Communication Advisor

**COMMUNICATION ADVISOR (SUPPORT) (HOME BASED POSITION OR ANY OCBA HUBS)**:

ES
Full Time
Communication

**GENERAL CONTEXT**

Médecins Sans Frontières is an international independent medical-humanitarian organization, which offers assistance to populations in distress, to victims of natural or man-made disasters and to victims of armed conflict, without discrimination and irrespective of race, religion, creed or political affiliation.

The MSF movement is built around six operational directorates supported by MSF’s 23 sections and 18 offices worldwide. MSF OCBA is one of those directorates. The operations are implemented by field teams and the mission coordination teams; together with the organizational units based in Barcelona, Athens and decentralised in Nairobi, Dakar and Amman. The field operations are guided and supported by 5 Operational Cells, the Emergency Unit and other departments supporting operations, including the Communication Department.

**JOB GENERAL OBJECTIVE AND CONTEXT**

Accountable to the Head of Operational Communications Unit, within the Communication Department, the Communication Advisor (CA) is responsible for defining and supervising MSF’s communication strategies in the countries of the cell portfolio.

As referent for communications within the cell, the CA:

- Provides strategic advice on public positioning and high-stakes communications;
- Acts as senior content manager: designs, conceptualizes, coordinates and drives validation of content;
- Support, manage and build capacity of field communications resources;
- Liaise with a variety of internal and external stakeholders, including MSF’s heads of programmes, directors of communications or international media.

The CA is part of the operational cell and supports MSF operations in the countries of the Cell’s portfolio. The CA is also part of the operational communications unit - together with other CAs managing other portfolios of countries and a digital advisor - and will regularly act as back-up of other team members in their absence.

MSF OCBA leads and manages interventions in contexts with acute humanitarian needs during crises and/or where protracted conflicts deprive populations of access to health and other basic services. Its teams intervene following outbreaks of conflicts, diseases or natural disasters. MSF needs to enhance public communication on its operations and the situation of the populations it serves while increasing engagement with civil societies and decision-makers in the area of intervention. The communication advisor will be leading this effort in collaboration with the operational managers and the regional and field communication teams.

**MAIN FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSABILITIES**

**Strategic advice on public positioning and communications**
- Together with the team in the cell unit and, jointly with the field coms teams working with the missions, assesses communication needs and priorities, including digital communications needs in coordination with the OCBA digital advisor for operational communications;
- Provides strategic advice on public positioning and high-stakes communications, contributing to bearing witness (témoignage), drawing attention, alerting, mobilizing and/or denouncing on situations and conditions of populations we are assisting, as well as to ensure transparency and accountability towards our different stakeholders at local, regional and global levels;
- Define and proposes the strategic communication objectives and messaging and based on the targeted audience, propose the most optimum way in terms of format and channel to ensure the relevance and impact of the communication;
- Advises and supports field communication teams in implementing and assessing impact of communications strategies;
- Coordinates with CAs from other Operational Centres and liaise with MSF partner sections and offices, including directors of communications;
- Works in collaboration with Advocacy Managers/Humanitarian Affairs Officers (HAOs), members of OCBA’s reflection and analysis team (ARHP) to support advocacy efforts on topics and issues at stake in the countries covered according to the needs;
- Works in collaboration with the communications hubs based in the region to identify opportunities of media and digital engagement at international, regional and local levels and reinforce overall the implementation and impact of the communication strategies defined for the countries in the region.

**Senior role in analysis**
- Play a senior role in providing analysis, contributing inputs about positioning, advices on tactics as well as identifying messages and powerful tools for the relevant portfolio of countries and themes;
- Ensures with the support of the field communication resources, digital advisor and regional communication hubs as needed that the communication landscape (traditional and digital) is integrated in the context analysis of the country and is regularly updated (through the country c