Mozambique: Community Engagement and Accountability Delegate

Cyclone Idai made landfall on the evening of 15 March 2019 in the port city of Beira located in Sofala Province of Central Mozambique. The cyclone wreaked havoc on Beira and surrounding areas resulting in loss of communication, important damage and destruction to shelter and settlements, health and WASH facilities and standing crops, communication infrastructures and loss of life and injury.

Community engagement and accountability (CEA) will support the Cyclone Idai operation to ensure communities are well informed about the services on offer, selection criteria, distribution processes and exit strategies and have opportunities to participate and provide feedback, which is used to guide the direction of the response. CEA will also support health and WASH to engage communities with key health and hygiene information to limit the outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and malaria. Collective community engagement mechanisms will be considered with other partners.

The CEA delegate will support Mozambique Red Cross and the IFRC to enhance the accountability, impact and efficiency of the Cyclone Idai response operation through the integration of CEA activities and approaches. This includes establishing systems for transparent communication, community participation, and feedback and complaints, as well as supporting health and WASH sectors to engage communities with key health and hygiene information to limit the outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and malaria.

Job duties and responsibilities:

Technical support to the operation:

• Support assessments to be transparent and participatory, capturing people’s information needs and trusted and preferred communication channels.
• Advising the sectors on approaches that support community participation in operational planning, design and implementation, for example in shelter and latrine construction, setting selection criteria and planning livelihoods response and recovery.
• Ensure a system is in place to collect and respond to community feedback and complaints, and that this data is used to guide and improve the response. Work with PGI to ensure this feedback system can appropriately respond to and refer sensitive complaints related to sexual exploitation and abuse, as well as corruption.
• Establish systems to share timely information with communities about the response, including services available, selection criteria, distribution processes, delays and exit strategies.
• Supporting health and hygiene promotion efforts to reduce outbreaks of disease, such as cholera and malaria, through identifying appropriate social and behaviour change communication activities (mobile cinema, radio etc) and establishing two-way communication channels to collect community beliefs, rumours, suggestions and questions and using this to inform the response
• Support sectors such as disaster risk reduction, livelihoods and shelter to disseminate important information to communities on important topics such as safe shelter construction and cyclone preparedness
• · Ensure CEA activities and approaches are included in operational plans and budgets and support the operation to achieve its aims.
• · Find ways to involve affected people in assessing the impact of the operational response.
• · Ensure women, children, the elderly, people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups have equal access to information channels and feedback mechanisms particular to their needs and taking into account any specific protection issues.

Capacity building:

• Train staff and volunteers working on the response on CEA and risk communication approaches, particularly those volunteers involved in working directly with communities such as social mobilisation, shelter and distribution of relief items. This includes working with PGI to ensure all volunteers are briefed on the Code of Conduct and what it means for their behaviour in communities, including prevention of sexual, exploitation and abuse
• Support the rolling out and adaptation of CEA Movement tools, methodologies and activities, as defined in the CEA Movement guide and toolkit.
• Build the capacity of the National Society to integrate CEA into their ways of working and support the development of an exit strategy to map out which CEA activities and approaches will be sustained after the end of the operation.

Coordination, representation and reporting:

• Support the coordination of CEA activities implemented across the operation by different Movement partners, including CVM, IFRC, PNS and ICRC.
• Coordinate with other UN and NGO partners and Government departments, including attending the Communication and CEA Working Group, and investigate opportunities for collective community engagement mechanisms.Identify opportunities for partnership with external organisations, including the use of technology and innovative approaches to enhance CEA.
• Support evidence-based learning by assessing and monitoring levels of community engagement through research, impact surveys, perception studies and case studies.
• Ensure CEA data is included in existing Information Management systems and platforms so it can be used to inform decision-making processes at strategic and operational level.
• Any other duties as assigned.

Please go to IFRC website to read more and to apply https://www.ifrc.org/en/who-we-are/working-with-us/current-vacancies/job-description/?id=24335