Strategic & Digital Government Communications Advisor & Team Lead

About the Role

Aktis is recruiting a Digital and Strategic Communications Advisor for a digital communication and capacity building project with the Government of Iraq. This is a great opportunity for an experienced strategic communications and/or public affairs expert with significant digital communications and campaign skills and training experience who is looking for a new and exciting challenge in Iraq. A successful candidate will be offered a highly competitive package and a flexible working arrangement.
This senior-level position will support the Team Leader, with the intention of assuming that role after a three-month transition period, and advise on direction and oversight of existing and upcoming sub-national communication opportunities in Iraq, working closely with a technical team of local governance and reform experts. The position will be part of Aktis’s Behavioural Communications team.

The successful candidate will:
• Draft appropriate communication strategy and activity plans that support the successful implementation of and citizen engagement with technical sub-national reform-focussed programming;
• Provide appropriate public affairs advice to Government of Iraq stakeholders in considering how they improve their internal strategic communication functions;
• Design and oversee digital campaign strategies and corresponding new platforms that facilitate dialogue and interaction between local Iraqis and the Government of Iraq and provincial level bodies;
• Develop and implement digital and social media training initiatives for Iraqi civil service members to improve local capacity to implement social media initiatives;
• Support and direct the team in Iraq with information on sub-national government-backed initiatives that demonstrate genuine progress towards meeting citizens' needs and can be turned into human-centred narrative and stories;
• Contributed to a project-specific M&E log frame that supports robust data collection to evidence outputs and outcomes and aggregates inputs against the overall project log frame;
• Liaise with the client and build and maintain relationships with relevant Government of Iraq (GOI) officials at levels ranging from national to local;
• Support the project’s Team Leader across the broader project, when required;
• Develop and apply innovative thinking and approaches to Strategic Communications in concert with Aktis’ Behavioural Communications Practice, and
• Work with the Aktis Iraq team, the project team, and Aktis’ Behavioural Communications Practice team to build a reputation for impactful programming and high-quality results.
 

About You
We are looking for a team member keen to develop a career in the international development and stabilisation sector, and:
• Have 8+ years’ post-qualification experience in international development, management consultancy or the public sector working on Strategic Communications, Media, Public Affairs and/or related public policy issues;
• Technical expertise in Strategic Communications, with a well-developed theoretical/academic understanding, and strong current knowledge of donor policy agendas and programming priorities and intentions;
• Significant experience in digital strategy and campaigning, including understanding of the monitoring and evaluation for social media campaigns;
• Experience working in government communications advisory; similar experience in private sector is highly desirable;
• High level analytical, written and oral communication skills in English; Arabic language skills are highly desirable;
• Demonstrated success at business development and client handling, and
• Active desire to travel extensively in challenging, conflict-affected and fragile state environments.
Personal Skills and Abilities:
• High energy, maturity, and leadership with the ability to serve as a unifying force and to position communications discussions at both the strategic and tactical levels;
• Sincere commitment to work collaboratively with all stakeholders;
• Able to work independently, and entrepreneurial; enjoys creating and implementing new initiatives;
• A strong track record as an implementer who thrives on managing a variety of key initiatives concurrently; and
• Relationship builder with the flexibility and finesse to manage by influence.

It will be considered an additional advantage if the candidate has:
• Proven management and research capabilities;
• Arabic-language skills;
• Project management and delivery experience in an international context;
• A relevant post-graduate degree in the areas Strategic Communications or Media, and
• Previous relevant experience in a similar environment and/or region.