Humanitarian Officer - Community, Communication, Engagement and Accountability (CCEA), Humanitarian Advisory Team

Following the departure of OCHA from PNG in June 2015, UNDP assumed the role of humanitarian coordination in addition to its overall responsibility to conduct operational activities for disaster mitigation, prevention and preparedness. The Humanitarian Advisory Team serves as the secretariat for the Disaster Management Team and provides critical humanitarian coordination, support, and advice to the Government, UN agencies, the Resident Coordinator, civil society, and faith-based organisations to better prepare for and respond to emergencies and crises. 

The team supports the mobilization and coordination of effective and principled humanitarian action in partnership with national and international entities to alleviate human suffering in emergencies. The team also supports the National Disaster Centre to address key goals, including updating the Disaster Management Act, enhancing communication and coordination between national and provincial disaster management bodies, and providing technical support on contingency planning and needs’ assessments.

In this context, UNDP is seeking a Humanitarian Officer - Communication, Community Engagement and Accountability (CCEA) to be based in Port   Moresby as part of the Humanitarian Advisory Team. This person will be responsible for coordinating CCEA activities during disaster preparedness and response, through the facilitation of the PNG Disaster Management Team’s Community Engagement Working Group (CE WG) and its associated work plan in humanitarian contexts.

The Humanitarian Officer CCEA will work with the Humanitarian Coordination Officer and will be directly supervised by the Humanitarian Coordination Specialist.

Within delegated authority and with support from the Humanitarian Coordination Officer, the Humanitarian Officer - CCEA represents the Working Group in relevant coordination forums reporting on the priority CCEA issues and advising on appropriate courses of action, to enable decision-making. In addition, the Humanitarian Officer - CCEA advocates for the integration of CCEA approaches within humanitarian operations and facilitates the development of joint planning, fundraising, common advocacy and through execution of the the following duties:

Advisory and technical support 

• Review of the CCEA scoping study Review the CCEA scoping study Yumi wok bung wantaim (We work together): The status of communication, community engagement and accountability in humanitarian action in Papua New Guinea and compile relevant CCEA documentation relating to specific emergency responses, as appropriateSupport clusters/sectors and partners to enhance CCEA in their programmes. 
• Facilitate a rapid self-assessment of current cluster/sector AAP/CCE practices to measure current performance against global commitments 
• Identify, document and share context-specific best practices relating to mainstreaming CCEA approaches
• Disseminate tools, guidance and promote practice that supports integration of CCEA standards and principles across the humanitarian programme cycle (HPC), with the support of a Senior Advisor – CCEA if necessary

Coordination

• Initiate, convene facilitate and coordinate the community engagement working group (CEWG). Working with government partners (where feasible), local civil society, CDAC Network members and other relevant humanitarian and non-humanitarian actors (e.g. mobile network operators, media, etc.), ensuring discussions are participatory, results oriented and well-documented.
• Actively support and promote national actors’ membership in the Working Group where possible helping to broker partnerships with international actors.
• Initiate, convene, facilitate and coordinate the Community Engagement working group 
• Maintain the profile of the CE WG and ensure strong representation of community engagement needs and priorities in inter-sector forums (e.g. ICCG, DMT or equivalents, etc.).
  • Develop a 4Ws (who does what, where and when) matrix on CCEA activities with input from each of the clusters/sectors. 
  • Coordinate the implementation of a community engagement needs assessment, in order to further understand community information needs, communications preferences, languages spoken and understood, community dynamics, social norms, cultural beliefs, superstitions and other anthropological factors that could impact programmes, as appropriate. Questions can be adapted from the IASC- endorsed menu of AAP questions.
  •  Facilitate the development of WG strategy that reflects the assessed community needs, with objectives and indicators, through consultative and inclusive processes including the views of national NGOs, government, mobile network operators (MNOs) and other relevant stakeholders.
  • Coordinate the inclusion of appropriate CCEA indicators in joint needs assessments and standalone CCEA assessments, as well as in the response monitoring framework.
  • Coordinate community-based monitoring of feedback mechanisms to ensure that they accurately reflect community preferences and the changing context, with the support of a Senior Advisor- CCEA if necessary.
  • Facilitate the analysis of trends in community feedback and propose programme recommendations to resolve issues, with the support of a Senior Advisor- CCEA if necessary.

Information Management 

• Working with the National Information Management Officer, support the functioning of the working group by ensuring that partners are familiar with and use the 4W reporting format for activities, that the WG mailing list and contact details are regularly updated and that a shared drive is established and organised well, populated with relevant CCEA documents, assessments, evaluations and WG outputs, to build a common knowledge base among partners.
• Coordinate with other technical working groups and clusters/sectors to ensure that approaches are complementary.
• Provide advice and support to enable a predictable approach to how WG partners are collecting, protecting, analysing, sharing and aggregating data about community preferences, priorities, feedback and participation, with the support of a Senior Advisor- CCEA if necessary.
• Develop a process of aggregating the analysis of community feedback provided by organisations to deliver an overview of priority concerns and issues of the community, with the support of a Senior Advisor- CCEA if necessary. Seek inputs from cluster/sector leads and other decision-makers to ensure the output reflects their information needs.
• Design and produce an engaging reporting product that can be shared within coordination forums (e.g. DMT and ICCG) to regularly update them as to the priority concerns and issues of the community.

Representation

• Serve as a primary focal point on CCEA-related issues across humanitarian operations, ensuring that decision-makers have access to high-quality data and analysis on the views and perceptions of community members, advocating for this to be a high agenda item in decision-making forums, and that the results and follow up on this input is tracked.
• Represent the WG and the priority CCEA issues during inter-cluster/sector coordination group meetings and provide a summary of key issues/concerns and solutions. Actions taken based on these summaries should be documented and communicated back to the communities, where possible.
• Advocate, educate, and forge consensus among all those involved in the emergency response, on the tools and approaches for establishing effective community engagement.

Capacity building

• Support partners and CE WG members to build their capacity in CCEA with an emphasis on participatory approaches and tools, including community dialogues, mediating town hall meetings, co- creation of key messages, and whenever possible developing practical exercises at community level.

Collaboration with the PSEA initiative

Where possible, coordinate closely and collaborate with the PSEA coordinator to:

• Identify community preferences for feedback channels, including for sensitive issues (conducting risk assessments where necessary).
• Map existing complaint and feedback channels and, support organisations to establish additional channels based on identified gaps and community preferences.
• Establish and agree on referral mechanisms for feedback between organisations, (if one organisation receives feedback about another organisation, how this is reported, actioned and the community informed of the outcome) including agreed protocols for timely responses.
• Design a community engagement strategy that informs the community about risks (including SEA) and codes of conduct for aid workers, building community trust in feedback and complaints mechanisms, and informing the community about SEA survivor assistance packages, etc.

Others

• The incumbent will be required to perform other related duties as required.