Digital Earth Africa (DE Africa) seeks a dynamic and creative Communications Lead to lead its communications efforts, executing the DE Africa communication strategy to support the enhancement of the program's visibility and impact across the continent.
Location: Remote, based in Africa.
Reports to: Acting Managing Director.
Job Type: Full-time, fixed-term Contract.
About Digital Earth Africa (DE Africa) and The Research Institute for Innovation and Sustainability (RIIS)
Digital Earth Africa (DE Africa) is a pan-African program that has become the world’s largest operational Open Data Cube platform, which is used to access and analyse decades of satellite imagery specific to Africa’s terrestrial and coastal resources. DE Africa translates freely available data from Earth Observation (EO) satellites into ready- to-use insights about the continent’s environmental conditions. Such insights enable African governments, NGOs, businesses, and individuals to make more informed decisions about soil and coastal erosion, agriculture, deforestation, desertification, water quality, and changes in human settlements.
DE Africa is currently hosted by The Research Institute for Innovation and Sustainability (RIIS), a leading innovation and development focused advisory firm in Africa. RIIS’s work in the space sector focuses on growing the emerging African space ecosystem by implementing and supporting continental capacity-building programs, of which DE Africa is one.
The DE Africa Programme Management Office (PMO) is located at the RIIS offices in Rosebank, Johannesburg. However, DE Africa staff are located and work remotely from several African countries, including South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Ghana and Sri Lanka. They collaborate with multiple Implementing Partners across African countries including Kenya, Ghana, Niger, South Africa, and a broader team located in Australia and the US.
Position Overview
Digital Earth Africa requires the services of a talented Communications Lead to communicate on the work undertaken by DE Africa with diverse partners and stakeholders across the African continent and beyond. With strong storytelling capabilities, the Communications Lead should shape and drive the communications strategy with passion and vision. A Communications Officer reports directly to the Communications Lead.
The Communications Lead will have a sound understanding of and demonstrable experience in leading and implementing communications efforts. With a solid understanding of digital and traditional communications principles and tactics, the Communications Lead should possess the ability to quickly digest complex information to formulate high-quality communications outputs.
The Communications Lead will be an independent, strong, detail-oriented all-rounder who possesses excellent long and short-form writing skills, strong design capabilities, and experience producing a variety of multimedia products, including video.
Responsibilities
As Communications Lead, the role involves developing and managing content strategies (and actively contributing to the implementation of these strategies), overseeing digital channels (website, social media, newsletters), producing written and video content, and coordinating campaigns. It includes supervising the Communications Officer, liaising with partners and service providers, and tracking communication performance through regular reporting.
Skills and competencies
- Content strategy development and management;
- Strong storytelling ability;
- Writing, proofreading and editing of content for social media, media distribution and website articles;
- Design capabilities (social media, brochure development);
- Ability to liaise with senior personnel;
- Ability to manage small team;
- Presentation skills to senior-level stakeholders;
- Understanding of Earth observation and related data science concepts; and
- An additional language such as French, Kiswahili or Portuguese are a plus.
Technical capabilities
Demonstrable experience using Drupal and WordPress website content management systems; Mailchimp; Hootesuite; Canva; video editing software; Google suite; Google Analytics; PowerPoint and Excel; AI tools such as ChatGPT.
Qualifications
- Minimum of five years leading communications in a mid- to senior role, leading and delivering communications strategies.
- A university degree in communications, journalism, marketing, or similar.
Remuneration
Competitive salary commensurate with experience.
Contract Terms
This is a contract position over a 10-month period, with the possibility of renewal. The contract will run from 1 June 2025 to 31 March 2026, subject to performance evaluations every quarter. An earlier start date could be considered.
Working Conditions
- Hybrid working with the main office in Rosebank, South Africa.
- Generally, the team works remotely.
- Occasional travel may be required within and outside South Africa.
Application Process
Should you be interested in this post and meet the above requirements, please send your detailed CV and cover letter to hiring@riis.africa with the subject line: Application: DE Africa Communications Lead
Closing date for applications:18 April 2025