CDAC Network Research & Learning Officer

Position: Research & Learning Officer Responsible to: CDAC Network Global Coordinator Contract duration: 12 months fixed-term, subject to project funding Starting Date: ASAP (no later than mid-March) Salary: Dependent on experience; part-time option (4 days/wk) possible

Communication is Aid Communication with crises affected communities is a critical component of humanitarian response. From earthquakes to armed conflicts, human survival can depend on knowing the answers to a few critical questions: What is the extent of the damage? Where can I get clean water? Is it safe to go back home?

As well as needing access to timely and accurate life-saving information, affected communities have the right to ask questions and get answers from humanitarian responders. They have the right to voice their needs, ideas and feedback and to take an active role in relief and recovery efforts in their country. When people are not given the opportunity to voice their opinions and provide feedback, it exacerbates their dissatisfaction, anger and frustration.

Communication with affected communities is a cross-cutting function that facilitates greater accountability and effectiveness of aid delivery; enhances resilience-building; and promotes understanding between humanitarian organisations and the communities they serve. Yet despite its potential to save lives and improve aid delivery, communication with affected communities has not been given sufficient attention by humanitarian organisations and is not systematically institutionalised within the humanitarian sector. Its importance to quality programming is not widely recognised and rarely implemented effectively.

The Role of the CDAC Network The CDAC Network was established in response to this communication ‘gap’ and promotes the provision of life-saving information and communication with crisis affected communities as key humanitarian deliverables. The aim of the Network is that communities affected by or prone to crises are supported to withstand humanitarian emergencies through active engagement in decisions about the relief and recovery efforts in their country.

The CDAC Network is unique in terms of who it convenes: humanitarian and media development organisations, technology and telecoms providers. This diverse set of stakeholders allows the CDAC Network to utilise relevant and appropriate media and technology platforms to promote and scale communication with affected communities.

The CDAC Network delivers through four pillars identified in its Strategy: action research and learning; capacity strengthening; convening; and advocacy. Due to its activities and diverse membership, the Network is well placed to bring about the systematic change required in the humanitarian sector to position communication with affected people at the heart of resilience building, preparedness and response.

A determined, sustained effort by humanitarian responders to build capacity together, share learning and research, and advocate, will help to ensure that two-way communication with affected communities becomes a predictable, consistent and resourced element of crisis resilience, response and recovery.

Main Purpose of the Role Responsible to the CDAC Network Global Coordinator, with technical accountability to the CDAC Network Research and Learning Working Group, the Research and Learning Officer (RLO) will design, implement and report on a wide range of research-related activities to support improved communication with disaster-affected populations. In particular, the RLO will deliver a programme of work that enables the Network and its membership to build an evidence base that enables greater understanding of the contribution of communication, including the coordination of information provision and two-way communication activities, to the quality and effectiveness of humanitarian aid.

The scope of work is ambitious in as much that the Network seeks a paradigm shift in attitudes and practice toward the area of communicating with affected populations, and wishes to identify and support ways of working that will improve systems and ultimately save more lives in disasters and emergencies in the future.

Overall Scope of Work With technical input from the Research and Learning Working Group, and in coordination with the CDAC Network Global Coordinator and staff in the Network’s Member agencies, the RLO will: - Develop an M & E framework, with Network Members, for use in their field-level projects, including in the coordination of communication activities. - Design, conduct and write a series of learning reviews to capture lessons learned from Members’ communications projects to inform the development of a ‘good practice’ methodology for communicating with disaster-affected populations. Learning reviews will be conducted within the context of Member and Network-led in-country initiatives and, depending on the context, following rapid responses to a selection of emergencies. - Manage the evidence base that will enable greater understanding of the contribution of communication, including the coordination of information provision and two-way communication activities, to the quality and effectiveness of humanitarian aid. - Manage the development and delivery of a knowledge management strategy for the Network. This will involve identifying the key needs and issues within Member organisations, and providing a framework and work-plan for addressing these. - Coordinate the Network’s Action Research and Learning Working Group. - Contribute, with Network Members, to the advocacy and capacity strengthening work of the Network. This will involve collaboration with Network Members to participate in meetings and trainings, as well as make presentations and contributions to different Network activities. These duties will include forging consensus and supporting operational response mechanisms among a variety of stakeholders who have an interest in improving communication with affected populations during humanitarian response.

Person Specification - Skills, Knowledge and Experience Required: Demonstrable experience in developing M & E frameworks for field projects Experience of conducting reviews, evaluations and research within development / humanitarian contexts (preferably of communications projects) Familiarity with different evaluative approaches, including real-time evaluation, lessons learned reviews, and ex-post evaluation Research design and implementation, including qualitative and quantitative approaches and approaches to evaluation Experience in working with existing data sets (data mining) and synthesising information from a wide variety of sources The ability to identify key opportunities for capturing and sharing learning from field-level projects – at individual agency and consortia level Expertise in capturing programmatic and communications-focused learning using a variety of different approaches to demonstrate both the successes and challenges of the approaches used Experience of planning and delivering dissemination of learning using multiple methods and channels (offline and online) Experience of planning and coordinating / managing research across multi-disciplinary projects Strong report writing and presentation skills, ability to communicate complex technical ideas using non-technical language to a wide range of audiences Excellent communication skills, both written and oral Excellent time management and the ability to prioritise a heavy workload under pressure Availability to travel for up to 25% time

Desired: An understanding of media and how the area of communicating with affected populations has been developing in humanitarian practice Experience of delivering research training and building research capacity

How to apply:

Please submit a two-page letter that addresses the key skills and experience set out in the Person Specification. Please support this letter with a CV of no more than three pages, along with two writing samples. At least one writing sample should be of an evaluative-type report. Please submit your application to Sophie Nicholls, Office Manager at Internews Europe, on: snicholls@internews.eu no later than Monday 18th February, midday UK time. Interviews are scheduled for Thursday 21st February.

We regret that only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.