National Consultant: Communication & Campaigns, Pretoria, South Africa, 10 months (Remote)

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

For every child, an advocate.

UNICEF South Africa, there for every child. 

The UNICEF South Africa (UNICEF SA) Communications and Partnerships section works to strengthen child rights advocacy, and to nurture strategic partnerships and resources to support the protection and wellbeing of every child, especially the most vulnerable, across South Africa. We engage with children and youth, build partnerships, and work with technical experts to be a trusted source of information, promote community action, and influence behaviour to improve young lives and tell a compelling story of change.

UNICEF SA is working to further strengthen its communication and advocacy related to the cross-cutting priority of early childhood development and parenting support work. The goal is to improve child development and longer-term outcomes across the life cycle, such as reducing violence against children, ensuring better learning outcomes and tackling mental health issues.

The specific focus of this work includes leading the ‘Power of Play 2.0’ campaign targeting parents, caregivers and ECD practitioners, among others. In addition, the consultancy includes supporting and engaging on UNICEF SA’s parenting advocacy work, to promote its ‘Positive Parenting Movement’ and maximize the reach and use of existing parenting programming resources. Finally, this work includes some bespoke writing and editing work, including the updating, and improving of some select content across UNICEF SA’s website.

This work contributes to UNICEF SA’s annual work plan area: ‘Public alliances and communications are strengthened leading to increased awareness and understanding of child deprivations and child rights in a coordinated manner’.

How can you make a difference? 

Under the supervision of the Chief of Communication and Partnerships, the Consultant will manage the ‘Power of Play 2.0’ campaign, contribute to UNICEF SAs ‘Positive Parenting Movement’ advocacy, and conduct some bespoke writing and editing for website content.

This work will be conducted in close coordination with the UNICEF SA Communication and Partnerships Section, as well as with Social and Behaviour Change, Education and Child Protection teams. As a ’trail blazer’ UNICEF country office working on parenting support advocacy, linked to priorities on reducing violence against children and improving mental wellbeing, the Consultant will also engage with relevant UNICEF HQ staff.

The purpose of both core areas of work is to reach and engage target audiences to promote the ‘Power of Play’ in child development and to engage partners to maximize and scale-up access to and the use of parenting support resources for ‘at-risk’ parents.

The Consultant, under the supervision of the Chief of Communication and Partnerships, will work closely with internal staff and external partners. This includes, UNICEF SA communication, education, child protection and social and behaviour change teams, as well as relevant private sector partners, civil society and government. The Consultant will be expected to develop and finalize the contracting of a partner to help deliver the ‘Power of Play 2.0’ campaign, in line with resources available. This work will play a vital role in contributing to advocacy and behaviour change among parents, caregivers and ECD practitioners by promoting the ‘Power of Play’ to further engrain understanding about the importance of play as a vital ‘tool’ in early childhood development that results in more positive life-long development outcomes.

The ‘Power of Play 2.0’ campaign will also include more proactive messaging related to the safe and positive use of digital media linked to play and reducing violence online. The campaign will include elements of community media, traditional and digital media and on the ground activations. The consultant will work across all of these, including identifying relevant partners and organizations to implement these areas of work. UNICEF SA is working to build a ‘Positive Parenting Movement’ that includes engaging target partners and audiences with this work to improve access to and uptake of parenting programming resources. The Consultant will support this week by taking on select tasks as part of the parenting advocacy strategy action plan. Across both areas of work, the Consultant will need to fully understand how to reach and influence relevant audiences to guide work according to targeted outreach, with clear monitoring and reporting tools built in and reported back on. The Consultant will also draft and edit text on three of UNICEF SA website pages / resource hubs, as defined in the outputs and deliverables.

Outputs/Deliverables:

1. ‘Power of Play 2.0’ campaign concept and action plan developed and signed off.
2. ToR for relevant external agency/s to deliver on the community media, traditional and digital media components, as well as on the ground activation components of the campaign signed off and advertised.
3. External agency/s identified and contracted for all campaign components.
4. ‘Power of Play 2.0’ related assets agreed on and in production and scheduled.
5. Training of community media journalists conducted.
6. ‘Power of Play 2.0’ digital and traditional media campaign delivered over a 3–month period.
7. Monitoring and reporting on the campaign conducted and fed back to relevant staff and partners.
8. Inputs and support on the parenting advocacy action plan, support to ‘Critical Thinking Forum’.
9. Participation in internal Parenting Café and other meetings / events as relevant.
10. Website content on parenting updated and relevant web pages go live.
11. Website content on the ‘youth hub’ updated and relevant web pages go live.
12. Website content on climate related work updated and relevant web pages go live.

This is a 10-month consultancy that is expected to follow the timeline below, as also reflected under the Tasks section.

Tasks	Deliverable/output	Timeline/deadline
Finalization of the Power of Play 2.0 campaign concept, including overview, assets needed, target audiences and timeline.	Concept and work plan document with timelines	4-weeks
ToRs for external agency/s to deliver on the campaign signed off and advertised.	ToR signed off, advertised on website, contract finalized	4-weeks
Support to parenting month activations through June 2024	Messaging and content linked to critical thinking forum drafted and finalized	2-weeks
Contracting of relevant partners for the campaign finalized	Partners selected and contracts finalized	4-weeks
Youth content on UNICEF SA website is edited, finalized, signed off and goes live.	Content edited and signed off	2-weeks
Campaign key message testing	Messages shared with relevant test audiences	2-weeks
Campaign assets production	Content production starts/inputs provided to edits	4-weeks
Training of community media journalists	Number of community media journalists trained and ready to report	4-weeks
Parenting resources produced for key stakeholders	2 x parenting resources produced for key stakeholders as per advocacy strategy	4-weeks
Parenting website resources updated	Parenting Hub is updated, edited, finalized, signed off and goes live	2-weeks
Core set of parenting advocacy assets produced	Multimedia suite of content for use on parenting advocacy goes live	4-weeks
Parenting – online violence linked messaging and assets produced	Content and messaging promoting safe online experiences goes live	4-weeks
Campaign monitoring and reporting	Digital analytics extracted and audience reach figures compiled	2-weeks
Final report produced on impact of PoP 2.0 campaign	Report is drafted, submitted, and finalized providing data and narrative about the impact of the campaign	4-weeks
Parenting advocacy strategy & work plan updated, as per progress during year.	Inputs received and strategy and workplan updated.	4-weeks

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have… 

• A university degree in Marketing and Communication / Public Relations / Social and Behaviour Change / Media / Development / Humanitarian / Advocacy / Foreign Policy
• A minimum of five years of relevant professional experience in both external communications, including multimedia and media work, as well as strong demonstrable experience on social behaviour change approaches and broader advocacy
• Communication campaign experience, ideally with UNICEF, UN, is also necessary including external communication and behaviour change
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset

For every Child, you demonstrate… 

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS). 

 To view our competency framework, please visit  here. 

 UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment. 

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check. 

Remarks:  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.