Strategic Communication Advisor

The primary responsibilities of this short-term assignment is to provide recommendations on the communications strategy for STEP. The strategy should be developed with a practical work plan.

Key responsibilities

Activities

• Review key programme documents including the Inception Report, Handbook, existing Communications Strategy Stakeholder Engagement documents and any other documents considered relevant and essential by STEP Management.
• Review DFID's policy on communication and meet with concerned officials at DFID's communication and press office to learn more in-depth on the policy and procedures for programme communications.
• Conduct meetings with key programme stakeholders including but not limited to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, relevant UN Agencies and protection partners, Financial Institutions to understand their concerns and priorities. These meetings will aim at understanding each stakeholders key marketing concerns and risks and agreeing on key messages that can be developed by programme.
• Critically review the programme's existing portfolio of communications materials from both substance and design perspectives.
• Improve and update the STEP Communications Strategy document to ensure that it is comprehensive, as well as practical and lays out a clear action plan to manage and meet the needs of all stakeholders (DFID, MoFA, Financial Institutions, SME beneficiaries).
• Creating a mapping of key actors and stakeholders that need to be targeted or reached through STEP's communications efforts, identifying key messages for each stakeholders and recommending most effective and cost efficient channels to target or reach these entities.
• Develop a detailed work plan to operationalise the updated Communications Strategy that supports the programme's overall activities including for outreach, key stakeholder and community sensitization, selection, knowledge management, etc.
• Develop recommendations for outreach and publicity campaigns keeping in view sensitivities associated with certain programme activities and key messages and channels aimed at key stakeholders.
• Identify necessary resources to deliver the communications strategy including gaps in the team, a review of the work by the subcontracted communication company, and make recommendations for partner and stakeholder management.
• Work closely with relevant member of STEP team to coordinate development and improvement of STEP products and activities identified in the the revised strategy.
• Develop a crisis management communication plan due to sensitivity of the programme working with Syrian displaced.
• Give input on the effectiveness of the chosen communications tools and channels to-date.

Deliverables

• Revised and expanded Communications and Outreach Strategy for STEP. This deliverable to be produced in different phases detailed below:

1. Phase 1: Identification of changes required in current strategy and proposed structure/outline/table of contents for revised and expanded Communications and Outreach Strategy 5 days
2. Phase 2: After approval on Phase 1 deliverables, developing the final Communications and Outreach Strategy 5 days

• Detailed work and resource plans that operationalises different strands of activities proposed in Communications and Outreach Strategy. 5 days
• Develop a slide deck that summarizes the communications strategy and operationalisation plan that will be shared with the key stakeholders: DFID, MoFA, Independent Evaluator and key partners. Conduct presentation to DFID and STEP Team using this slide deck. 4 days
• A handover session with the Team Leader, Deputy Team Leader, Technical Manager and other members of the STEP Team where necessary to present findings and discuss the communications strategy forward. 1 day

Reporting

• The consultant will report directly to the Team Leader, along with the Deputy Team Leader. He/she will work closely with the Technical Manager as well as other nominated members within the STEP Technical Team to pull together the corroborating documents on the programme's three components. 

Level of Effort

This assignment will require up to 20 days worth of effort between 1 December 2018 through 31 March 2019. The timeline is based on an average workload of approximately 1.5/days per week. This work schedule will be split into 2 phases, with a review point at the middle of January, to determine the results of the initial phase and whether any changes/updates need to be made to the approach/deliverables for the second phase. For example, the first phase would entail: developing an outline of an updated communication strategy. Then proceeding with our recommendations on the outline to start drafting the final strategy.

Requirements

• Required qualifications and professional experience
• At least ten years of experience in the design or delivery of communication strategies for economic development preferably in Lebanon and/or the Middle East.
• Practical experience in developing high-level strategic communications
• Strong analytical, reporting and presentation skills.
• Outstanding strategic thinker and team player with willingness to learn and support learning of others.
• Fluency in written and oral communication skills in English is required, fluency in Arabic is desired.