Communications Senior Manager (ICAT Head of Communications)

The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners' peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world.  UNOPS supports partners to build a better future by providing services that increase the efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects.  Mandated as a central resource of the United Nations, UNOPS provides sustainable project management, procurement and infrastructure services to a wide range of governments, donors and United Nations organizations.  

Background information: Water and Energy Cluster (WEC)

​UNOPS Water and Energy Cluster (WEC) supports the design and management of multi-stakeholder initiatives by providing services in financial and grant management, procurement, human resources, and project management.

The cluster has supported projects in the areas of water resource management, climate change adaptation, mitigation and transparency, energy access and distribution and environmental conservation under the Paris Agreement. The WEC has also supported operations and financial management services, in Vienna, the rest of the ECR region and beyond.

The main partners include UN agencies, bilateral agreements (with the Nordics, Germany, and Italy), the Green Climate Fund and several NGOs (such as CIFF and CWF).

Initiative for Climate Action Transparency

The Initiative for Climate Action Transparency (ICAT) is an initiative under WEC.

ICAT helps countries better assess the impacts of their climate policies and actions, and fulfill their transparency commitments under the Paris Agreement. It does this by increasing the overall transparency capacities of countries, including the capacity to assess the contribution of climate policies and actions on countries’ development objectives, and providing appropriate methodological information and tools to support evidence-based policy-making. ICAT’s innovative approach is to integrate these two aspects.

ICAT currently works with 40 developing countries worldwide to support their work on NDCs, including tracking of implementation, further policy development and related Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV).  Work covers sectoral policies (renewables, energy efficiency, transport, etc.) and cross-cutting aspects such as the link to sustainable development benefits, transformational change, and integration of subnational and non-state actors.

ICAT is funded by the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), the Italian Ministry of the Ecological Transition (IMET) and the ClimateWorks Foundation (CWF).

Communications strategy:

• Lead on the development of the ICAT communications and partnership strategy to ensure coordinated, targeted and coherent communications with existing partners, future prospects and external audiences in line with ICAT’s strategic objectives, covering all relevant components and action areas, and coordinating its implementation;

• Coordinate the planning for ICAT knowledge sharing activities to maximize the reach of learnings and experiences from ICAT’s country and regional activities and good visibility of ICAT’s tools and methodologies;

• Lead and coordinate the ICAT communications group in consultation with ICAT Director, consisting of representatives of the ICAT Implementing Partners, which includes managing regular communications calls;

• Develop ICAT’s web and social media strategies to support and strengthen work by partners and initiatives in order to promote ICAT activities and objectives;

External communications:

• Manage all ICAT external communications;

• Lead the content preparation for ICAT website ensuring quality and up to date content for its overall structure, and main messaging, and sound drafting of ICAT case studies to clearly communicate ICAT success stories and impact;

• Manage ICAT external communications to ensure that key messages and content used in outreach material, statements by the ICAT Director and presentations highlight ICAT achievements and impact;

• Manage and provide creative inputs to ICAT communication activities and events, including follow-up with partners through the planning and execution of integrated multi-channel communication (website, social media, email marketing, webinars, side events to global climate conferences, etc.);

• Lead the preparation of outreach material, such as flyers, brochures, power-point presentations, regular newsletters etc.;

• Lead the preparation of ICAT webinars to promote ICAT tools and methodologies;

• Specify appropriate communication channels, dissemination methods and media such as video, print, web/online media, traditional media, and social media, among others, to effectively communicate key messages to specific stakeholders;

• Develop and maintain ICAT branding guidelines for ICAT partners ensuring these are in line with the ICAT donor agreements and UNOPS corporate requirements;

• Manage timely response to external information requests;

• Prepare media releases and liaise with media for interviews, identify opportunities and pitch stories as needed;

• Liaise with communications colleagues in the United Nations, especially the UNFCCC secretariat, UNRIC, UNEP, UNDP, and UNOPS to keep aligned with system-wide communications and campaigns and exchange information;

• Support partnership and relationships management with other initiatives and organizations;

• Support donor relationship management, by developing proposals for a donor outreach and fund-raising strategy and support its implementation;

Knowledge management and internal communications:

• Lead the knowledge management activities for ICAT publications, outreach material and partner engagement, and propose tools for implementing it;

• Manage ICAT’s knowledge sharing portal and activities to engage communities of practice at global level and with thematic focus;

• Support the ICAT Director in ensuring effective ICAT internal communication flows, in particular with the Donor Steering Committee, the Advisory Committee and the Initiative Coordination Team;

• Develop the preparation of project and programmatic documents for expanding ICAT;

• Provide any additional support as required.

Education 

• An advanced university degree (Master's degree or equivalent) in International Relations, Environmental Management, Communications or any other relevant subject is required;

• A Bachelor’s degree in relevant fields with additional two years may be accepted in lieu of a Master’s degree.

Work Experience 

• A minimum of 7 years (9 years if combined with a Bachelor’s degree) of progressively responsible experience with communication activities is required. 

• Experience related to climate policy and/or sustainable development is required;

• Experience of working within the international development sector, and on climate action and transparency matters in particular, is a significant asset; 

• Experience in web design is desirable;

• Experience working with social media and website management (including content creation) is desirable;

• Knowledge of the UN climate process is desirable.

Languages

• Fluency in written and spoken English is required. 

• Working knowledge of another UN language is an asset. 

Contract type: ICA
Contract level: IICA-3/ICSC-11
Contract duration: Open-ended, subject to organizational requirements, availability of funds and satisfactory performance.

• 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.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• 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
• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• For retainer contracts, you must complete a few Mandatory Courses (around 4 hours) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS.
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.  

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.