Position Description – Communications Associate

Advocates for Community Alternatives (ACA), based in Accra, Ghana, is recruiting a Communications Associate to enhance our external communications and media presence. This is a full-time position, to be filled as early as possible.

Established in April 2016, ACA helps West African communities that are threatened by the impacts of extractives-led development to take control of their own futures. We do this by working with communities to design sustainable development plans and to advocate to achieve those plans. We also build networks of lawyers and other experts to help communities’ plans come to fruition.

Role

ACA functions as a laboratory for innovations in community-driven development and legal strategies. We then teach our lessons to partners throughout West Africa, helping them to implement our methods and serve an ever-greater circle of communities. The Communications Associate will centralize and coordinate ACA’s communications functions, assisting program staff to develop content for the website, maintain relationships with journalists, place stories, and otherwise communicate the results and lessons of our work to relevant audiences. He or she will directly under the supervision of the Monitoring, Learning & Evaluation Coordinator, who is responsible for identifying our accomplishments, distilling our lessons, and designing learning products for external audiences. 40% of the Communications Coordinator’s time will be devoted to developing and implementing a communications architecture for ACA’s Simandou campaign in Guinea.

Specifically, he or she will undertake the following:

1. Website maintenance (20%) 

• In consultation with program staff, keep all pages of the ACA website up to date with news, documents, and explanatory content
• In consultation with program staff, draft new content for the ACA website, in particular, web stories and pages for new projects
• Identify and, with the technical support of ACA’s website consultants, implement enhancements to the website to improve readability, interest, and accessibility.

2. Promote and enhance effectiveness of ACA’s work in the media and with partners (40%)

• Build and maintain relationships with journalists in Ghana and internationally
• Write press releases and place stories in selected media
• In concert with ACA program staff, manage ACA’s social media accounts
• Assist Monitoring, Evaluation Learning Coordinator to create training materials and other products that communicate our learnings.

3. Simandou campaign (40%)

• With the technical support of ACA’s web/IT consultants, design, populate, and maintain dedicated website for Simandou campaign including key information, visual aids (e.g., maps, videos, photos and photos essays) in both English and French
• Manage relations with international journalists to publicize NGO coalition and communities’ positions on the Simandou project
• As directed, create content to be shared with advocacy targets and other stakeholders

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in English, communications, or other field related to effectiveness of written and oral communication.
• Minimum of three years professional experience in a media-facing position.
• Demonstrated success in using social media for a social cause
• Demonstrable experience in producing good quality documents for different audiences
• Fluency in English
• Excellent writing skills, including for public/external audiences
• Willingness and authorization to live in Ghana or other West African base of operations

Preferred Qualification

• French language proficiency strongly preferred
• Experience and skill in web design and maintenance
• Professional experience working in less-developed, rural communities

Compensation

Starting compensation package valued at between USD 10,000 and 15,000, depending on experience and qualifications.

Application Procedure

Submit to ACA’s Executive Director, Jonathan Kaufman, at jonathan@advocatesforalternatives.org, with the subject header “ACA Communications Associate,” the following:

• Cover letter explaining interest and relevant experience
• Resume/CV with list of three professional references
• Portfolio of three published pieces (should showcase ability to write for news media, ability to write for websites, and to create visually/graphically appealing communications)

If the application moves to the interview stages, each interview will be by teleconference.

Application Deadline

31st January 2023

Position Description – M&E Officer

Advocates for Community Alternatives (ACA), based in Accra, Ghana, is recruiting a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer to support the expansion of our community-driven development (CDD) work in the Eastern and Bono East Regions of Ghana. This is a full-time position located in Osino, in the Eastern Region of Ghana, to be filled as early as possible.

Established in April 2016, ACA helps West African communities that are threatened by the destructive impacts of extractives-led development to take control of their own futures. We do this by working with communities to design their own sustainable development plans and to advocate to achieve those plans. We also build networks of lawyers and other experts to help communities’ plans come to fruition. ACA has CDD and legal projects in communities in Ghana’s Bono East and Eastern Regions, in addition to collaborating and supporting programs for the Public Interest Lawyering Initiative for West Africa (PILIWA), a network of lawyers and legal advocates in nine West African countries.

Role

ACA functions as a laboratory for innovations in community-driven development and legal strategies. We then teach our lessons to partners throughout West Africa, helping them to implement our methods and serve an ever-greater circle of communities.

As part of the expansion of its community-based development work, the M&E Officer will play a key role in collecting and analyzing data and supporting project staff to ensure quality data for strategic decision making. He/she will work directly under the supervision of the Monitoring, Learning & Evaluation Coordinator (MELC), who is responsible for identifying our accomplishments, distilling our lessons, and designing learning products for external audiences.

Under the supervision of the MELC, he/she will:

• Assist facilitators in the collection of project monitoring and continuous learning data from CDD communities in Ghana, providing technical support to the project team on issues encountered in the field or raised by the monitoring system.
• Support MELC in the development of data collection tools, data collection and processing, particularly for case studies and pilot monitoring and evaluation.
• Centralize data collected by facilitators, process and analyze it in relation to the project’s key success indicators, to stimulate discussions on the effectiveness and efficiency of the project.
• Contribute to the development of logical measurement frameworks, monitoring systems, and evaluation strategies, including community participatory monitoring and feedback mechanisms.
• Conduct frequent monitoring and spot-check field visits with program staff to track the progress of community-based projects and ensure that the data collected is of the right quality.
• Analyze monitoring, evaluation, and research data and participate in discussions to present findings
  to partner organizations to stimulate discussions on project efficiency and effectiveness with partners.
• Contribute to the preparation of quarterly reports to partner organizations during quarterly reviews
  with partners.
• Work with the program team and MELC to document lessons learned and community successes on a quarterly basis regarding CDD and any ongoing pilots.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in statistics, quantitative discipline, economics, or other field related.
• Minimum two year’s work experience in program/project monitoring and evaluation research or data management and analysis position.
• Demonstrable experience in developing and refining data collection tools
• Experience in designing M&E frameworks for development projects
• Experience in qualitative and quantitative data collection using mobile technology.
• Demonstrated passion for community-led development projects/programs.
• Experience in data quality assessments and oversight
• Ability to produce high-quality documents for different audiences
• Fluency in English and Twi
• Excellent writing skills, including for public/external audiences
• Willingness and authorization to live in rural Ghana
• Willingness and ability to travel widely across up to nine West African countries, including to remote, rural areas lacking electricity and paved roads

Preferred Qualifications

• French language proficiency
• Professional experience working in less-developed, Ghanaian rural communities

Compensation

ACA offers a competitive starting compensation and benefits package worth between and USD 12,000 and 15,000 depending on experience and other qualifications.

Application Procedure

Submit to ACA’s Executive Director, Jonathan Kaufman, at jonathan@advocatesforalternatives.org, with the subject header “ACA Monitoring and Evaluation Officer” the following:

• Cover letter explaining interest and relevant experience
• Resume/CV and list of relevant professional publications
• List of three professional references

If the application moves to the interview stages, each interview will be by teleconference.

Application Deadline

3rd February 2023