Communication Officer

About

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive, recover, and rebuild their lives. The IRC has been working in Ethiopia for over 15 years implementing emergency and resilience programming in the areas of WASH, education, livelihoods, reproductive health, gender-based violence, and child and youth protection and development. In 2017, IRC provided services to approximately 405,200 refugees in 20 camps and more than one million vulnerable Ethiopians in seven regions.

Position Summary

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is seeking a Communications Officer to manage internal and external communications and visibility projects for the IRC Ethiopia country program. He or she will be responsible for designing and delivering a range of communications products, including country office fact sheets, VIP visit briefing materials, program success stories, photos and videos, interviews with beneficiaries, blog posts for the IRC’s website, interviewing and writing staff profiles, among other tasks. He or she will be expected to develop and maintain a communications strategy for the country program, train staff on communications approaches, and be accountable for meeting IRC Ethiopia’s contractual donor visibility requirements. The Communications Officer will report to the Sr. Grants and Partnership Coordinator and work closely with the Deputy Director of Programs, Deputy Director of Emergencies, other IRC Ethiopia staff members, and the IRC’s regional and HQ communications staff.

Duties and Responsibilities

·Develop, update, and implement an internal and external communications strategy for IRC Ethiopia;

·Lead in designing and developing information and visibility materials, such as fact sheets, briefing papers, brochures, posters, as well as website material;

·Develop and track implementation of donor visibility and branding plans for the all IRC Ethiopia programming.

·Help IRC country program staff to proactively prepare for communications needs contribuing to overall better information flow and coordination of all programming;

·Be in regular contact with communication and advocacy staff based at headquarters and provide relevant information for IRC’s global communications products;

·Work with HQ teams on media campaigns to raise global awareness of humanitarian needs for all IRC program activities in Ethiopia;

·Proactively seek out interesting stories from programs, initiating or accompanying field visits to collect high-quality photos, quotes and audio and video material suitable for use in media and communication products;

·Train and coach program staff on external communications and how to spot and share relevant information, data, and human interest stories from their work to convey the project’s success and impact on clients’ lives;

·Maintain and analyze data on the scale and reach of communication products.