Risk Communication and Community Engagement Officer - NOA (Multiple duty station)

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please note that the deadline for receipt of applications indicated above reflects your personal device's system settings.

PURPOSE OF THE POSITION:

To lead and coordinate risk communication and community engagement activities for Bundibugyo Virus Disease readiness and possible response in the assigned high-risk county. The incumbent will support the County Health Department to provide timely, accurate, and trusted information; establish community feedback and rumour-management systems; strengthen community-based surveillance and referral; and ensure that affected and at-risk communities participate meaningfully in preparedness and response actions.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:

South Sudan faces a complex emergency marked by conflict, displacement, population movement, flooding, food insecurity, weak health-service functionality, and recurrent disease outbreaks. The current regional Bundibugyo Virus Disease situation creates a high risk of importation through porous borders, informal crossings, and major population-movement corridors linking South Sudan with Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The priority counties of Yei, Morobo, including Kaya, Kajo-Keji, Yambio, Ezo, and Nzara require dedicated field capacity to strengthen readiness at county, health-facility, point-of-entry, and community levels. Effective risk communication and community engagement are essential to promote early care-seeking, rapid reporting of alerts, acceptance of investigation and contact tracing, safe referral, infection prevention, and cooperation with isolation, treatment, and safe and dignified burial measures when required.

The County RCCE Officer will work as part of the WHO multidisciplinary county team and will support the County Health Department, local authorities, community structures, health facilities, and partners to operationalize the national BVD RCCE plan while maintaining communication and community engagement for other ongoing public health emergencies.

DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES:

Under the direct supervision of the WHO County BVD Readiness and Response Coordinator, with technical guidance from the WHO RCCE Lead and overall supervision of the EPR Team Lead/Incident Manager, and in close collaboration with the County Health Department, State Ministry of Health, surveillance, IPC/WASH, case management, points of entry, partners and community structures, the incumbent will:

• Lead development, implementation and regular updating of the county BVD risk communication and community engagement action plan, aligned with national guidance and the county incident action plan.

• Establish or strengthen the county RCCE coordination mechanism and ensure clear roles, activity mapping, reporting arrangements and regular coordination with government and operational partners.

• Conduct rapid community assessments and stakeholder mapping to identify high-risk populations, trusted information channels, social and cultural practices, language needs, barriers to care-seeking and groups at risk of exclusion.

• Adapt, pre-test and disseminate approved BVD messages and materials in plain language and appropriate local languages, using communication channels suited to the local context.

• Engage chiefs, religious leaders, women’s and youth groups, teachers, transport associations, market leaders, border communities, returnees, refugees, persons with disabilities and other trusted community networks.

• Support community-based surveillance by promoting immediate reporting of suspected illness, unexplained deaths, unusual clusters and rumours through agreed alert channels.

• Establish and maintain a functional community feedback and rumour-management system, including collection, verification, analysis, response, documentation and escalation of priority concerns.

• Provide daily feedback summaries and recommendations to the county coordination team so that operational decisions respond to community concerns and misinformation.

• Support health facilities and points of entry to communicate screening, triage, isolation, referral and visitor-control procedures in a clear, respectful and non-stigmatizing manner.

• Work with surveillance and contact-tracing teams to prepare communities for alert investigation, contact identification, daily follow-up and referral, while protecting confidentiality and dignity.

• Support communication and community engagement around infection prevention and control, hand hygiene, safe care-seeking, avoidance of unsafe contact with body fluids, and safe management of suspected deaths.

• Support readiness for safe and dignified burial by engaging community and religious leaders, explaining procedures, and helping teams address family concerns while respecting cultural and religious practices.

• Develop and maintain a directory of community leaders, media outlets, radio stations, local organizations, translators, mobilizers and other RCCE resources in the assigned county.

• Plan and support radio programmes, community dialogues, mobile announcements, school and faith-based engagement, market outreach, and other locally appropriate communication activities.

• Train and mentor community mobilizers, health promoters, hotline operators, media personnel, partner staff, and local leaders on approved messages, interpersonal communication, feedback collection, and referral of alerts.

• Monitor the reach, quality, timeliness, and acceptance of RCCE activities and use findings to improve targeting, methods, and messages.

• Maintain accurate records of activities, participants, locations, feedback, rumours, referrals, partner coverage, and agreed performance indicators.

• Submit concise daily updates, weekly reports, and urgent alerts through the agreed WHO and county reporting channels.

• Support communication for other concurrent outbreaks and public health emergencies when directed, ensuring that BVD readiness does not weaken essential risk communication functions.

• Promote protection from sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment, safeguarding, accountability to affected populations, inclusion, confidentiality, and do-no-harm principles in all community engagement activities.

• Perform other incident-specific duties assigned by the supervisor.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

Education:

Essential: First university degree in communication, social sciences, public health, health promotion, community development, behavioral sciences, journalism, sociology, anthropology or another relevant field from a recognized institution.

Desirable: Advanced university degree or specialized training in risk communication, community engagement, health promotion, social and behaviour change, outbreak communication, humanitarian communication or emergency response.

Experience:

Essential:

• At least two years of relevant professional experience in risk communication, community engagement, health promotion, social and behaviour change, public health communication, or community-based emergency work.

• Experience in planning and implementing community engagement activities with government, local authorities, community leaders, civil society, or humanitarian partners.

• Experience collecting and analyzing community feedback, rumours, perceptions, or behavioral information and translating findings into operational actions.

• Experience preparing clear reports, activity plans, and communication materials for diverse audiences.

Desirable:

• Experience supporting outbreak preparedness or response, particularly viral hemorrhagic fever, cholera, mpox, measles, or other epidemic-prone diseases.

• Experience with WHO, a Ministry of Health, UN agencies, national or international NGOs, or community-based organizations.

• Experience working in South Sudan, border areas, displacement settings, or other fragile and conflict-affected environments.

• Experience working with radio, community media, hotlines, digital communication platforms, or social listening systems.

• Experience in training and supervising community mobilizers, volunteers, or partner personnel.

Functional Skills and Knowledge (Describe skills and knowledge specific to the post):

• Strong knowledge of risk communication and community engagement principles in public health emergencies.

• Ability to translate technical information into clear, practical and culturally appropriate messages.

• Ability to listen to communities, analyse concerns and propose practical solutions.

• Strong facilitation, interpersonal communication, negotiation and conflict-sensitive engagement skills.

• Ability to coordinate partners and work effectively with local authorities, health workers and community structures.

• Ability to plan, organize and deliver activities under pressure and within short timelines.

• Strong writing, reporting and presentation skills.

• Sound judgement, discretion and respect for confidentiality.

• Ability and willingness to travel frequently and work in remote or difficult field conditions.

Information technology skills

• Good knowledge of Microsoft Office applications, especially Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

• Ability to use mobile data-collection and communication tools such as KoboToolbox, ODK, WhatsApp or equivalent platforms.

• Experience using social listening, media monitoring or basic data-visualization tools is an asset.

COMPETENCIES:

• Teamwork

• Communication

• Producing results

• Respecting and promoting individual and cultural differences

• Building and promoting partnerships across the organization and beyond

• Moving forward in a changing environment

Languages:

Required: Excellent knowledge of written and spoken English

Desirable: Working knowledge of Arabic and relevant local languages used in the assigned duty station is an asset.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• This vacancy notice may be used to fill other similar positions at the same grade level
• Only candidates under serious consideration will be contacted.
• A written test may be used as a form of screening.
• In the event that your candidature is retained for an interview, you will be required to provide, in advance, a scanned copy of the degree(s)/diploma(s)/certificate(s) required for this position. WHO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU)/United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed through the link: http://www.whed.net/. Some professional certificates may not appear in the WHED and will require individual review.
• Any appointment/extension of appointment is subject to WHO Staff Regulations, Staff Rules and Manual.
• Staff members in other duty stations are encouraged to apply.
• For information on WHO's operations please visit: http://www.who.int.
• WHO is committed to workforce diversity.
• WHO also offers a wide range of benefits to staff, including parental leave and attractive flexible work arrangements to help promote a healthy work-life balance and to allow all staff members to express and develop their talents fully.
• The statutory retirement age for staff appointments is 65. For external applicants, only those who are expected to complete the term of appointment will normally be considered.
• WHO's workforce adheres to the WHO Values Charter and is committed to put the WHO Values into practice.
• WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or users of any form of tobacco.
• This is a National Professional Officer position. Therefore, only applications from nationals of the country where the duty station is located will be accepted. Applicants who are not nationals of this country will not be considered.