Senior Digital Communications Officer

TERMS OF REFERENCE
Short-term opportunity:
Digital Engagement Strategy Lead
Duration: Approximately 15 days. Exact duration and working arrangement to be agreed.
Contract: Consultant/freelance contract (early-April 2024 to 31st May 2024, with possibility of extension)
Issue Date: Monday 25th March 2024
Closing date: Wednesday 3rd April 2024
Expressions of interest
Applicants should submit:
• Their CV
• A cover letter outlining (1) how their experience qualifies them for the job and (2) why they are
motivated to take on the work.
• Their proposed fee for the work
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
BBC Media Action is the BBC’s international development organisation. We believe in media and
communication for good. We work in over 20 countries around the world reaching more than 100
million people a year – helping to save lives and improve health, protect livelihoods, challenge inequality
and build more peaceful and democratic societies.
This assignment is part of BBC Media Action’s ESARO Digital Engagement Strategy project, funded by
UNICEF. The aim of the project is to develop a Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) Regional Digital
Engagement Strategy for UNICEF related to youth-focused programmatic priorities in their Eastern and
Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO). This Regional Digital Engagement Strategy will be developed to
be applicable across thematic areas of work, and, following the development of the draft strategy, it will
be operationalized in four selected countries in the region for a specific thematic area.
Objective
The overall aim of this assignment is to support the development of the Regional Digital Engagement
Strategy for the UNICEF ESARO region. The consultant would be responsible for bringing together the
complete draft regional strategy by engaging with BBC Media Action teams responsible for writing
different elements of the strategy and relevant UNICEF colleagues. The consultant will also be required
to conduct desk research and complete a review of relevant documentation to ensure the relevance and
applicability of the strategy to UNICEF’s practices and ways of working.
The consultant should be a specialist in digital engagement and have experience of developing SBC strategies. An understanding and experience of delivering similar work with UN organisations, in particular UNICEF, is desirable.
The specific objectives of the Regional Digital Engagement Strategy will be to contribute to:

•
an increased knowledge among UNICEF SBC and Programme teams, and their partners, of the variety of digital platforms and tools and social media channels that have been developed and deployed by UNICEF or third parties in the region;

•
an enhanced awareness among UNICEF SBC and Programme teams of successful digital engagement initiatives on the programme areas of interest and/or in terms of promoting civic engagement and youth participation;

•
an increased understanding of how UNICEF Country Offices and their partners can apply specific digital engagement approaches to an integrated intersectoral/multisectoral programming, independently or in combination with face-to-face methods, with a disaggregated analysis for reaching marginalised youth populations, including youth with disability;

•
an increased engagement with key influencers in the digital space (as per available social listening analytics) that can engage youth on specific programmatic actions;

•
an increased digital reach among youth ensuring that SBC can gather evidence-based data to measure the impact of digital initiatives towards L2E, SRH, HIV, HPV, VAC, mental health, and climate action outcomes.
Outputs
The consultant will work with other members of the BBC Media Action team to deliver the following outputs over the course of their assignment:
1)
Writing specific areas of the strategy focused on Digital Engagement Interventions (by 3rd May 2024): The consultant will conduct a review of existing documentation and use their digital engagement and SBC expertise and experience to write areas of the strategy within the Developing Digital Engagement Interventions for SBC strategy section. Review of documents will be coupled with participation in sessions with UNICEF and BBC Media Action colleagues, including the Regional Theory of Change sessions, to enable the consultant to lead on writing certain areas of the strategy, including but not limited to understanding digital users, approach to communication, content production and pilot testing.
2)
Delivering complete draft strategy (by 10th May 2024): The consultant will bring together all strategy inputs (from other members of the BBC Media Action team and sections written themselves) to deliver a holistic and comprehensive final output. This will include reviewing draft inputs of all sections of the strategy, from other team members, ensuring consistency in writing style, language and approach throughout, as well as leading on the writing of the introduction and summary.
The consultant will be expected to oversee and incorporate feedback to the draft strategy up to 31st May 2024.