Communications Assistant (Strongly encourage qualified female candidate to apply)

UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners’ peace building, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.

UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management and human resources.

Working with us

UNOPS offers short- and long-term work opportunities in diverse and challenging environments across the globe. We are looking for creative, results-focused professionals with skills in a range of disciplines.

Diversity

With over 4,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,000 personnel recruited on behalf of UNOPS partners spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a wide range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced, diverse workforce — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs, and continually strive to improve our gender balance through initiatives and policies that encourage recruitment of qualified female candidates.

Work life harmonization

UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.

UNOPS offers a variety of arrangements that enable women to excel in their careers, including flexible working hours for work-life balance, maternity leave, childcare facilities, and career coaching. UNOPS ensures a safe and inclusive working environment for women and men through field security training and measures to provide secure working arrangements  on-site and in the office.

1. General Background of Project / Assignment

UNOPS supports the successful implementation of its partners’ peace building, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Its mission is to serve people in need by expanding the ability of the United Nations, governments and other partners to manage projects, infrastructure and procurement in a sustainable and efficient manner. Working in some of the world’s most challenging environments, our vision is to advance sustainable implementation practices, always satisfying or surpassing our partners’ expectations. With over 7,000 personnel spread across 80 countries, UNOPS offers its partners the logistical, technical and management knowledge they need, wherever they need it. A flexible structure and global reach means that we can quickly respond to our partners' needs, while offering the benefits of economies of scale.

Following the devastating earthquakes of 2015, UNOPS has been deeply engaged in various activities supporting the government of Nepal in the assessment of damaged buildings and enrollment of beneficiaries into housing grant schemes. UNOPS is expanding its footprint in post-earthquake reconstruction and aims to support homeowners engaged in the reconstruction process in Nuwakot District. The project aims to provide Socio-Technical Assistance to over 23,000 individual households. The project is recruiting Area Focal Point who will be based in different parts of Nuwakot District.

2. About FieldSight

FieldSight is a technological platform for remote monitoring, supervision, and quality assurance on humanitarian, development, and construction projects. By connecting semi-skilled and project personnel working in the field with skilled and management personnel based in regional or central offices, FieldSight ensures that progress and quality can be better monitored, tracked, and captured throughout construction and project implementation. The concept attempts to address many of the challenges that project managers and implementing organizations face when operating in the remote and resource-constrained environments that characterize humanitarian and development work—including limited accessibility to sites, strained technical capacity, and insufficient budgets—while also taking advantage of recent developments such as improvements and price reductions for mobile technology and the increasing reach of mobile networks.

FieldSight consists of a web-based application and an Android-based mobile application connected via a central server. The web application allows users to set-up and configure projects as well as to review data that is submitted by field users. The mobile application is used to collect and submit data from field sites. Tools for assessing submissions, sharing project plans and guidance materials, and communicating across multiple channels further enhance the connection between office and site, facilitating coaching, collaboration, and capacity building.

FieldSight is a people-based technological platform. Effective use of the system requires integrating it with project quality assurance content and within an effective supervision program, consisting of:

Quality Assurance Content: The assessments, surveys, forms, and guidance materials that are basis of quality assurance and supervision processes, and

Supervision Personnel: The multiple layers of staff, project structure, logistical support, and other program elements that enable data collection and supervision at all scales of a project.

The project is built to scale and works across projects ranging in size from a small handful to hundreds of sites. Dashboards embedded in the system provide aggregate data across sites, projects, and organizations that allow project managers and staff to more effectively understand progress, integrate activities, and analyze data.

The project is currently being implemented in over 45,000 sites over a 3 year period, inside and outside the country. It was developed in Nepal after the 2015 earthquake and has been piloted in over 14 projects through a duration of 16 months. Developed in the Nepal Innovation Lab, FieldSight had been piloted to conduct a village-scale Multi-Level Hazard Assessment for the National Reconstruction Authority, to monitor the construction of schools, outreach clinics and health posts constructed by World Vision International Nepal, Miyamoto Engineering, Monitoring of Policing Project under UNOPS and Nepal Police and to monitor the quality of earthquake reconstruction projects funded by UK DFID.

3. Purpose and Scope of Assignment

The Communication Assistant will work under the guidance and supervision of the Field Coordinator and report to the same. S/He shall provide assistance in the delivery of developing and implementing the project’s communication related materials, which includes preparing a wide range of written articles and materials, concept papers and presentations, social media and audio/video for local and international audiences. Key responsibilities for this position include communication, branding and promotion.

Specifically, the incumbent will be responsible for the following substantive tasks; the omission of specific statements of duties does not exclude them from the position if the work is similar, related or a logical assignment to this class.

Functional Responsibilities for this Project: 

• Provide routine assistance in the development of communication materials (audio visual, web and print) in consultation with project staff;
• Help improve the correct use of project brand on audio visual, web and print content;
• Continuous maintenance of the communication related archive, document databases (share-drive and online) including OneUNOPS platform, ensuring that the content is accurate, relevant and up-to-date ;
• Maintenance of FieldSight presence on social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and the FieldSight website;
• Continuous maintenance of the project photo archive and selection of appropriate graphics/images for inclusion with written content;
• Assist in the maintenance of the project by ensuring that all published content is kept accurate, relevant and up-to-date;
• Provide assistance in development of presentations, news releases and publications relevant to the organization of meetings and workshops; including minutes of the meeting, workshop reports and briefings;
• Assist in the development of a common brand identity for FieldSight across all communication channels; 
• Support the development of video tutorials and other audio video materials that are part of the overall communications strategy;
• Help to prepare well-expressed, well designed and accurate articles with the help of effective concepts and approaches;

5. Qualifications and Experience

a) Education:

• Secondary school education is required;
• Bachelor’s or equivalent in communications, journalism media relations or relevant discipline is an asset.
• Certification in communications and community engagement along with reporting desirable.

b) Work Experience:

• A minimum of four years of relevant experience in communication and community engagement and reporting is required
• Bachelor’s Degree in the relevant field of studies may substitute for some required years of experience
• Experience in communication, report writing and community outreach activities desirable.
• Experience in the usage of computers and office software package (MS Office is required).

c) Language:

• Fluency in written and oral English and Nepali is required

1. Contract type: Local Individual Contractor Agreement (ICA) Support
2. Contract level: LICA- 4
3. Contract duration: Open-ended, subject to organizational requirements, availability of funds and satisfactory performance.’

• Position called for qualified female as preference
• Qualified male candidates are strongly encouraged to apply
• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• Work life harmonization - UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. This policy applies to UNOPS personnel on all contract types
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS. 
• This post is open for only Nepali national

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns.Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.