Communications Expert (HREC)

UNDP works with the Government and people of Pakistan to develop local solutions to development challenges. In an evolving development context, we support Pakistan’s efforts to build a more equitable, prosperous, peaceful and resilient society, and to achieve its SDGs and COP25 targets. UNDP promotes transformational change by fostering strategic partnerships with national counterparts in the federal, provincial and regional governments, civil society, the private sector and the local and international community. UNDP supports transformational change by providing technical assistance focusing on developing capacity within national and local authorities, providing solutions with strong monitoring and evaluation tools, and delivering programmes with maximum efficiency, transparency and accountability.

UNDP’s ultimate goal is to improve the lives of the people of Pakistan through keeping people out of poverty; governance for peaceful, just and inclusive societies; crisis prevention and increased resilience; nature-based solutions for development; clean affordable energy; and women's empowerment and gender equality.

UNDP works to improve the lives of vulnerable communities, with the overarching objective of preventing loss of development gains, promoting human rights, and finding sustainable pathways to development. UNDP projects under the democratic governance portfolio aims to strengthen state institutions, support democratic development and the rule of law, ensure crisis prevention, support policy development, and integrate gender equality into all areas of work. UNDP works to support the human rights ecosystem by strengthening human rights institutions to promote and protect human rights for all.

This UNV assignment is part of UNDP Pakistan’s Decentralization, Human Rights and Local Governance (DHL) project. The DHL project is a multi-sector project aimed at strengthening rights-based development, community stabilization, gender equality, and social inclusion across all regions and provinces of Pakistan. The core objective of the project is to ensure inclusive and equitable service delivery by providing technical assistance and capacity development support to relevant federal ministries, provincial line departments, statutory bodies, civil society, and private sector organizations. A key aim is to support the creation of an enabling environment for accelerated access to rights, people-centered justice, and people-centered security. The project focuses on institution building while connecting with vulnerable and at-risk communities to build trust between rights.

With support from the European Union, UNDP-DHL is engaged with institutes of higher education to design curricula and knowledge materials that are predicated on respect for human rights, tolerance and inclusivity. This also entails the facilitation of an exchange of best practices between academic stakeholders in Pakistan and international partners, primarily through the platform of a human rights education centre in Lahore. The centre will act as a resource hub for key partners such as academia, students, NHRIs, CSOs and government stakeholders by providing technical support such as academic advisory services, advocacy support, training workshops and by facilitating access to knowledge materials.

Under the supervision of EU Human Rights Education Officer, the Communications Expert for Human Rights Education Centre will perform the following tasks:

Establish partnerships and open channel of communications

• Identify and map key human rights education stakeholders, including academia, civil society, NGOs, government partners, international agencies, private sector etc.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships and strategic relationships key stakeholders, including partner universities, the Ministry of Human Rights, the National Commission for Human Rights and other NHRIs, the Higher Education Commission.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships and strategic relationships with civil society organizations (CSOs), human rights defenders, academia and student bodies.
• Create and maintain a database of key stakeholders that can be integrated into the centre’s communications and outreach efforts.
• Prepare substantive briefs for the Human Rights Education Centre on possible areas of collaboration and opportunities for joint initiatives with identified stakeholders to strengthen their engagement with the centre.


Facilitate knowledge sharing and advocacy relevant to human rights education

• Organize trainings, workshops, events in a consultative manner, involving technical experts and stakeholders from academia, CSOs, NHRIs, government and other relevant partners. Liaise with the DHL Project’s Communications Officer to ensure that they conform to UNDP’s advocacy standards.
• Support the centre to promote human rights education by organizing awareness-raising and advocacy events at partner universities.
• Participate in knowledge networks, consultations and academic conferences with universities, international agencies and CSOs.
• Map key international days, focused on those related to human rights and youth engagement, and develop key messages on those themes for the human rights education centre.
• Develop and disseminate regular newsletters pertaining to the centre’s activities, with an emphasis on capacity-building efforts and student engagement.
• Develop a communications strategy for raising awareness regarding UNDP’s internship and exchange programmes.
• Compile and maintain outreach metrics for the centre’s advocacy measures; liaise with the EU Human Rights Education Officer to ensure that these metrics are adequately integrated into the centre’s reporting obligations. • Develop high quality press releases and articles regarding the centre’s human rights education initiatives.
• Collaborate closely with UNDP-DHL’s Communications Officer to produce high quality and engaging content for various social media platforms.
• Ensure all content is accurate, timely, and aligned with international messaging standards and human rights principles.