Communications Specialist for the Rural Development (RD) Focus Area job at GIZ Uganda | Apply Now

.The Communications Specialist will be responsible for:

• Serve as the focal point for all communications within the RD cluster—proactively initiating narratives, campaigns, and multimedia content that aligns with project priorities and stakeholder interests.

• Lead the design, implementation, and continuous refinement of a comprehensive communications strategy for the RD focus area, ensuring alignment with Country Office (CO), HQ, and commissioning party guidelines.

• Position the RD focus area as a visible, credible, and influential player in Uganda’s development landscape, fostering strong brand recognition and public awareness.

• Drive strategic media engagement to build and sustain relationships with key local and national media outlets, ensuring consistent coverage and positive visibility for RD programmes.

• Strengthen partnerships by developing compelling communications products that showcase results, innovations, and impact to attract new stakeholders and retain existing ones.

• Ensure compliance with standards and guidelines and quality assurance of all communication and visibility materials developed under the RD focus area.

• Embed communication and visibility planning into all RD project cycles, ensuring proactive integration from design through implementation to evaluation.

• Support knowledge management by collaborating with the MEL team to curate, store, and disseminate content that enhances learning, replicability, and innovation across the portfolio.

Specific Tasks

• The Communications Specialist shall perform the following tasks:

Media Work

• Proactively plan, coordinate, and execute the projects’ press activities remotely and on site, in cooperation with technical teams and local partners.

• Serve as the main liaison for all media inquiries, ensuring strategic alignment and timely, consistent responses in coordination with RD management.

• Develop strong, ongoing relationships with print, broadcast, and digital media representatives, both at national and local levels, to secure favourable coverage both in Kampala and in Northern Uganda and other project areas.

• Undertake post-event media monitoring (i.e. collecting and review of media clips related to programme/project work, to assess reach, effectiveness, content quality and quantity, among others).

• Press review (digital and paper) and analysis in the context of Rural Development.

• Job market trends

• Part-time jobs

Communication and Visibility Work

• Implement standards and guidelines for GIZ communication work.

• Maintain a strategic editorial calendar for all RD-related content across platforms, ensuring a steady flow of high-quality communication outputs.

• Closely work with technical officers and management of the RD projects to conceptualise, prepare, design and quality check suitable communication materials e.g. project descriptions on the GIZ website, brochures, flyers, factsheets, banners etc, in line with existing GIZ corporate design guidelines.

• Lead implementation and monitoring of the strategic communication plan of the RD focus area (including budget) and/or specific RD projects, e.g. developing publications, ensuring documentation and communication on project progress, innovations and results internally and externally through different channels using different approaches.

• Actively contribute to the documentation and dissemination of project innovations and results—both internally and externally—using diverse communication channels and formats.

• Guide and assist the technical teams in ensuring collection of information, photographs and other related material for developing knowledge products in a timely manner.

• Offer support to the management and technical teams responding to internal and external stakeholders’ information needs.

Events and Campaigns

• Oversee the communication dimension of RD events (workshops, launches, forums, etc.) to ensure high-impact stakeholder engagement and media visibility.

• Collaborate with the Procurement Officer to plan and deliver communications support for events across national and district levels.

• Ensure all visibility and branding requirements are met during events in compliance with GIZ guidelines.

• Organise and provide any input requested in communication and visibility[BG1] [TA2] in coordination with the Management Team. .

• Take photos in project sites and record interviews of key officials and beneficiaries.

• Write articles for GIZ IDA page from the ongoing activities, events, and topics under the programme to inform the internal audience about RD focal area or selected RD projects.

Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning Support

• Support to the MEL Advisors and the RD Projects Advisor in the preparation of regular progress updates and annual progress reports (PFB) respectively for selected RD projects.

• Provide MEL teams with indicator-relevant content and communication outputs to support evidence generation and results-based reporting.

• Develop systems for tracking communication outputs, media coverage, stakeholder feedback, and visibility performance metrics.

Quality Assurance

• Ensure the correct use of logos and disclaimers by the programme, all advisors, and partners according to the GIZ communications guidelines and P&R.

• Support the partners to comply with the requirements within the GIZ Corporate Communications guidelines.

• Cooperate with the Country Office Communications Specialist and the Head Office communications contact persons.

• Support MEL by providing indicator-relevant information as well as means of verification in communication and visibility.

Photography, Interviews & Field Documentation

• Lead or supervise the collection of high-quality photographs, interviews, and video footage from project sites.

• Ensure timely transcription, editing, and archiving of interviews and testimonials for internal and external use.

• Document success stories that reflect project outcomes and community impact.for different target audiences, in different formats and for different communication channels – ensuring interviews are well transcribed.

Other Duties/Additional Tasks

• Perform other duties and tasks at the request of management.