Digital Engagement Expert (Polio Programme)

Volunteering Communications & PR

Overview

Strengthen digital engagement strategies to enhance vaccination uptake.

You have:

• 3–5 years of professional experience in digital communication, social media strategy, or social and behaviour change (SBC) in public health or development contexts.
• Demonstrated experience designing and implementing data-driven digital campaigns, including audience targeting, content optimization, and performance analysis.
• Proven experience using social listening and community feedback to identify misinformation, behavioural trends, and inform communication strategies.
• Experience working with AI or digital tools to support content development, analytics, or automation in communication programmes.
• Experience working with government, UN, or NGO partners in complex or high-risk environments, with exposure to capacity building or training is considered as advantage.

Contract

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Pakistan remains one of the last two countries where wild poliovirus continues to circulate, making strategic communication central to achieving global eradication. UNICEF supports the Government of Pakistan in delivering evidence based, community centred communication to address misinformation, build trust, and increase vaccine acceptance across high risk communities. Despite major progress, vaccine hesitancy, misinformation, and gaps in public confidence remain key challenges.

The proposed UNV Media and Digital Communications Expert will strengthen the digital evidence-based, community-cantered communication by integrating AI-enabled digital engagement, social and community listening, and misinformation management into routine programme operations. The volunteer will contribute to the development and implementation of an AI-assisted digital SBC strategy, strengthen real-time insight generation and rumour response systems, and build the capacity of PEI and communication teams to apply ethical, data-driven, and behaviourally informed approaches that improve community trust and vaccination uptake contributing to protecting every child in Pakistan from polio while gaining exposure to one of the most complex global health initiatives.

This assignment will offer the volunteer the chance to meaningfully contribute to a mission of global significance while developing professional skills in an international, multicultural UN environment.

Under the direct supervision of Senior Social Behaviour Change and Communication Manager, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:

Strategic Communications & Content Creation • Support the development and operationalization of a comprehensive AI-enabled digital SBC strategy aligned with PEI priorities. • Support in development of an AI-assisted SBC content pipeline: behaviorally framed message variants, multilingual adaptation, and rapid A/B testing to optimize for comprehension, trust, and call-to-action. • Co-create pre-bunking narratives (inoculation theory) and debunking packages (myth/fact, trusted voices, story formats) in local languages for priority districts. • Plan and oversee the implementation of targeted digital campaigns (social, search, influencer partnerships) aligned to vaccination campaigns. • Monitor digital engagement performance and contribute to adaptive strategy adjustments.

Social Listening & Misinformation Response • Strengthen and optimize the existing online and offline social and community feedback mechanisms by integrating AI-supported analytics to improve speed, depth and predictive capacity of data analysis. • Support automation of data aggregation, sentiment analysis and thematic clustering to identify emerging behavioural trends, misinformation patterns and geographic risk signals in near real-time. • Support development and implementation of rapid response protocols, including pre-bunking and debunking content toolkits. • Coordinate real-time rumor response with NEOC and provincial teams; ensure consistent messaging and harmonized deployment. • Facilitate triangulation of digital listening insights with community feedback, frontline worker reports and M&E data to strengthen evidence-based decision-making. • Ensure ethical standards, data protection compliance and responsible AI use in all analytical processes.

Capacity Building and Knowledge Management • Develop guidance notes, SOPs and practical toolkits on ethical AI use in SBC. • Facilitate trainings and workshops for PEI, SBC and communication teams on AI applications, misinformation management and digital analytics interpretation. • Produce a field-ready AI & Digital SBC Playbook with templates, message banks, and troubleshooting guides. • Support development of dashboards for real-time performance monitoring. • Document lessons learned and good practices from UNICEF–JICA collaboration for internal knowledge sharing and potential replication in other settings. • Examining the potential application of lessons learned and experiences to other countries

Other Coordinate with JICA-supported health and community engagement programmes to align AI-enabled digital SBC approaches, share behavioural insights, and explore joint adaptation of digital tools and methodologies in priority districts. Support visibility of Government of Japan and JICA funding vaccine procurement under PEI.

Accountability Adaptability and Flexibility Communication Creativity Integrity Judgement and Decision-making Knowledge Sharing Planning and Organizing Self-Management Technological Awareness

3–5 years of professional experience in digital communication, social media strategy, or social and behaviour change (SBC) in public health or development contexts.

Demonstrated experience designing and implementing data-driven digital campaigns, including audience targeting, content optimization, and performance analysis.

Proven experience using social listening and community feedback to identify misinformation, behavioural trends, and inform communication strategies.

Experience working with AI or digital tools to support content development, analytics, or automation in communication programmes.

Experience working with government, UN, or NGO partners in complex or high-risk environments, with exposure to capacity building or training is considered as advantage.

Pakistan is situated in South Asia. Located along the Arabian Sea, it is surrounded by Afghanistan to the west and northwest, Iran to the southwest, India to the east, and China to the northeast. Pakistan has an extremely varied geographical outlook, including mountains, deserts, major rivers and the sea. Pakistan experiences frequent earthquakes, occasionally severe, especially in north and west.

Security: Islamabad is a family duty station. For all official travel, UN Security Clearance is required/mandatory. Registration with home embassy is highly recommended. International Staff deployed in Pakistan are required to report to Security Unit for detail briefing.

Guest Houses: The UNV Field Unit will help arrange your initial accommodation, at your expense (Entry lump sum is foreseen for this).

Telecommunications: There is one major fixed line provider (PTCL) and 4 cellular companies (Mobilink, Ufone, Telenor and Zong). 4G service is being provided by almost all cellular companies. Call rates vary but are extremely cheap for some Western countries. All cellular operators in Pakistan use GSM platform. Country code for Pakistan is +92 and City code for Islamabad is (0)51.

Electricity (Voltage): Electricity in Pakistan is 220-240 Volts.

Health: State of the art health facilities are available throughout the country and especially Islamabad. Dental care facilities are also available. There are no mandatory vaccines required to travel to Pakistan. Currently dengue fever is on the rise in Pakistan especially in Punjab. Mosquito repellents are recommended. There are other health facilities in Islamabad which have been recognized by WHO.

Diet, Food and Water: There are many local markets around Islamabad as well as various supermarkets that are stocked with imported goods. Islamabad has a large number of restaurants and cafes. Tap water is not advisable and bottled water is available almost everywhere. Using alcoholic drinks in public is illegal in Pakistan.

Money/banking: Current US dollar exchange rate is 1 USD = PKR 279. To receive payments locally, UNV unit will help you open a bank account with Standard Chartered Bank. This will be a paired account where you can use it both for US dollar as well as Pak Rupee. ATM machines can be found throughout the country.

Climate: The climate is generally characterized by hot summers and cool or cold winters. From June to September, most of the country is lashed by the Southwest Monsoon, which leads to heavy rainfall and high humidity. Islamabad has a humid subtropical climate, with hot summers accompanied by a monsoon season followed by fairly cold winters. The hottest months are May and June, where average highs routinely exceed 38 °C (100.4 °F).

Respect: Pakistan is a conservative country, and it is advisable for women to wear long skirts or trousers in public (Pakistani women wear the traditional shalwar kameez, but in the big cities, women wearing jeans and khakis is not very uncommon sight, especially in casual settings, shopping malls and around picnic spots). Dress codes for men are more lax, though shorts are uncommon. Men should never shake hands with or touch a woman they don't know very well. As with most of South Asia, the right hand is used for eating, shaking hands and giving or receiving everything (including money), while the left hand is reserved for handling shoes and assisting in toilet duties. Discussion about religion and Islam should remain respectful and positive.

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Added 1 month ago - Updated 10 days ago - Source: unv.org