Position: Policy LINK – Strategic Communications Lead
Location: Accra, Ghana
Contract Name: USAID/Feed the Future Policy LINK
Status: Long Term Project Staff (1-year Fixed Term Contract subject to renewal for duration of Ghana program activity, 5 years starting on/around October 15, 2021)
Start Date: ASAP
Supervisor: Ghana Country Lead
The Feed the Future Policy LINK project will strengthen the capacity of local actors and institutions to lead and manage the agricultural transformation process and contribute effectively and collectively to improved, broad-based food security policy outcomes.
Specifically, the program aims to strengthen food security policy systems by investing in and reinforcing productive human and social capital and developing strategic partnerships that help bring these innovations and capacity investments to scale in order to achieve a critical mass of local actors with the ability and opportunity to effect positive policy change through collective action.
Policy LINK’s general approach is grounded in facilitative leadership and collaborative governance, which emphasize engaging stakeholders from civil society and public and private sectors in consensus-oriented decision making, collaborative problem solving, and adaptive learning.
USAID/Policy LINK Ghana is a five-year activity with the overall objective of fostering behavior change that strengthens the capacity and ability of Ghanaian stakeholders to participate in a more transparent, inclusive, and evidence-based agriculture and food security policy process that leads to improved food and nutrition outcomes and broad-based economic growth. Specifically, the activity will facilitate the transition towards a policy development paradigm driven by multiple stakeholders.
This approach to policymaking will strengthen the capacities of Ghana’s main agricultural policy system actors and institutions, and support them to engage stakeholders traditionally excluded from decision-making, including academia, financial institutions, the judiciary, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and private sector representatives from the national, regional, and local levels.
This approach is underpinned by Policy LINK’s overarching theory of change focused on increasing human and social capital, engaging policy system actors in collaborative processes, and developing mechanisms for collaborative governance and dynamic learning systems and platforms to sustain collective action.
The Strategic Communications Lead will work closely with the FTF Ghana Policy LINK Agricultural Policy Activity (Policy Activity) management to ensure internal and external awareness of Activity purpose and activities, and to enhance the effectiveness, scaling, and results of the Activity. Since learning and knowledge management are foundational components of the Policy Activity, the Strategic Communications Lead will be responsible for providing thought leadership and bringing innovative thinking in communications to enhance design and implementation of individual buy-in activities, program-wide initiatives and overall reporting. The Strategic Communications Lead will also play a critical role on the Policy LINK cross-cutting Communications team, reinforcing a unified brand for the global program, liaising with communications colleagues in other parts of the world to share best practice and ensure compliance with the program’s USAID-approved branding and marking plan, and participating in meetings of Policy LINK’s global communications network.
S/he will continually reinforce LINK’s core purpose and principles and ensure all decision-making is rooted in the purpose and principles. S/he will contribute to a learning environment in which personal and team growth is supported, with a shared understanding that the “team” always comes before the “individual.”
The Strategic Communications Lead will manage all areas of Policy Activity communications, internally and externally, with support from the Country Lead as well as the global Policy LINK communications team.
S/he will oversee roll-out and development of the Policy Activity communications strategy with support from the Country Lead and ensure it stays updated to reflect learnings and knowledge generated through stakeholder engagements. S/he will work with senior leadership and individual activity teams to ensure that communications is used strategically for impact, emphasizing the creation and sustainable use of networking and learning mechanisms driven by the Policy Activity’s stakeholders and partners. S/he will train and orient all Policy Activity staff about the activity’s communications strategy and support and encourage active participation in implementing it. S/he will ensure that the activity teams generate pertinent, value-added information based on data, lessons learned, and best practices that support Policy LINK’s overall learning agenda.
S/he will prepare communications products for the Policy Activity as a whole and for individual activities based on this information and disseminate these products regularly to USAID and stakeholders. S/he will work with the Policy Activity and Policy LINK teams to manage, store, and share relevant activity and stakeholder resources and directly circulate resources as appropriate.
The Strategic Communications Lead will be responsible for, but not limited to, the following detailed tasks:
S/he will also contribute actively to recruitment efforts throughout the contracted period of performance by serving on agreed-upon interview panels, according to Policy LINK’s recruitment policy and process. Responsibilities of interview panel members may include, but not be limited to:
The Strategic Communications Lead will directly report to the Ghana Country Lead.
The Strategic Communications Lead will directly supervise the Strategic Communications Specialist.
S/he will coordinate closely with the Policy LINK Ghana senior management team (Country Lead, Ag & Food Security Lead, Climate Change Lead, Programs Lead, MEL & KM Lead, and Finance & Operations Manager), Nairobi-based project-wide Technical Programs and Policy Director, and other Policy LINK colleagues in Kenya, South Sudan, and elsewhere to ensure that program activities are designed and delivered at a high quality in compliance with Policy LINK, DAI, and USAID standards.
This position is open to local Ghanaian candidates. Additional qualifications:
Tagged as: DAI Global, Ghana
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