Communications Specialist

Job Description

Crown Agents leads Lot 1 of a flagship health programme for the UK government - ASCEND - established to accelerate the control and elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) in Africa and South Asia.

Lot 1 has a distinct approach to FCDO’s goals for ASCEND and the Crown Agents consortium has developed a platform for supporting NTD service delivery that strongly emphasises health systems, government ownership and sustainable programming of NTDs. Long-established NTD suppliers have mature communications platforms whose objectives include fundraising, and typically produce high-quality human-interest stories alongside impressive statistics about numbers reached. A more nuanced, successful communication for Lot 1 of the ASCEND programme will attract the interest of different set of stakeholders: alongside the core client, UKAid, our story will resonate with all development and health professionals interested in systems improvements, supply chain and governance reform.

About the role:

We are looking for a Communications professional who can tell the NTD story succinctly, who is politically smart, with an eye for drawing out innovation in our approach. A background in health communications, especially NTDs, would be highly valuable. This is a significant role within the programme and a successful post holder has a high profile opportunity to enhance its success and ensure a wider impact. This role reports directly to the Team Leader.

There are two main objectives for this role:

• Help identify, frame and amplify the messages of the Ascend programme, particularly highlighting the support of UKAid in advancing NTD programming by supporting governments’ efforts.;
• Promote the specific USPs of the lot 1 approach: drawing out systems strengthening, value for money, sustainability and good governance.

This will include the following activities:

• Supporting wider CA communications events associated with Ascend, such as the Supply Chain round table; discussion fora on C-19, resilience and adaptation of health systems.
• Coordinating a global stakeholder engagement plan including the programme’s participation in a calendar of NTD conferences and global meetings of disease-specific groups, WHO and others.
• Producing and editing communications content – blogs, social media messages, website content, case studies.
• Support Lot 1’s technical leads to secure speaking sessions for the team at 3 major NTD events each year and working closely with the team to raise our profile at these events.
• Monitoring the efforts of the team to engage with key stakeholders, such as Sightsavers, WHO, LSHTM, SCI, ICTC, USAID, ensuring we are keeping these group abreast of Ascend’s activities.
• Coordinating with the Learning partner on lot 1, KIT, and ensuring that case studies, learning events are coherent with the wider communications objectives.
• Engaging with potential partners for Ascend, to support advocacy efforts on NTDs and to leverage additional funding for the Ascend platform.

About you:

• A communications professional with at 8+ years’ experience working with complex development programmes in Africa and Asia.
• A strong writer with ability to precis complex information quickly into succinct messages for a wide range of different audiences.
• A personable team player: able to work across different consortium partners from a wide range of professional backgrounds – academia, science, government, programme management.
• Strong technical comms knowledge of best uses of social media platforms and ways of amplifying messages.
• Politically savvy: the post holder must have a solid understanding of the development agenda in the UK, including UKAid communications protocols, and be able to communicate clearly about governance and systems within a range of political economies.
• A quick learner: aspects of the NTDs agenda are technical and complex. The scope of Ascend, across 5 diseases and 12 countries on 2 continents, is very large and this post-holder will need to get a quick grasp of the salient issues.

Qualifications:

• Masters or similar in development, health economics, social science or similar
• 8+ years practical experience delivering communications products for development programmes.

You’ll be working with Crown Agents which is a high impact social enterprise passionate about transforming the future for millions of people. Since our creation in 1833 we have worked across the globe to improve public services and drive economic growth. Our expertise is finding new solutions to difficult problems for clients in the areas of health, governance, economic growth, humanitarian action and supply chain services. We work with and train leaders at local, national and international level to achieve lasting change drawing on our insight and experience.

Crown Agents offers a competitive benefits package.

About the Organization

You’ll be working with Crown Agents which is a high impact social enterprise passionate about transforming the future for millions of people. Since our creation in 1833 we have worked across the globe to improve public services and drive economic growth. Our expertise is finding new solutions to difficult problems for clients in the areas of health, governance, economic growth, humanitarian action and supply chain services. We work with and train leaders at local, national and international level to achieve lasting change drawing on our insight and experience.