Old job: Local Communication Officer

Terms of Reference

Title: Local Communication Officer

Timing: May 2024 – March 2025, with extension possibility

Level of Effort: Part-time – up to 10 days/ month.

Alinea International Ltd. (Canada) provides management and technical expertise to developing and transitional country partners on projects that promote sustainable growth and meaningful opportunities for people to improve their lives. The Safe Food for Growth project (SAFEGRO) which is funded by the Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada (GAC) for the period from 2019 to 2024, with extension to 2026, is being supported technically by the Canadian Executing Agency (CEA), led by Alinea in partnership with the University of Guelph and other leading food safety organizations.

The SAFEGRO is designed to support the Government of Vietnam to ensure better access to safe and competitive agri-food products, with an aim to improve the well-being of female and male consumers as well as other beneficiaries (including poor farmers) in Vietnam. The project operates across the agri-food value chains by engaging and building the capacity of three main target groups: the public sector (enabling environment), the private sector (supply side), and the consumer (demand side) to achieve 3 inter-related component outcomes:

Intermediate Outcome (1100) – Enabling environment: "Improved performance of national and sub-national governments in food safety regulation enforcement along the value chain to meet international standards”.
Intermediate Outcome (1200) – Supply side: "Increased competitiveness of poor farmers and other actors, particularly women, supplying safe agri-food products to domestic and international markets”.
Intermediate Outcome (1300) – Demand side: "Increased consumer demand for safe and affordable agri-food in Vietnam".

The SAFEGRO technical team works with national and sub-national governments to enforce food safety regulations, private sector suppliers to increase the competitiveness of Vietnamese food products domestically and internationally, and consumers to improve demand for safe food in Vietnam. Key partners on this project include The Ministry of Agriculture Rural Development (MARD), the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT), the Ministry of Health (MOH), Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh city agencies, and other Vietnamese Academic Institutes.

The government of Vietnam has committed to promote environmentally friendly agricultural technology and practices and gender equality by making these as cross-cutting issues in all political, economic, and cultural and social spheres. Therefore, within scope of SAFEGRO project, gender equality shall be integrated across all activities in the TORs to ensure: (i) collection of gender-disaggregated data for reporting and MEL; (ii) gender-sensitivity languages, photos, images, messages, etc.; (iii) equal participation in decision-making and benefit of women and men from activities and services; (iv) gender analysis before any intervention, decisions, or outlining plans and; (v) Gender equality mainstreaming shall be discussed at all meetings and consultations with government counterparts, regardless of the topics, technical or otherwise.

The Project mobilizes international and national consultants to provide high quality technical assistance and capacity building activities to the government agencies and chain actors. To implement the project activities, Alinea International is seeking a part-time Local Communication Officer for the SAFEGRO project.

Scope of Work

The Local Communication Officer (LCO) will be based in Hanoi and work in a team with international consultants and national consultants under the supervision of the Project Director (PD) and Project Manager (PM). The LCO will handle internalcommunications activities for the SAFEGRO project, focusing on the project’s social media and website. S/he will ensure project compliance with Alinea and Global Affairs Canada rules and requirements related to branding and marking photo consent policies as well. The LCO will ensure that all communication products are designed and developed with gender sensitive and environmentally responsive messaging on food safety. The position requires fieldwork for collecting information and pictures as inputs to the work.

Detail responsibilities/tasks, deliverable, and level of efforts per month.

The Local Communication Officer will perform the main tasks but not limited as bellow:

No	Deliverables	Responsibilities
1	Coordination of component 3 activities and reporting	Take lead in coordination and implementation of project communicationactivities under the component 3 (demand side), including to monitor and work with consultants to ensure high quality services/products from the project to target benefiting agencies. Provide technical input in the development of the Performance Measurement Framework (PMF), the risk register, annual work plans, monthly highlight reports, semi-annual and annual reports. Develop and work with project partners to implement a communication strategy for project in general and provide detailed communication inputs to achieve the expected project outcomes as identified in the Logical model (Appendix of the Project Description) when required. Provide technical support to civil society organizations, particularly consumer and women’s groups to develop social media tools for sharing information on food safety and availability of safe and affordable agri-food products. Work with the Alinea Communications team to develop and share food safety communication materials to relevant networks, including on social media platforms.
2	Project visibility in events and activities	Take lead in designing communication messages and appearance (backdrops, logos, etc) ensuring project visibility (SAFEGRO and GAC) appeared in all events and activities supported by the Project. Support project events, technical trainings, field visits with engagement of media, partners, and donor and government agencies ensuring project visibility to audiences.
3	Communication products (such as video clips, scripts, gender e-learning modules and scenario)	Provide technical assistance to the media to communicate gender sensitive and environmentally responsive messaging on food safety and availability of affordable safe Agri food products in a well-informed manner. Develop gender sensitive educational materials on key aspects of food safety that are specifically designed for various age groups and disseminated to educational institutions. Provide technical assistance to Ministry of Healths (and other government agencies) to improve their public communication regarding food safety issues in a gender and environmentally responsive manner. Supervise other service providers (e.g. VTV2 and others) to produce high quality communication product for the project.
4	Quarterly newsletters, News, Blogs highlighting key activities, results, good practices, and success stories	Collect information from project activities to prepare newsletters, press release and communication briefs for project visibility information dissemination, as required. Document good practices, success stories and innovative methodologies implemented within the project.
5	Regular social media posts/ website posts and management	Administer and regularly propose improvement on the project’s website and social media page. Develop posts/news featuring project events, activities, progress, and achievement in collaboration with technical staff. Manage and enhance project website and social media page in terms of structure, contents, and appearance for audience attraction.
6	Food safety culture consultative group coordination	Coordinate the activities of “FoodSafety Culture Consultative Group” in collaboration with other technical staff and consultants.
7	Design of project reports/presentations/ publication	Ensure high-quality presentations, documents, reports aligned with the project’s branding requirements. Define technical requirements and format of creative assets to support project activities including professional photos, educational materials, etc. Engage and manage consultants/ vendors as needed for communications activities, ensuring timely, high-quality deliverables produced from them
8	Other related duties as required by the PD and PM	TBD

Required qualification:

The Local Communication Officer must possess the following minimum qualifications and experience:

At least anundergraduate degree (i.e. University bachelor's degree) in a relevant discipline such as communication, business communication, journalism, speech communication, technical communication across digital, written, and visual platforms.
Having good knowledge and experience of gender equality and women empowerment. Have solid experience in designing and developing communication products with gender sensitivity and gender responsibility approach.
Level 4 - Advanced Professional Proficiency in English and in Vietnamese (oral, reading and writing).
60 months of combined professional experience in (i) communicating scientific and technical information to diverse audiences; (ii) providing advice and making decisions regarding the most appropriate and effective means to communicate specific information to target audiences; (iii) developing communication plans and budgets; and (iv) working on visual/design platforms/software.

We welcome all applications, regardless of ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression; candidates that belong to underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to apply. The recruitment process is based on fair standards.

Compensation: Alinea offers competitive salaries and an excellent benefits package. Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience.

For those who are interested in applying for the Local Communication Officer position, please send your application (letter of interest and CV with details on relevant qualifications and experiences) with at least 3 referees by email to [email protected] by 17h00 on 20 May 2024.

Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted, no telephone enquiries, please. Please include the job title in your email subject line.

VUFO NGO Resource Centre

Local Communication Officer