Traineeship - Event Management / Researcher

OVERVIEW:

UNITAR is an autonomous body within the United Nations that was established in 1965 pursuant to a UN General Assembly resolution. UNITAR’s mission is to develop the individual, institutional and organisational capacities of countries and other United Nations stakeholders through high quality learning solutions and related knowledge products and services to enhance decision-making and to support country-level action for overcoming global challenges.

UNITAR hosts The Defeat-NCD Partnership and other relevant strategic initiatives working in the field of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and addressing related risk factors - such as road crashes, deaths and injuries, and assisted technologies for improved health outcomes.

The Defeat-NCD Partnership is a multi-stakeholder partnership anchored in the United Nations and includes governments, multilateral agencies, civil society, academia, philanthropies, and the private sector. It was established in January 2018 to help tackle the most significant global health problems of the age: premature death, sickness, disability, and the associated social and economic impacts of selected NCDs. It is based on the expert guidance and the technical norms and standards issued by the World Health Organization for managing NCDs.

This assignment will support the overarching work of The Defeat-NCD Partnership, enabling populations in priority countries to access a range of interconnected essential services and resources through four pillars of interventions:

• NCD National Capacity Building (Pillar 1): Work with Governments and other in country stakeholders to assess gaps in their NCD capabilities. Through technical support, develop a multiyear National Costed Action Plan to tackle NCDs. Facilitate engagement of relevant partners to ensure expansion of NCD services in line with national targets. The overall objective is to ensure that countries have institutional capacities, structures, systems, and financing in place to tackle NCDs.
• Community Scale-Up of NCD Services (Pillar 2): Aim to demystify, democratise, decentralise, and where safely possible, demedicalise NCD service provision. Enable the earlier screening and management of risk factors as well as the mitigation of established disease at community level. By increasing the use of self-care interventions, improve patient compliance, resulting in better treatment and health outcomes. The overall objective is to bring more of the necessary prevention and management of NCD services directly to the communities and people who need them most.
• Affordability and Accessibility of Essential NCD Supplies (Pillar 3): To make the provision of NCD supplies simpler and more cost-effective by designing a Marketplace to create a fair, competitive environment that serves the interests of both buyers and suppliers. Using market-sizing and price-tracking studies, the Marketplace’s methodology will correct current market failures due to information imbalances. It will also help address regulatory bottlenecks in an appropriate manner. The overall objective is to enable the consistent provision of affordable essential NCD medicines, diagnostics, and equipment in low-resource countries.
• Sustainable NCD Financing (Pillar 4): Governments need to invest more in health, with a greater share allocated to finance their national costed action plans for NCDs. While cost savings can be achieved by linking NCD programming with other conditions and improving service delivery and by reducing the cost of NCD supplies, additional and innovative financing will be needed outside of the ongoing aid support and expanding fiscal allocations. The overall objective is to establish a long-term sustainable financing model for NCD programming in low-resource countries.

GENERAL OBJECTIVES OF THE CONTRACT:

The strategy of the Partnerships directs actions around four interconnected pillars that, taken together, constitute a comprehensive service package to tackle the most common gaps and constraints that challenge the 90 plus focus low-resource countries of the Partnership.

The purpose of this assignment is to give the trainee hands-on communications experience, developing creative content and advancing a compelling narrative, targeting key external stakeholders, to progress The Defeat-NCD Partnership’s programmes and operational approaches.

Specifically, this trainee will perform the event management and research function supporting execution of the communications strategy.

RESPONSIBILITIES/DESCRIPTION OF PROFESSIONAL SERVICES:

1. Support delivery of national and global events included in The Defeat-NCD Partnership’s communications work plan for 2021.
2. Keep track of other national and global events and/or conferences that would expand the Partnership’s reach. Work with colleagues to secure participation opportunities for senior Partnership personnel at these events, and support development of the necessary collaterals to ensure successful engagement.
3. Support delivery of communications activity related to recognising United Nations international days, national and global ‘awareness days’ and other relevant markers in programme countries to achieve objectives identified in communications work plan.
4. Monitor latest developments within the health sector, in programme countries and/or globally, with regard to major NCDs (cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases) and the interconnection with risk factors (tobacco use, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, harmful use of alcohol and air pollution). Based on this, and further research, maintain a directory of up-to-date data, regularly update internal communications resources and use this to inform/develop communications activities. 
5. Conduct in-depth research required for the development of media pitches, opinion pieces, speeches, information sheets, case studies, reports and other external facing communications collaterals, for use nationally in programme countries and/or globally.
6. Provide a daily summary of significant communications activities related to NCDs, and current or potential partners. Liaise with colleagues to use this as the basis for informing and supporting media relations, social media activity and identifying event/other engagement opportunities.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

After the assignment, the trainee should be able to:

• Translate vision into actionable objectives.
• Work independently and take initiative.
• Be familiar with The Defeat-NCD Partnership’s four pillars of work.
• Plan and organise programmes and projects.
• Work in a multicultural environment.
• Engage with professionals and experts, working with various and unique skill sets.

MEASURABLE OUTPUTS/DELIVERABLES/SCHEDULE OF DELIVERABLES:

• Delivery of effective engagements at major events that advance achievement of The Defeat-NCD Partnership’s mission.
• Identification of other engagement opportunities.
• Regularly updated and functional internal communications resources.
• Development of high-quality external facing collaterals.

PERFORMANCE INDICATORS FOR EVALUATION OF RESULTS:

• Timely and quality submission of deliverables.
• Activities implemented with a high degree of effectiveness and efficiency.
• High degree of professionalism demonstrated.

• Event management experience
• Ability to effectually conduct research to a specific brief
• Attention to detail and meticulous planner
• Able to multitask, comfortable working with deadlines
• Demonstrated diplomatic skills and excellent interpersonal skills with sensitivity to cultural and political differences
• Excellent oral and written skills; excellent drafting, formulation, reporting skills
• Experience of health-related events or communications activity, or handling of these within the international development / humanitarian sector, would be an asset
• Knowledge in using project management tool Asana (https://asana.com) on a daily basis is required for this assignment. Certification as an Asana Certified Pros (https://academy.asana.com/series/certified-pro-courses) or Asana Ambassador (https://academy.asana.com/series/asana-ambassador-courses) is preferred. Completion of relevant courses on Asana Academy (https://academy.asana.com) in order to enrol on the Asana Ambassador programme is required within one month of starting this assignment
• The assignment requires the trainee to be self-sufficient and arrange to be equipped with the requisite professional tools and equipment to carry out this assignment such as laptop and a mobile phone

• Master's degree or equivalent in communications, journalism, marketing, public relations, advocacy, events management, international development or related field; or an undergraduate degree in a similar relevant field, from an accredited and recognised academic institution, combined with work experience, is required.
• Applicants must be enrolled in an undergraduate/graduate/postgraduate degree or be a recent graduate with the qualifications listed above (if selected, they must commence the traineeship within two years of graduation).
• Candidates should have a demonstrated interest in event management, public relations, international development, research and drafting, communications and marketing.

• Fluency in spoken and written English is required.
• Knowledge of another United Nations official language is an asset.