Open position: KM & Communications Specialist

POSITION:                Knowledge Management and Communications Specialist

LOCATION:              Washington, DC
Management Sciences for Health (MSH) saves lives and improves health by helping public and private organizations throughout the world to effectively manage people, medicines, money, and information. Working from more than 45 country offices and our Arlington, Virginia, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, US headquarters, our staff from 73 nations is highly regarded for its technical expertise, integrity, and commitment to making a lasting difference in health.  We live our mission to save lives and improve the health of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people by closing the gap between knowledge and action in public health.
MSH seeks a Knowledge Management and Communications Specialist to provide strategic leadership, management, and direction for an anticipated 5 year USAID funded five year, $72 million, global program to strengthen the capacity of governments and civil society in partner countries to implement high quality, sustainable, evidence-based and comprehensive HIV and AIDS prevention, care and treatment services with key populations at scale. The program focuses on ‘key populations,’ defined here as sex workers (SW), gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM), transgender persons (TG), and people who inject drugs (PWID).  The Project’s goal is to ensure partner governments and civil society partners have the technical capacity to provide coverage of comprehensive HIV/AIDS services for key populations and their sexual partners at scale. The emphasis of this project is to make quality services available by means that can be scaled, including through improved referrals and linkages across the continuum of both community and clinic-based services.

This position is contingent upon project award and funding.

OVERALL RESPONSIBILITIES:

The Knowledge Management and Communications Specialist will contribute to the development and dissemination of various project literatures, including regular and ad hoc reporting to USAID. S/he is the technical focal point for leveraging the Project’s knowledge assets for greater health impact by capturing, packaging, synthesizing and sharing best practices and the most effective approaches for Knowledge Management among the project’s target audiences. The Knowledge Management and Communications Specialist will establish standard operating procedures and mechanisms for identifying best practices. S/he will lead a communications and knowledge management strategy aimed at informing decision makers, stakeholders and the public on the project’s activities, results and achievements and will collect success stories from the field once best practices have been applied and share them to build the knowledge base for effective practices and evidence. S/he will guarantee that best practices are packaged simply, efficiently, and effectively according to key audiences’ technical, language, and organizational development needs.

SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES:
1.Increase the profile and disseminate the project’s work and messages through planning and implementation of all project communication activities, including fact sheets, success stories, publications, press releases, press briefings, op-ed articles, letters to the editor, etc.
2.Actively participate in defining the project mission, vision and identity as well as the strategy to achieve the work plans.
3.Prepare communication and KM strategies and activities to support meetings and other special events.
4.Provide day-to-day management and coordination of communication & KM activities.
5.Provide training to stakeholders on media relations and work to increase media coverage and attention for the improvement of health systems and its impact on health outcomes.
6.Help develop a program to enlist the support of businesses and corporations to advance the project’s mission.
7.Write and edit regular and ad hoc reports to USAID.  Liaise with MSH home office on final report preparation and submission. Perform other duties as assigned.
8.Develop communications strategy to support sector-led social mobilization activities.  Develop specific communications products (print, mass media, other) to support communications strategy.
9.Oversee placement of communications products and KM practices and platforms in relevant channels.
10.Assure all communications and KM activities are within limits of their budget.
11.Provide writing, training and production support for documentation to support and train MSH staff on various KE tools and practices.
12.Capture, synthesize, and share information that will create a compelling message to support and promote the project’s agenda.

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1.Master’s degree in KM, instructional design, OD, or other related discipline.
2.Minimum 8 years of experience developing, implementing and managing KM/KE approaches.
3.Knowledge of key trends, emerging capabilities and current best practices in knowledge management and exchange, blended and experiential learning, and communities of practice.  Experience facilitating knowledge capture, organization, synthesis, use and adaption; experience implementing effective strategies for closing knowledge gaps.
4.Experience with health programs desired.
5.Demonstrated ability to coach knowledge management and organizational learning techniques and skills to colleagues, partners and local organizations in developing countries.
6.Excellent interpersonal skills evidenced by effective collaboration with professional colleagues in a broad range of nongovernmental, governmental, and international organizations, in varied socio-cultural contexts.
7.Experience with nurturing and supporting communities of practice, including facilitating virtual and face-to face communities and interactions.
8.Proven experience developing learning programs and curricula for diverse cross-functional groups and global projects in low technology countries.
9.Demonstrated competence in assessing priorities and managing a variety of activities in a time-sensitive environment, and in meeting deadlines with attention to detail and quality.
10.Experience working in development preferred.
11.Experience with USG agencies (especially USAID) and USG-funded projects strongly preferred.
12.Written and spoken fluency in English required.  French, Spanish, or Portuguese a plus.
13.Ability to travel domestically and internationally up to 25%.