Project Officer – BBC Media Action

REPORTS TO: Project Director, Kenya

BASE: Nairobi

DURATION: 12 months (with possible extension depending on performance and funding)

BBC Media Action

BBC Media Action is the BBC’s international development charity. We use media and communications to help reduce poverty, address development goals, and support people to understand their rights. We do this through partnering with media, civil society, and others to produce creative programmes and other outputs which inform and engage audiences on key development issues. We also strengthen the media sector through building professional capacity and infrastructure of local media organizations in the countries in which we work.

Overall Purpose of Job

Reporting to the Project Director, the Project Officer (PO) will be responsible for the logistical and administrative aspects of a number of BBC Media Action projects. S/he will support the project team in planning and reporting of project activities, while ensuring that all contractual obligations are adhered to.

Main Duties

1. Support the planning, budgeting, reporting and general management of all project and production activities.
2. Support in building and maintaining effective relationships with key stakeholders including media and consortium partners, technical experts and donors.
3. Support in organizing workshops and other events, compiling evidence required by donors for reporting including participants lists, consent forms, suppliers’ invoices, equipment specs, photos and drafting reports.
4. Help coordinate M&E activities with the Research & Learning Team and take an active role in understanding research findings and adapting project activities accordingly.
5. Produce on time and to a high standard of coherence, clarity, and strategy complete draft narrative and reports for donor(s) and internal audiences using agreed templates.
6. Represent BBC Media Action at local stakeholder’s strategy and coordination meetings and liaise with donors and other relevant stakeholders as required.
7. Ensure that any challenges or problems faced during implementation are channelled upwards, in the first instance to the Projects Director.
8. Ensure projects’ adherence to donor operating guidelines and relevant BBC Media Action’s policies and standards, including in finance, procurement, IT and HR.
9. Follow BBC Media Action safety requirements and instructions, especially in relation to risk assessments, travel, production, emergencies, and hostile environments.
10. Support the recruitment and induction of new staff.
11. Other duties as assigned by the Project Director and Country Director.
12. Support the CD and other SMT members in the delivery of relevant training to all staff and freelancers contracted directly by the office.
13. Factor safeguarding issues into project design and include costs within budgets.
14. Ensure that relevant safeguarding due diligence is conducted with any local partner organizations that may be working with vulnerable adults or children as part of the project. Where any risks are identified, ensure that projects are designed to mitigate these risks.
15. Report any Safeguarding concerns immediately, either to the Country Director, or using the Whistleblowing Policy.

Essential Knowledge, skills, and experience

Experience coordinating diverse project activities including training and capacity-building activities.

• Knowledge and understanding of the varying needs and interests of media audiences and beneficiaries in Kenya.
• Excellent communication and report-writing skills in English.
• Experience in working with international project budgets and demonstrable skills in handling basic budget spreadsheets and transparent, fair procurement policies.
• Ability to design, plan, implement, monitor and adjust work based on the project’s strategy and objectives.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, with proven track record in forming effective relationships with a range of local and international partners.
• Ability to conduct work with minimal supervision and good time management skills, with a track record of delivering results by the deadline and to a high standard of quality.
• Strong presentation skills, communicating complex technical ideas using non-technical language to a wide range of audiences from journalists, production staff, researchers, donors and development practitioners.
• Experience in media development and/or media-for-development.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a team from different backgrounds both on site and remotely.
• Strong IT skills, including MS Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.
• Willingness and ability to travel within Kenya occasionally.
• Experience in working in teams from different backgrounds both on site and remotely.
• Experience of assessing and mitigating risks.

Desirable knowledge, skills, and experience

• Higher education in a relevant field, such as journalism, development studies, development communications, project/business management etc.
• Strong understanding of and commitment to issues of governance, transparency, accountability, financial sustainability and participation.
• Demonstrable interest in the potential of the media to achieve development goals.
• Experience of working in the field of media development, or communications for development.
• Knowledge of local languages an advantage.

Key competencies

• Analytical thinking: Ability to simplify complex problems, processes or projects into component parts, and to explore and evaluate them systematically.
• Decision making: Ability to take the initiative, originate action and be responsible for the consequences of the decision made.
• Planning and organization: Ability to think ahead in order to establish an efficient and appropriate course of action for self and others. Prioritizes and plans activities taking into account all the relevant issues and factors such as deadlines, staffing and resource requirements.
• Managing relationships and team working: able to build and maintain effective working relationships with a range of people. Works co-operatively with others to be part of a team, as opposed to working separately or competitively.
• Resilience: Ability to maintain personal effectiveness by managing own emotions in the face of pressure, setbacks or when dealing with provocative situations.
• Influencing and persuading: Ability to present sound and well-reasoned arguments to convince others.
• Professional ethics: Ability to exercise sensitivity and moral judgment with conscience in all activities. Should be objective, independent and free of conflicts of interest.
• Communication: The ability to get one’s message understood clearly by adopting a range of styles, tools and techniques appropriate to the audience and the nature of the information.
• Strategic Thinking: Can identify a vision along with the plans which need to be implemented to meet the end goal. Evaluates situations, decisions, issues, etc. in the short, medium and longer term.
• Imagination/Creative Thinking: Is able to transform creative ideas/impulses into practical reality. Can look at existing situations and problems in novel ways and come up with creative solutions.