Title: Advocacy and Communications Officer Program area: External Relations (ER), MACEPA Project Location: Lusaka, Zambia Official (grade) title: (5020/5030) Communications Officer Exempt/nonexempt: Exempt Starting annual salary range: Commensurate with experience.
Overview:
In 2004, PATH launched the Malaria Control and Evaluation Partnership in Africa (MACEPA) to develop a model for African nations to rapidly apply a package of malaria control interventions to a high proportion of the population and to document the health and economic benefits that result. This nine year effort in Zambia is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
In November of 2006, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded an additional grant to support the development of a Learning Community (LC). The LC will serve as a regional platform for shared learning and the delivery of critical technical resources in areas of planning, program management, monitoring and evaluation, and national advocacy based on the tools and methods developed in Zambia. The MACEPA LC is designed to complement in-country program implementation support, working with African countries as they share experiences and express global leadership in malaria control.
For more information on the progress of MACEPA in Zambia or the MACEPA Regional Learning Community please visit our website at: .
The primary role of the Program Officer will be to implement a national advocacy program to promote rapid national scale up of malaria control efforts in Zambia and to document the process for distribution both throughout sub-Saharan Africa and globally.
Duties and responsibilities:
- Take lead on MACEPA’s support for the Zambia National Malaria Control Centre’s (NMCC) advocacy and communication efforts. Coordinate advocacy work amongst the partners. - Develop consistent and research-based messages around malaria and establish innovative channels for dissemination. - Provide technical support to document and disseminate national program progress and updates. - Conduct district-level engagement and documentation of best practices as well as community-level engagement and development of village health committees role in malaria messaging. - Other activities in support of Zambia’s National Malaria Strategic Plan as needed. - Raise awareness among journalists to increase coverage of malaria, and provide strategic communications support for media placements/responses. - Write progress reports, conduct interviews of individuals engaged in malaria control efforts at all levels, document district- and community-level lessons, prepare case studies and contribute to fact sheets, newsletter and web content. - Facilitate national, regional, and global media coverage opportunities; plan and implement a strategy for high-level media visits. - Expand communications strategies related to national malaria “events” in coordination with the NMCC (e.g., Africa Malaria Day, Child Health Week). - Work in close coordination with MACEPA’s Seattle Advocacy & Communications team to supply content for documentation efforts, including final editing, layout, and production, ensuring that all efforts result in high-quality materials produced on time and within budget.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Communication, Journalism, a social science or related field required; advanced degree in communications, public policy/affairs, health, journalism, or relevant science preferred. - Minimum 7 years of experience with increasing responsibilities in an advocacy, public affairs or communications role to include experience as a high level representative and liaison. - Experience researching and producing communication materials and using evaluation results to inform strategy. Experience drafting and producing a variety of advocacy/communication products – reports, fact sheets, summaries. Well developed research, interview - Good knowledge of relevant Zambia organizations/institutions. - Administratively self-sufficient; proficient in MS Outlook, Word, PowerPoint or comparable software. - Highly flexible; excellent at working closely with others over geographical distance. - Experience developing advocacy materials for international or global audiences. - Experience with global health communications writing, and presenting scientific data for a variety of audiences. - Ability to travel up to 25% of the time, primarily in Zambia and potentially to other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. - Excellent English written and oral communication skills; ability to exercise diplomacy in communicating with a broad and diverse audience; spoken and written proficiency in French or Portuguese preferred.
To apply:
To be considered for this position, please submit application materials (see below) to , citing position number 2152. In the subject field of your email message, please provide your last name and the position number.
Application materials:
Required: . We are unable to review resumes submitted without a completed employment application form. To access the form, click on the hyperlink, and be sure to save the document to your hard drive before completing it. At this stage in the application process, this form does not require your signature.
Required: cover letter and resume. Please attach your cover letter and resume as Microsoft Word 97 (or later) document(s), or paste them into the body of an email message.
You should receive an automatic response acknowledging our receipt of your resume and application materials. We are able to respond further only to candidates chosen for interviews or additional follow-up. In most instances, you can anticipate a follow-up response from a PATH recruiter within 4 to 6 weeks if selected for further consideration.
All posted positions are full-time unless otherwise noted.
PATH is dedicated to diversity in staff and is an equal opportunity employer.
Note to current employees: Please complete an internal application form, and submit along with your resume and current assignments to the email address listed above. The form can be found on PATHnet under Human Resources, Staffing.
