Brand Developer and Awareness Raising Campaign Consultant

Contract

This is a National Consultant contract. More about National Consultant contracts.

Background

Eswatini’s economic performance has been on the declined since the early 1990s. The average annual rate of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth fell from 8% in the 1980s to 4% in the 1990s and downward trend has been persistent. Official estimates indicate that economic growth in Eswatini has been subdued below the desired 5% real GDP growth rate. Given the estimated population growth rate of 2.9%, the unimpressive economic growth implies a deterioration in the standard of living as measured by per capita income. Furthermore, Eswatini has the 10th highest income inequality in the world with a Gini coefficient of 51.5.

In Eswatini, 37.4% of the population is aged between 15-34 years, with a 50.7% and 49.3% ratio of females and males respectively. Evidently, the youth population is fast growing and theoretically should offers a great opportunity for economic growth. If properly harnessed, young people in Eswatini could be a great resource and an engine room for economic growth from a human capital point of view. However, the inability of the economy to grow as fast as the youth bulge poses a great social and demographic risk. The population has been growing faster than the economy is able to grow and provide economic opportunities for the youth such as jobs, both graduates and non-graduates.

The economy is largely public sector driven, with government being the biggest employer, and any growth stimulus usually comes from capital projects initiated by the government. The size of the private sector is small and largely dominated by manufacturing firms that offer a low wage. The private sector in Eswatini has been unable to create employment opportunities for the youth hence the high youth unemployment that stands at 50.1% in population that has a 70% youth base. Studies have pointed to the mismatch between skills required by industry and what the country’s education system is offering as one of the key contributors to the high number of unemployed graduates or youth in general. Other studies have alluded to the weak investment environment as one of the contributors to low economic growth, leading to high unemployment.

The Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Development Policy was developed with the aim of providing a conducive environment that encourages entrepreneurship, including youth entrepreneurship. According to the UN Youth Entrepreneurship Report (2013), youth in Eswatini are drawn to entrepreneurship out of necessity to escape unemployment, but not as an opportunity to realize their lifelong vision. As a result, many businesses are not sustainable. Although entrepreneurship has been identified as a viable career path for the youth, there has been little programmatic focus and policy intervention to support the course. It has been observed that most youth in Eswatini prefer formal employment hence the need to empower them with a skills development and enhancement programme that strategically links graduates with local private and public sector employers.

According to the Eswatini national Skills Audit Report, labor market trends have only changed marginally in the last 14 years and are characterized by low labor diversity and dynamism. The service sector constitutes more than 60% of overall employment while agriculture is just above 10% and industry is under 20%. The advent of the covid 19 pandemic led to the decline a decline in industry employment rate due to forced company closure. The labor market in Eswatini is predominantly driven by the service sector and informal employment.

SCOPE OF WORK

In response to this complex development challenge, UNDP in collaboration with the Government of the Kingdom of Eswatini and other key stakeholders are seeking to establish a Youth Fellowship Programme to promote youth employability and access to decent jobs.

In response to this complex development challenge, the UNDP in collaboration with the Government of Eswatini and other key stakeholder are seeking to establish two tracks of livelihood opportunities for 1) unemployed graduates through a Youth Fellowship Programme and ii) non graduates with little to no higher-level education. The Youth Fellowship Programme aims to promote youth employability and access to decent jobs by placing unemployed graduate youth in private companies, public sector and non-government organization for a 6-12-month internship programme. The experience provides a punchers chance to garner the necessary experience for possible permanent employment placement. The non-graduate component caters for youth that have not had formal training post their high school education with tradable rudimentary to intermediate artisanry skills through an accelerated vocational training programme.

To this end, UNDP Eswatini is seeking the services of a Brand Developer and Awareness Raising Campaign Consultant with adequate skills to create the brand and run an awareness campaign targeting the youth and partners focusing but not limited to the following services.

Duties and Responsibilities

PRODUCE AND IMPLEMENT A BRANDING PLAN

1. Develop a branding plan that will ensure a completely unique identity to the Programme with an appeal to the youth.
2. Run a competition for young people to come up with a name and design a logo for this Programme.
3. Design Information Education and Communication (IEC) Material which includes letterheads, brochures, banners, posters, application forms, etc., for the Programme.

PRODUCE AND IMPLEMENT AN AWARENESS RAISING CAMPAIGN

1. Develop key messages targeting the youth and partners to participate in the Programme.
2. Develop content for traditional and social media related to promoting the Programme. This includes short videos, social media banners, posts, etc.
3. Develop articles and pitches for the mainstream media about the progress and success of the Programme.
4. Manage and update website with new content.

A STRONG BRAND IDENTITY

1. Branding and Awareness Raising Campaign Plan
2. A logo and brand manual for the Programme
3. IEC Materials

STRONG MESSAGING

1. An overarching storyline that will inspire the youth to apply for this Programme and partners to capture the public’s imagination
2. Key messages that are easy to share and digest
3. Social media posts, campaign hashtags that are sufficiently unique to avoid competition
4. 3 social media influencers
5. Six published website and newspaper articles, 12 radio interviews and news items, 3 TV interview

DURATION OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The Consultant will be contracted and supervised by UNDP Eswatini. This assignment is for duration of three (3) months, approximately sixty (60) working days starting from the date of signing the contract.

PROVISION OF MONITORING AND PROGRESS CONTROLS

Deliverable

Time Frame

Brand and Awareness Raising Campaign Plan

10 working days

Logo and Brand Manual

10 working days

IEC Material

15 working days

Key messaging and media management: an inspiring storyline on social media posts, mainstream media.

25 working days

Total number of days

60 working days

DUTY STATION

The Consultant will for the duration of the assignment be based at the UNDP Country Office in Mbabane and must frequently provide updates to the Contracting Authority (UNDP) in particular the Communications department to ensure that all brand and communication products are in line with UNDP’s communication strategy.

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

• Ability to bringing together diverse groups of people, data, information or ideas, and technology to design services or solutions
• Ability to develop solutions to problems by involving the human perspective in all steps of the problem-solving process
• Ability to communicate in a clear, concise, and unambiguous manner both through written and verbal communication; to tailor messages and choose communication methods depending on the audience
• Ability to respond timely and appropriately with a sense of urgency, provide consistent solutions, and deliver timely and quality results and/or solutions to fulfil and understand the real customers' needs. Provide inputs to the development of customer service strategy. Look for ways to add value beyond clients' immediate requests. Ability to anticipate client's upcoming needs and concerns.

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethics and standards.
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP.
• Displays culture, gender, religion, race, nationality and age, sensitivity and adaptability.
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• At least an Associate Bachelor’s Degree in Public Relations, Graphic Design/Multimedia, Media Management, Communication. Specific qualifications, or technical studies in design or layout are an advantage.

Experience:

• At least 5 years of experience in brand design, awareness campaigns, public relations, graphic design
• At least 3 years proven years of experience in creative skills application and advanced command over a full range of graphic design software, including Adobe Suite/CC such as illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, CorelDRAW, Crello or any other equivalent graphic design software
• Proven experience of brand awareness and advocacy campaign
• Experience in developing and implementing youth-related campaigns will be an added advantage
• Previous working experience with the UN and other international organizations is an asset.

Language Requirement:

• Proficiency in written and Spoken English
• Fluency in Siswati will be an added advantage.

Additional Information:

How to Apply:

Interested and qualified candidates should submit;

1. Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;Letter of Confirmation of Interest template
2. Personal CV or P11, (P11 form); indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references.

Please note you can upload only one document to this application (scan all documents in one single PDF file to attach).

Incomplete applications will be excluded from further consideration.

Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer

• Combined Scoring method – where the qualifications and experiences will be weighted a max. of 70%, and combined with the price offer which will be weighted a max of 30%.