Community Engagement Specialist

Organizational Context

The FAO in Ukraine reinforces national capacities in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, supporting resilience and early recovery in conflict-affected regions. With offices across Ukraine, FAO scales up emergency humanitarian and resilience programming to address dire food security. Guided by its Rapid Response Plan, FAO provides life-saving assistance to vulnerable farming households and supports the agrifood sector, contributing to national and international food security. This role is based in Kharkiv.

Job Purpose

The Community Engagement Specialist ensures farmers in mine-affected areas adopt safe agricultural practices, participate in activities, and benefit from land rehabilitation. This involves conducting community mobilization, supporting beneficiary outreach and data collection, and implementing the Mine Action team's communications plan. The Specialist will also liaise with the Communications Team to produce relevant materials. The role is programmatically focused, integrating communication and community engagement into project implementation to foster behaviour change, community ownership, and effective participation in Mine Action initiatives. This is crucial for successful land rehabilitation and farmer safety.

Responsibilities

The Specialist will support the Mine Action programme's internal communications plan, ensuring timely information sharing and content production. This includes translating complex technical information from specialists into plain-language content for farmers and local stakeholders, such as key messages, briefs, and guidance notes. The role involves developing tailored outreach materials like video scripts, brochures, and social media content, coordinating their production and dissemination with the FAO Ukraine Communications Unit. The Specialist will develop and conduct community engagement sessions based on behaviour change principles, tracking the adoption of safe agricultural practices. Support will be provided for procurement activities and field coordination for farming community surveys, facilitating community liaison and feedback. Logistical and coordination support for project activities, including workshops and field visits, is also required. The Specialist will document community feedback and lessons learned, providing structured reports to inform programme design. Contributions to drafting project progress and donor reports, preparing inputs on community engagement, and summarizing outcomes are essential. The role also involves developing communication materials for beneficiary data collection and verification, providing project-level updates to track indicators, and performing other duties to support the Mine Action and Land Rehabilitation Programme.

Work Experience

At least three years of relevant professional experience in programme communications, community engagement, behaviour change communication, or supporting the implementation of development or humanitarian projects is essential.

Skills

Required skills include Results Focus, Teamwork, Communication, Building Effective Relationships, and Knowledge Sharing. Candidates need experience drafting communication materials, translating technical information into accessible content, and coordinating with technical or communications teams. Graphic design skills and familiarity with basic design tools are beneficial, along with good knowledge of MS Office and information systems for data management. Demonstrated ability to translate complex technical data into plain language for non-technical audiences is crucial. Field experience in humanitarian, recovery, or mine-affected contexts is an advantage. The role requires adaptability to complex humanitarian contexts, strong interpersonal and facilitation skills, and the ability to work under pressure independently. Knowledge of humanitarian principles is also important.

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