Consultancy – Arab Region and Afghanistan Advocacy, Profiling, External Communications and Storytelling

**Purpose and Objectives:**
The overall purpose of the consultancy is to strengthen ActionAid’s advocacy, external profile and
storytelling in the Arab Region and Afghanistan, amplifying the voices of women, young people and
crisis-affected communities to regional and international audiences. Specific objectives are to:

• Develop and support the roll-out of an advocacy, profiling and external communications
strategy covering both contexts, aligned with ActionAid’s global strategy and country/regional
priorities as well as country strategic priorities;
• Advice and support raising ActionAid’s visibility and credibility with media, policymakers,
donors, UN agencies, civil society networks and the public;
• Produce compelling, ethical, feminist, human-centered stories and communications products
that profile ActionAid’s humanitarian and women’s rights work;
• Identify and capitalise on key advocacy moments and media opportunities (e.g. international
days, high-level events, humanitarian appeals);
• Facilitate strengthening the capacity of ActionAid staff and partners in storytelling, media
engagement and ethical content gathering

**Scope of Work and Key Tasks:**
Working closely with ActionAid Arab Region, ActionAid Afghanistan and relevant Global Secretariat
teams, the consultant will:
• Conduct a rapid review of existing advocacy and communications materials, channels and
capacities in both contexts;
• Map key stakeholders, media outlets, journalists, creative allies, policy processes and advocacy
opportunities relevant to ActionAid’s priorities;
• Develop key messages, narratives and a positioning framework tailored to distinct audiences
(media, donors, policymakers, public), including risk-sensitive messaging for the Afghanistan
context;
• Gather, write and edit human-centered stories, case studies, op-eds, blogs, press releases,
briefing notes and social media content, working through country teams and local facilitators
where direct access is not possible;
• Support media engagement, including building media relationships, drafting press materials,
pitching stories and preparing spokespersons;
• Plan and support ActionAid’s engagement in key advocacy moments both nationally, regionally
and globally during the consultancy period;
• Design and deliver practical capacity-building sessions for staff and partners on storytelling,
ethical content gathering, media engagement and digital communications;
• Ensure all content gathering and publication complies with ActionAid’s feminist principles,
informed-consent protocols, safeguarding policies and do-no-harm standards – including
protecting the identity and security of contributors, which is critical in the Afghanistan context;
• Coordinate regularly with country, regional and Global Secretariat communications and
advocacy focal points to ensure coherence with federation-wide messaging.