Communication Specialist

UNICEF is committed to realising the rights of all children to help them build a strong foundation and have the best chance of fulfilling their potential.

We believe that ensuring a child is happy and healthy begins before birth: from ensuring their mother has access to good health care to reaching adulthood as a healthy, empowered and informed young person of the next generation. This journey relies on every child having access to quality health care, good nutrition, education, and growing up in a safe environment free from violence.

UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, to defend their rights, and to help them fulfil their potential, from early childhood through adolescence. The Africa Services Unit is based in Johannesburg, South Africa and specializes in positioning UNICEF in the news as an expert voice on all matters related to children in Africa. Through analysis and insight of the external environment and nurturing relationships with media, we ensure that our stories and voice reach a broad audience, influence decisions, and brings a positive impact for children. We work with content creators to ensure the authentic voice of young people, communities and partners are represented and their storied brought under the spotlight. The Africa Services Unit (ASU) works closely with colleagues across the regions to improve the skills and awareness related to media, brand and ethical story telling. In addition to duty station specific vaccine requirements, appointments are subject to confirmation of fully vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the appointment. It does not apply to UN Volunteers who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their contracts. UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for UN Volunteers with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the recruitment process and afterwards in your assignment.

• Support ASU, regional and country offices in designing, implementing and monitoring effective engagement strategies to increase the reach and share of voice of UNICEF in news media;
• Advise management on strategic media outreach in line with UNICEF communication and advocacy strategies;
• Track, research and analyze news from diverse sources and help to assess potential impact, as well as to evaluate the effectiveness of media outreach;
• In collaboration with country teams, identify news and feature story ideas and other media opportunities to engage print, TV, radio, web journalists and contribute to increase news coverage on child rights issues in the region;
• Develop, draft, edit and disseminate communication material for journalists, including press release, news note, human interest stories, briefing notes, video b-rolls, photo captions, video shot lists, etc.;
• Ensure timely and accurate dissemination of news materials to the media, UNICEF’s regional and global network offices, and other appropriate audiences;
• Assist in providing feedback on the use and appropriateness of country, regional and global multimedia content and other communication material such as publications, reports, briefings, etc.;
• Ensure good quality data collection, analysis and evaluation and reporting to ensure effective communication strategies, planning and effective and efficient advocacy.