your experience and skills align with UNFPA’s surge needs.
- **Technical & Soft Skills Assessment:**Shortlisted candidates will be asked to complete a technical assessment to evaluate your communications knowledge and problem-solving abilities. Video Interview: Candidates who pass the assessment will be invited for an online interview where you’ll answer questions covering both technical and behavioral aspects relevant to communications in humanitarian contexts.
Background Checks: As a final step, professional references checks will be conducted to gain further insights into your work ethic, performance under pressure, and suitability for surge deployments. Other background checks, such as police checks will also be conducted inline with UNFPA’s safeguarding principles. Selected candidates will be added to UNFPA’s Surge Response Roster and contacted for any opportunities that meet their profile.