Communication Specialist

Job Description

Vacancy Announcement #052/2023

Communication Specialist

Climate Change Cluster

Contract duration: 30.11.2025

Application deadline: 20.03.2023

Duty station: Addis Ababa (with regular travels to intervention areas in the Ethiopian lowlands)

GIZ supports the Ethiopian Government in various areas, increasingly also in the Ethiopian lowlands, which account for nearly 60% of Ethiopia's land area. They are inhabited by more than 18 million (agro-)pastoralists, and people who create their livelihood from related professions. Due to population growth and the increasingly frequent occurrence of extreme weather events, this livelihood system is increasingly put at risk and the people, their livestock and the harvests have become increasingly vulnerable. Extensive resource use like overgrazing and deforestation causes food insecurity, soil degradation, and erosion. The result are dry valleys, in which rainwater flows quickly out of the area before being able to infiltrate into the soil. This further exacerbates desertification and food insecurity. To address this issue, the Dry Valley Rehabilitation and Productive Use (DVRPU) approach was developed in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and the Bureaus of Agriculture (BoA) in Afar and Somali regions.

The Capacity Development for Strengthening Drought Resilience (CDSDR) Project has started its third phase. It promotes the DVRPU approach with a series of technical, biological, economic, social, institutional, and managerial measures applied to rehabilitate entire dry valleys for the benefit of the inhabitants and their animals. Besides upscaling of the approach in Somali and Afar regions, it will expand its application to Oromia and SNNPR regions.

The Communication Specialist works together and supports an international Communication and Knowledge Management Expert.

Job Requirement

Responsibilities

Communication

• Develop communications products (print, online, social media, Podcast, video and others), in line with GIZ standards and ensure quality standards in accordance with GIZ corporate design and corporate wording.

• Support contributions to GIZ Ethiopia/Djibouti’s core communication products (e.g., factsheets, website, project location map, stories, etc.) and participate to the GIZ-internal Communications Network.

• Liaise and coordinate with communication/ promotional material service providers (e.g. consultants, agencies, photographers, trainers, writers) including providing technical inputs, dealing with administrative procedures (e.g., ToR development) and ensure quality of their services.

• Monitor press and media coverage of the dry river valley management and sector.
• Facilitate, organize and coordinate the development and outreach of promotional items and products for enhanced visibility of results and efforts.
• Establish appropriate instruments to facilitate dialogue between different program stakeholder groups and implement regular information exchange.
• Regularly distribute and disseminate relevant information products for enhanced sensitization of ecosystem concepts.

Knowledge management

• Support in developing and coordinating implementation and monitoring of internal and external communications effort in collaboration with program management and partners.
• Support organizational learning within the CDSDR project through systematic and regular storage, dissemination of knowledge products, arrangement of internal exchange visits and conduction of in-house training events for CDSDR staff. 
• Support knowledge management by timely and systematic collection and distribution of project’s and partner’s produced knowledge products/ researches and studies for up-scaling internally and externally. 
• Create and maintain database and website systems for knowledge products including relevant research findings, photo documentation and project events.
• Provide support to the partner-owned program’s website and provide technical support and hands-on training system in the MoA and BoAs platforms in the documentation of lessons learned.
• Maintain and further develop the project’s photo/media archive.
• Organize knowledge-sharing events for partners in lowland regions, for them to get a better insight into the management of the rehabilitated valleys.
• Perform other tasks as requested by project management.

Qualifications

• Minimum Bachelor’s degree in communication, public relations, journalism or any other related field (Master’s degree is preferred);
• Minimum of 5 years of experience in a similar position, especially regarding the development of diverse communications products, operational communication planning, implementation and monitoring as well as in knowledge management;
• Previous professional, salaried experience in international development organizations required.
• Experience cooperating with or working on GIZ projects and familiarity with GIZ’s rules and regulations is appreciated.
• Proven knowledge of development policy issues.
• Proven experience in content development, writing and/or editorial work;
• Experience with production and quality assurance of communication products and tools with external providers;
• Experience in press monitoring;
• Basic knowledge of design and video editing;
• Willingness to learn independently and proactively;
• Ability to efficiently use standard IT applications (i.e. MS Office Outlook, Word, Excel, etc.), communications-related applications (photoshop, communications product design, etc.) and digital media, including modern video conferencing tools;
• Proven ability to write error-free communications materials in English and Amharic
• Excellent knowledge of English and Amharic, written and spoken.