About cewas
cewas (www.cewas.org), a Swiss Based NGO founded in 2010, is a business and entrepreneurial support organization offering professional training, coaching, mentorship and consulting in business development for entrepreneurs in the water-sanitation-food security-climate nexus. cewas have ongoing projects and programs in Switzerland, the Middle East, South, and East Africa, South Asia, as well as Latin America.
cewas strong competencies lie in the following:
- Coaching support for innovators and entrepreneurs
- Capacity development and regional learning
- Innovation support for businesses
- Ecosystem support (development of markets and financial environment, media support, etc.)
- Specialized technical trainings for performance improvement in the sustainable water, sanitation, and resource management sector
- Development of Resource Recovery and Reuse (RRR) based business models
- Integrity Management
- Climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction
Our goal is to increase the role of the private sector and entrepreneurship in tackling the environmental issues of the region. We are a team of practitioners dedicated to linking business practices with sustainability and sustainable development. We have long-term experience and believe in making things happen!
Our core programs focus on addressing environmental challenges in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine. In Iraq, cewas is part of a consortium for the Water & Energy for Food Grand Challenge for Development, and currently working on establishing a support program for a minimum of 10 Iraq-based mid-to later-stage companies and organizations working on water-energy-food innovation. We are currently looking for a CKM officer to join the cewas team with a dedication to WE4F’s Iraq track.
Your role and tasks
With support from the team, you will be working on our communications and outreach activities in Iraq and the WE4F program’s regional activities in communications and knowledge management. This means your tasks range from preparing content for our national and regional social media via interviewing and gathering information on our innovators to contributing to events.
More concretely you will:
- Implement communication and outreach strategies to recruit and engage innovators
- Network in the environmental and innovation ecosystem to develop and strengthen partnerships for the implementation and anchorage of the program
- Engage partners and help with organizing trainings and related events (together with senior team members), including logistics, outreach, concept development and co-facilitation
- Support on a regional level with the implementation of CKM activities, including production of communication items, knowledge pieces, social media, etc.
- Support WE4F staff in general activities of the regional program.
What makes this job most interesting, beyond the broad range of tasks listed above, is that you will work with inspiring people who want to change things and get their hands dirty.
You will work with a decentralized team in Iraq, Lebanon, France, Switzerland, Germany, Egypt, and Jordan. Our regional CKM senior manager, Iraq-based country manager and Iraq-based WE4F project manager will be supporting and back-stopping you.
What we are looking for
- You are enthusiastic about supporting innovation and developing capacities in water, energy, and food. Learning more about the business, agricultural, and/or environmental sectors motivates you.
- You are a great communicator with proven social media and communications skills, ideally with agency experience and/or a track record in building and running communication strategies, social media channels, or similar. You are familiar with all relevant social media platforms and CRM tools, and ideally also have experience in designing visual content.
- You are an organizer. You have organized events or workshops before and ideally, you have experience in what it takes to engage participants in/during trainings and workshops. You enjoy networking to develop relationships, connecting and matching people. In addition, you have very good personal organizational skills – be prepared to multi-task.
- You are proactive, have effective time management skills, and manage to meet tight deadlines. You don’t need constant supervision by your team to keep you focused on your tasks.
- You live in Iraq and ideally have an existing network in the environmental, agricultural, and/or business world.
Other requirements:
- Outstanding Arabic and English skills (written and spoken) are a pre-condition. Kurdish and other Iraqi language skills are a strong advantage.
- We are a decentralized team, which means that you will have to work independently and in an international team at the same time. You have to want to do this!
- You should be excited about being part of a new, global program, and prepared to adapt to fast-changing environments, new deliverables, and a certain degree of uncertainty.
Additional information
Contract type: 50% workload
Location: Iraq
Experience level: min. 2 years
Starting date: As soon as possible
Contract duration: min. 1 year
To apply, please incorporate your most updated CV and a cover letter (required) explaining in English why you’d like to join us until 28th July 2020. Both CV and Cover Letter should be new files attached specifically for this position when you apply. Appications are reviewed on a rolling basis. If a suitable candidate is found before that date, the job listing may be closed earlier. Please note that only successful candidates will be contacted.
