Community Liaison Officer – Lesotho COVID-19 Emergency Preparedness and Response Project

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Selibeng.com
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Kingdom of Lesotho

Ministry of Health

REQUEST FOR CURRICULUM VITAE

Job Description

DEPARTMENT: Project Implementing Unit          

JOB TITLE: Community Liaison Officer

PROJECT: Lesotho COVID-19 Emergency Preparedness and Response Project.

RESPONSIBLE TO: Social Specialist            

DATE OF ISSUE: 14th May, 2021

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global health crisis that has become the greatest challenge to countries in a short period of time. The pandemic has disrupted essential health services and negatively impacted multiple aspects of human lives. To counter the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Lesotho (GoL) has implemented several strategies based on the WHO guided pillars, including in surveillance, rapid response teams, and case investigation, national laboratories, case management, and introduction and scale-up of COVID-19 vaccination.

The Government of Lesotho has received funding from the World Bank to implement Lesotho COVID -19 Emergency Preparedness Response Project to prevent, detect and respond to the threat posed by COVID-19 and strengthen national systems for public health preparedness. The project supports Emergency COVID-19 Response including strengthening COVID-19 case detection, confirmation, contact tracing, recording and reporting, containment, isolation and treatment through enhanced clinical care capacity, and community engagement, prevention and risk communication. Other activities include enhancing disease surveillance, case management and monitoring adverse events following vaccination at community level by training of health care workers and procurement of surveillance instruments, improved sample collection and transportation, and ensure rapid laboratory confirmed diagnoses through procurement of laboratory equipment and training of laboratory staff to promptly detect all potential COVID-19 cases and to carry out contact tracing. In addition, the project will support renovation of existing health facilities to establish the oxygen plants and critical care units and wards for COVID19 patients .

The project also strengthens monitoring and evaluation and project management supporting project implementation costs, operational reviews and logistical support to the coordination structure during project implementation. These projects will be implemented nationwide and will have a strong presence at community level. It is therefore imperative to work with the local governance structures and the community at large. Hence the PIU seeks to engage the community liaison officers to assist the Environmental and Social specialists for the project to maintain the Environment and Social Standards.

Job summary

Under the supervision of the Social Specialist, the Community Liaison Officer (CLO) builds and maintains relationships with community members to understand their beliefs, concerns, perceptions and constraints that may related directly or indirectly impact the project outcomes. The CLO serves as the principal link and a critical communication channel between the project team and community members. The CLO is also responsible for implementing the grievance redress mechanism timeously and effectively. Additionally, the CLO will, manage day-to-day project activities, create community awareness on the project and record grievances. In addition, the CLO will be responsible for ensuring compliance of Environmental and Social Standards (ESS) under the guidance of the Social Safeguards Officer as well as the Environmental Specialist.

2.0         OBJECTIVES

The overall objective of the Community Liaison Officer is to oversee implementation of the environment and social standards, to facilitate a good relationship between stakeholders involved in the project and local communities and households by attending to complaints/ grievances raised timeously and effectively. They are also to create community awareness on the project and to channel any contributions made by the local communities to the objectives of the project.

Duties and ResponsibilitiesOperation Focus

  1. Conduct social assessments to determine risks and good practices in order to inform programming for various projects;
  2. Obtain lists of households in villages and indicate the village within the map and include other details
  3. Conduct orientation meetings for stakeholders/community to sensitize them on the Environmental and Social safeguards requirements as per the Environmental and Social Management Plan (ESMP), Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF), Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP), Infection Control and Waste Management Plan (ICWP) and Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) in place and approved by the World Bank.

Stakeholders Focus

  1. Conduct a detailed stakeholders’ analysis and develop stakeholder management strategy for each project.
  2. Develop communication tools/precise messages related to all the four projects for SATBHSS, COVD-19 EPRP, LNHSSP for different stakeholders;
  3. Interact with all the relevant MoH programs at central, district and community levels and all other stakeholders to inform them of community relations activities, community concerns, and proposed solutions.
  4. Conduct regular and proactive community engagements, ensure strong outreach and feedback sessions that involve different groups, including relevant marginalized and vulnerable groups; Provide information about Projects operation to the stakeholders;
  5. Derive community perceptions from stakeholder/citizens feedback mechanism for all the projects and develop mitigation measures.
  6. Recognize issues, within the community that may result in heightened concern or unrest, and provide an early warning on community issues; and
  7. Based on the project’s stakeholder engagement plan (SEP), facilitate periodic engagements between project partners, staff, contractors, consultants, community members, and local officials and representatives, as needed.
  8. Assist project team to arrange meetings and meeting place for any consultation/pitsos with the community.

Environmental focus

  1. Disclose all site-specific ESMP and all other project documents and information as required Under the guidance of the Environmental specialist
  2. Hold stakeholder/community engagements around areas/health facilities for all projects related works.
  3. Mainstreaming gender and social inclusion through creating inclusive messages during stakeholder/community sensitization.
  4. Conduct trainings and sensitization meetings for contractors on any environmental risks and their mitigation strategies.

Social Focus

  1. Conduct project specific social risk assessments and develop mitigation measures under the guidance of the Social Specialist;
  2. Arranging timeframe and dates, and facilitating validation and dissemination meetings for different social assessments
  3. Mobilize and sensitize health workers in vaccine distribution and activities for rollout. 
  4. Conduct focused group discussions at community level targeting different stakeholders and develop feedback databases. 
  5. Conduct public gatherings to reinforce public health measures
  6. Support monitoring of vaccine distribution and adverse events following immunization.

Manage the Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM)

  1. Create awareness on the existence of the project and Grievance Redress Mechanism
  2. Facilitate the formation of Environmental and Social Committees;
  3. Supervise and build capacity of Environmental and Social Committees and Project Partners by ensuring availability of work plans, reports and replicas at district and community level of the sub-committees.
  4. Oversee implementation and operation of the Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) as follows:
    • register the grievance/complaints on the Grievance Log Book and acknowledge receipt within 5 days
    • assist the Project implementing Unit in responding back to the beneficiary’s queries/complaints lodged, giving their status and/or their outcome if they had been resolved
    • review and evaluate grievances/complaints and ensure that complainant is given feedback within 14 working days;
    • receive community and stakeholders’ complaints and concerns, record them in a database; and update complaint information in the database regularly; and
    • resolve complaints and concerns as appropriate:
      • review complaints quarterly and close them out when appropriate
      • work with compliant owners to help identify options for complaint resolution, as necessary;
      • assign complaints that cannot be resolved by the Grievance Focal Point to a relevant authority within the Ministry of Health;
      • follow up with authority handling the complaint to ensure complaint resolution is advancing in a timely manner and using a fair process; and
  5. Utilize data and information from the grievance redress mechanism to develop lessons learned and communicated to communities as appropriate.
  6. Facilitate communication which may be in the form of reports, distribution of I.E.C material
  7. CLO to represent the interests of vulnerable households
  8. Assist the project communication team with all communication matters and to provide feedback on the effectiveness of the messages and means of communication used.
  9. Assist project team arrange meetings and meeting place for any consultation with the community.
  10. Work closely with the social officer and flag any issues of concern as well as report incidents as they occur

Qualifications and Experience

  1. Bachelor’s Degree in Public Relations or Sociology or Development Studies or communication;
  2. 5 years’ relevant experience working with communities especially in Lesotho;
  3. At least 2 years’ experience working with health related or any social sector;
  4. Experience in monitoring vaccine or immunization campaigns; and
  5. Deep knowledge of potential conflict points for Ministry of Health and communities.

Key Skills

  1. Strong customer service focus;
  2. Excellent communication skills;
  3. Ability to work both independently and within teams;
  4. Ability to work on issues that may lead to conflict or be emotionally charged;
  5. Ability to influence decision making at all levels; and
  6. Ability to spend extended periods in the field and work irregular hours.

CONFIDENTIALITY

The CLO shall have an obligation to keep all information discussed with the community confidential and only disclose it to the relevant people.

Reporting

The Community Liaison Officer will be reporting directly to the Environment and Social specialist. The reporting and administrative supervision at district level will be established at a later stage. The CLO will produce weekly and monthly reports indicating complaints or queries registered and key communication messages shared with

Duration

The duration of the assignment is 36 months and shall be subject to a probation period of four (4) months, satisfactory performance, need and availability of funding.

Duty Station

The CLO will be stationed at MOH headquarters, PIU offices and travel to the districts when needed.

Remuneration

Successful candidates will be offered performance-based contract; subject to review after the first year.

Application Instructions

Interested and suitably qualified candidates should forward their applications indicating the advertisement and position on the subject line of letter together with detailed curriculum vitae indicating work experience and certified certificates and National ID. Day time telephone contacts, names and telephone contacts of 3 referees should be included in the CV.

Applications to reach the undersigned not later than ­­­­­27th May 2021 1200hour to:

Procurement Specialist, Procurement Unit Ground Floor, Room 11 Ministry of Health, Corner constitution & Linare Roads, Kingdom of Lesotho, Telephone: (+266) 69184946 or 59887382.

Only shortlisted and successful candidates will be contacted within two weeks from submission deadline. If you do not receive a call and email from us consider application not successful.

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