Communications Officer at Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA)

Supervisor : Field Project Manager
Job Status: Start Date TBA; Full-time 1-year contract renewable up to 5 Years

Project Profile
Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and MEDA are supporting 16,000 women and youth entrepreneurs and small-scale businesses to improve their business performance in the agricultural sector in Bauchi State, while also increasing the awareness and capacity to address issues of early and forced child marriage with 25,000 community and family members.

Over five years (2017-2022), the project will focus on selected agricultural value chains originating in Bauchi State to improve the business performance and environment for entrepreneurs and small-scale businesses. The project will focus on small scale business of women and youth in selected agriculture sectors to improve productivity, increase access to markets, financial services and information and to incorporate environmentally sustainable practices.

The project will work with families and communities to better understand the risks of early and forced child marriage and benefits of engaging women and youth in entrepreneurship through awareness campaigns, employment and entrepreneurship skills building, provision of safe spaces, networking and mentorship opportunities.

Position Summary

• The Communications Officer will coordinate with the MEDA WAY team members to design and implement the program's communications and information strategy.
• The communication strategy is for the project to support effective messaging about the project with a variety of stakeholders.
• The information strategy is more programmatic and refers to the information space available to the project's clients and how information is used as a tool for development in the three value chains.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Implement the project's Communications Strategy
• Develop communications content for project reports, website, Facebook, and other print materials including writing client stories, quarterly newsletters, blogs and articles and house these in an organised database for the use of the project.
• Plan and execute events and campaigns that promotes the successes of women and youth small producers
• Develop an informational strategy with MEDA Nigeria's partners namely FOMWAN and BAHRN to raise the level of dialogue in the public space about where and how girls are entering the market system and the threats and risks to them as well as awareness about the risks of early and forced child marriage (EFCM) as part of the project's strategy to advocate the risks of EFCM into Marketing and Communications Strategy
• Assist with research and evaluating the most effective approaches to reach women and youth and continue building communications and marketing linkages that will strengthen women and youth's access to a full range of information on an ongoing basis
• Routinely collect information (such as news articles) on agriculture, economic development, early and forced child marriage and women/youth empowerment in Nigeria to share with office staff
• Other communication and administrative duties as assigned
• Any other tasks as may be assigned by the line manager or management
• Apply MEDA's values in all activities  cultural sensitivity, transparency and integrity in all relationships.

Qualifications

• University degree in Marketing, Communications, Journalism, Economics, Business Administration, International Development or related field
• Strong writing, photography, social media and graphic design skills
• Independent, self-directed and highly motivated
• Knowledge of international and business development concepts
• Demonstrated understanding of other cultures
• Strong English writing skills
• Critical thinker, ability to problem solve and work collaboratively in a team to achieve results
• Strong work ethics and ability to carry out duties at a high professional standard
• Persistent, thorough and ability to deliver timely reports
• Good computing skills including Microsoft office software packages
• Sector experience: agriculture/agribusiness, and/or extractive sectors plus some rural experience
• Fluency in English and Hausa is required.
• Prior work experience in Nigeria is preferred
• Appreciation and support of MEDA's values, mission and purpose