Governance and Justice Communications Specialist

The Asia Pacific Regional Office, based in Bangkok, Thailand, provides strategic leadership and oversight for UNOPS operations across 17 countries, ensuring high performance, operational excellence, and alignment with organizational goals. Operations currently span Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Pacific Islands. Across these countries, we work closely with key stakeholders to strengthen partnerships and maximize impact through five main operating units: Afghanistan (AFCO), Myanmar (MMCO), South Asia Multi-Country Office (SAMCO), East Asia and Pacific Multi-Country Office (EAPMCO), and the Asia Regional Health Cluster (ARHC). Through these entities, we provide agile, client-focused service delivery across diverse sectors - including infrastructure, health, procurement, and project management - supporting the implementation of sustainable development solutions across the region.

The East Asia and Pacific Multi-Country Office (EAPMCO), headquartered in Bangkok, supports UNOPS operations across 24 countries in Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, and the Pacific. Established in January 2023, EAPMCO provides strategic direction, operational support, and quality assurance to ensure the efficient and effective delivery of projects across its portfolio. EAPMCO implements initiatives in priority areas such as energy transition, climate change, and sustainable development, drawing on UNOPS' core expertise in human resources, procurement, infrastructure, fund management, and programme management.

Established in 2016, UNOPS Philippines supports the government and development partners in advancing sustainable development through services including sustainable procurement, project and grant management, infrastructure, and logistical support. UNOPS projects in the Philippines focus on key areas such as governance, justice, health, and infrastructure, with a strong emphasis on capacity building, community resilience, and accelerating progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Partnership for Peace and Development in Mindanao (PPDM) Programme, known as EU4BARMM, is a European Union-funded initiative supporting peacebuilding, institutional strengthening, and inclusive governance in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). The programme operates across multiple thematic work packages addressing the tri-justice system — encompassing formal, Shari'ah, and customary justice systems — reflecting the region's socio-cultural, historical, and constitutional identity under the Bangsamoro Organic Law.

Effective communication is a strategic, cross-cutting imperative for the EU4BARMM programme. The programme's credibility and public legitimacy depend on a coherent narrative that builds trust in the BARMM justice system and advances public knowledge and understanding of its pluralistic legal architecture. At the same time, donor visibility, results documentation, and knowledge management requirements necessitate a consistent, high-quality communications presence across all work packages and programme reporting cycles.

Multiple work packages generate communication-related deliverables — including documentation of legal processes, development of knowledge products, community awareness campaigns, and visibility materials — each with distinct audience profiles, technical content requirements, and messaging objectives. Without a centralized communications function, there is a significant risk of inconsistent messaging, technical inaccuracies in the translation of process, performance or substantive content into accessible formats, and duplication of communications roles across work packages.

A dedicated Communications Specialist with substantive understanding of the tri-justice system and the BARMM legal and political context is essential to ensure the relevance, accuracy, and quality of all programme communications outputs. The Specialist will serve as the programme's central communications resource, consolidating communications requirements across work packages under a unified strategic framework, complemented by targeted short-term inputs from technical resource persons where needed.

The Communications Specialist provides centralized, crosscutting strategic communications support across the EU4BARMM programme, ensuring consistency of messaging, technical accuracy, and coherence of communication outputs across all work packages. Operating as part of the programme's crosscutting advisory and quality assurance layer under the supervision of the Programme Manager, the Specialist consolidates communications requirements across the programme under a unified strategic framework, reducing duplication of communications roles within individual work packages.

The role focuses on strategic direction, editorial oversight, and quality assurance of key communication outputs, while providing targeted support to work package teams as required.. The Communications Specialist ensures that complex socio-political, legal and institutional content related to the tri-justice system is translated into accurate, accessible, and context-appropriate formats, contributing to building trust in and advancing public understanding of the BARMM tri-justice system and the programme’s broader development objectives.

1. Strategic Communications Planning

• Develop and maintain a programme-wide strategic communications framework aligned with programme objectives and donor visibility requirements, including efforts to build trust in and advance public understanding of the BARMM tri-justice system.
• Ensure the communications framework reflects the pluralistic legal identity of the Bangsamoro, contextualizes goals and interventions within the broader Bangsamoro peace process narrative, and is sensitive to the socio-cultural, historical, political, and religious context of the region.
• Provide guidance in defining audience segmentation, messaging frameworks, and channel strategies to effectively engage the programme's diverse stakeholder groups, including government counterparts, civil society, justice sector actors, communities, and development partners.
• Advise on messaging, positioning, and communication approaches across programme outputs to ensure narrative coherence and consistency.

2. Knowledge Product Development

• Provide strategic direction and editorial oversight in the development of key knowledge products across work packages, including policy briefs, analytical summaries, case documentation, thematic briefing notes, and lessons-learned outputs.
• Provide guidance on the packaging of work package outputs, including legal mapping findings, Shari'ah training materials, and case documentation, into knowledge products that support programme learning and institutional memory.
• Support the translation of complex legal, institutional, and tri-justice concepts into accessible, clearly written, and audience-appropriate formats.
• Coordinate with relevant technical advisers to ensure knowledge products are technically accurate and aligned with programme messaging, donor visibility requirements, UNOPS corporate communications standards, and the programme's SDG narrative.

3. Programme Activity Documentation and Visibility

• Provide guidance and quality assurance for the documentation of programme activities across all work packages, including dialogues, roundtables, trainings, consultations, and community engagement activities.
• Review and provide inputs to visibility and documentation outputs to ensure clarity, consistency, and alignment with programme messaging.
• Advise on documentation approaches to ensure outputs are fit for purpose for reporting, knowledge management, visibility, and institutional memory.
• Support the development of human interest and success stories and results narratives that illustrate the programme's contributions and stakeholder level impact.
• Advise on the systematization of communications assets, activity records, and visibility materials to support future reporting and knowledge management.

4. Community Awareness and Advocacy Communications

• Provide strategic inputs to the design and development of community-targeted awareness and advocacy communications materials across relevant work packages, including information, education, and communication (IEC) materials, simplified legal content, and awareness campaign outputs.
• Ensure that community-facing communications are culturally appropriate, linguistically accessible, inclusive, engaging and relevant to diverse BARMM communities, including Moro communities, Indigenous Peoples, women, youth, and other marginalized groups.
• Advise on communication strategies for reaching marginalized and hard-to-reach populations, in coordination with the Gender and Inclusion Specialist.
• Support the transition of complex legal and governance concepts into simplified, context appropriate formats that explain the rights, processes, and services across the tri-justice system.
• Coordinate with relevant technical advisers to ensure community-facing outputs are technically accurate, gender-responsive, and culturally sensitive.

5. Crosscutting Work Package Communications Support

• Provide targeted, on-demand communications support across work packages, aligned with programme priorities, implementation timelines, and key milestones.
• Advise work package teams on communications approaches, audience targeting, messaging, format, and output quality.
• Coordinate with work package teams to ensure accurate and consistent representation of technical content in communications outputs.
• Maintain oversight of programme-wide communications timelines and key deliverables to support alignment with reporting, visibility, and knowledge management requirements.
• Serve as a technical resource for communications-related queries from work package focal points.

6. Donor Visibility and External Reporting Communications

• Provide advisory support to ensure all programme communications outputs comply with donor visibility requirements and UNOPS corporate communications guidelines, including branding, attribution, and visibility standards.
• Support the development, consistency and periodic updating of donor visibility products, including programme fact sheets, periodic communications briefs, featured results stories, and other external facing materials.
• Provide communications inputs to programme reporting, donor engagement materials, presentations, programme reviews, and evaluation related outputs.

7. Technical Accuracy and Quality Assurance

• Ensure that all programme communications outputs accurately reflect tri-justice concepts, legal frameworks, institutional processes, programme results, and SDG contribution narratives.
• Establish and maintain a programme-wide communications quality assurance approach, including review and clearance processes for key outputs prior to dissemination.
• Coordinate with the Justice Sector Institutional Adviser to validate the technical legal accuracy of outputs involving formal, Shari'ah, or customary legal content.
• Coordinate with the Gender and Inclusion Specialist to ensure outputs are gender-responsiveness, safeguards-sensitive, and appropriately represent women and marginalized groups.
• Coordinate with the M&E Specialist to ensure that communications outputs accurately and consistently reflect programme results data, performance indicators, and evidence generated through programme monitoring.

8. Programme Coordination

• Operate as an integral part of the programme's crosscutting advisory and quality assurance layer, in close coordination with the Justice Sector Institutional Adviser, M&E Specialist, and Gender and Inclusion Specialist.
• Maintain regular communication with work package focal points to track communications deliverable needs, timelines, and quality requirements.
• Provide periodic updates on communications priorities, outputs, risks, and support requirements,, as required.
• Participate in programme coordination meetings, strategic reviews, and adaptive management processes, as relevant.

Required

• Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) in Communications, Journalism, International Development, Public Policy, Law, or related fields with 9 years of relevant experience OR

• Master’s degree (or equivalent) in any of the above or related fields with 7 years of relevant experience is required

Desired

• Graduate-level training or demonstrated specialization in strategic communications for development, legal or policy communications, or communications for peacebuilding and conflict-affected settings is desired.

• Formal training or certification in visual communication, digital communications, or knowledge management for development programmes is desired.

Required

• Relevant experience is defined as progressively responsible professional experience in communications, knowledge management, or public information within development, governance, or peacebuilding programmes or related areas.

• Demonstrated experience in developing and implementing strategic communications plans for complex, multi-stakeholder programmes is required.

• Proven ability to translate technically complex legal, policy, or institutional content into clear, accessible, and audience-appropriate written and visual outputs is required.

• Demonstrated experience developing a diverse range of communications products, including knowledge products, donor visibility materials, community awareness materials, and programme documentation, is required.

• Experience providing centralized communications support across multiple programme components or work packages simultaneously is required.

Desired

• Familiarity with the justice sector, rule of law, or legal pluralism programming and the ability to communicate concepts related to plural legal systems accurately and accessibly, is desired.

• Prior experience working in conflict-affected or post-conflict settings in Southeast Asia, with specific knowledge of the Philippine or BARMM context, is desired.

• Prior engagement with UN system organizations, EU-funded programmes, or multilateral development initiatives, including familiarity with EU donor visibility requirements, is an asset.

• Experience developing community-facing information, education, and communication (IEC) materials for diverse or marginalized audiences in a culturally sensitive manner is desired.

• Demonstrated experience in digital communications, social media management, or multimedia content production for development programmes is an asset.

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