Social and Behavioral Change (SBC) and Community Engagement Advisor (Ethiopia Feed the Future Community Nutrition Activity) At Global Communities

Overview

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Please Note: This position is contingent upon award and USAID approval with an anticipated start date of mid-2023.

Global Communities works at the intersection of humanitarian assistance, sustainable development, and financial inclusion to save lives, advance equity, and secure strong futures. We support communities at the forefront of their own development in more than 35 countries, partnering with local leaders, governments, civil society, and the private sector to achieve a shared vision of a more just, prosperous, and equitable global community. We work with government, non-government, private sector, and community stakeholders to promote transparency, foster accountability, and access the channels they need to make their voices heard, promote change, and realize their full potential.

Global Communities seeks a Social and Behavioral Change (SBC) and Community Engagement Advisor for the anticipated USAID/Ethiopia Feed the Future Community Nutrition Activity. The overall objective of this five-year activity is to improve appropriate nutrition behavior and utilization of nutrition services to improve the nutritional status among women and children in Ethiopia. This can be achieved through the intermediate results: 1) Improved nutritional practices and demand for services at the community level; 2) Improved quality of nutrition services at the community level; 3) Improved capacity for coordination among the nutrition stakeholders across sectors; and 4) Ensure Quality Standard for SBCC Program implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and documentation, as per the national Social Behavior Change Communication Quality Assurance Guideline and the National Guideline on Adolescent, Maternal Infant and Young Child Nutrition.

The SBC and Community Engagement Advisor will provide leadership, strategic direction, and guidance in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of SBC strategies implemented by Community Nutrition Activity. S/he will provide technical assistance and guidance in designing and developing tailored and effective interventions and innovative behavior change solutions using participatory, evidence-based, human-centered design approaches. S/he will provide support in the integration of SBC strategies and interventions within and across the project and will strengthen the capacity of the project teams on SBC to achieve overall goals and objectives. S/he should be well-versed and adaptable to a variety of recent technologies, including mobile-based and digital solutions and methodologies, and use those to ensure development of high-quality products and the uptake of innovative dissemination practices. The incumbent will be responsible for leading the SBC and community engagement interventions, in close coordination with key personnel and technical advisors.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical and programmatic guidance and oversight to all the SBC activities undertaken and planned by the project aimed at improving nutritional practices and demand for services at the community level
• Develop evidence-based SBC strategies using a variety of state-of-the-art methodologies, including human centered design, behavioral sciences, gender transformative approaches/gender considerations, and digital technologies across different thematic areas
• Collaborate with the Senior Management Team of the project to ensure quality of SBC approaches and methodologies aimed at improving nutrition and health knowledge and skills and improving nutrition and health service seeking behavior
• Guide the performance of formative research and community engagement to determine comprehensive SBC and data from formative research are translated into appropriate and actionable SBC activities to nutrition messages and actions
• Map and review already available formative research, SBC materials, awareness messages, and other information on current practices and dialogue with the community to identify facilitating factors and barriers to desired practices
• Lead capacity strengthening and skill development of implementing partners including development of onboarding, training and implementation support
• Support the project’s implementation team in formulating locally appropriate SBC strategies and operationalizing those strategies effectively, including development/adaptation and pre-test of communication materials
• Provide support in tracking implementation of SBC activities, identifying gaps, and augmenting the strategies for increased reach, effectiveness, and enhancement of communication content
• Generate innovations, adopting new approaches and maintaining high impact nutrition-specific and nutrition sensitive behaviors or practices at the community level
• Ensure the quality, equity, scale, and sustainability of programmatic approaches and documentation of experiences/ lessons learnt from the project, including production of learning briefs, white papers, and general documentation
• Represent the project’s SBC work to internal and external stakeholders via knowledge management processes as appropriate
• Support standardized indicators for more comparable data across partners and ensure the SBC M&E plans are aligned explicitly with the theory of change when it is required to initiate periodic or midcourse reviews with partners
• Align SBC reporting requirements to include common aspects of design and implementation including key success stories for replicating or scaling up interventions
• Supervise the SBC team of the project
• Other duties, as assigned

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in public health, nutrition, communication, behavior change, or other related field.
• At least 10 years of demonstrated experience in SBC project management or technical advisory role for USG funded projects or other internationally funded programs. Experience in SBC is required.
• Deep understanding and knowledge of nutrition issues and programming in a developing country
• Experience working in and familiarity with the local context of Ethiopia
• Demonstrated experience in applying a range of SBC theories in the nutrition sector
• Very strong understanding and experience of using Human Centered Design approach a plus
• Strong background in advocacy, interpersonal communication skills development, group facilitation, and SBC materials/tools development
• Experience in the utilization of state-of-the-art SBC approaches, including use of social media, ICT (information and communication technology), digital media etc.
• Understanding and familiarity of development communication challenges and solutions
• Strong understanding and experience working in multidisciplinary team of nutrition, gender, and sectoral technical experts (e.g., Health, water, sanitation and hygiene [WASH]; agriculture; or social protection);
• Good understating of USAID’s 2014-2025 Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy, National Social Behavior Change Communication Quality Assurance Guideline and the National Guideline on Adolescent, Maternal Infant and Young Child Nutrition
• Strong understanding of working with marginalized and vulnerable segments like pastoralists, rural poor populations, women, and populations living in hard-to-reach areas
• Excellent interpersonal communication and presentation skills
• Demonstrated ability and experience to efficiently manage a team of professionals and work in a team
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
• Fluency in English (along with very strong writing ability) is essential
• Demonstrated learning agility, pro-activeness, and openness to embrace new technologies at work
• Willingness to travel as per requirement
• Ability to work with multiple stakeholders and implementation partners