External Relations & Liaison Officer – Turkey – Emergency Response

Title: External Relations & Liaison Officer – Surge Roster/Interim

Department: Communications

Location: Turkey

Direct reports: Not Applicable

Budget responsibility: Not Applicable

• This role is classified as requiring standard pre-employment checks

Due to the nature of this emergency role, we are only considering candidates already based in Turkey.

Strong spoken and written Turkish is essential. 

About Relief International.

Relief International (RI) is a leading non-profit organization working in 16 countries globally to relieve poverty, ensure well-being and advance dignity. We specialize in fragile settings, responding to natural disasters, humanitarian crises, and chronic poverty.

RI combines humanitarian and development approaches to provide immediate services while laying the groundwork for long-term impact and resilience. We focus on health/nutrition, education, economic opportunity, and water, sanitation, hygiene (WASH) programming while integrating protection, environment/climate change, and conflict mitigation in partnership with the communities we serve. We empower communities to find, design and implement the solutions that work best for them.

RI includes the three corporate members of the RI Alliance: RI-US, RI-UK, and MRCA/RI-France. Under our alliance agreement, we operate as a single, shared management structure.

About our Programs.

RI is active in 16 countries around the world, including some of the most fragile: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen. Often, RI is the only organization providing assistance to highly vulnerable communities. 

RI employs about 5,000 staff and auxiliary workers

97% of staff are local nationals and there are about 90 international (expat) staff.

2021 programs budget is about $125M 

RI receives funding from a broad range of institutional donors – US, UK, Europe, and the UN, to delivery life-saving and resilience building programming with communities and local and international partners. RI supports solutions that reinforce and improve upon existing in-country systems. Where such systems do not exist or are chronically underperforming, RI’s crisis response lays the foundation for long-term, sustainable change. 

About RI Surge Interim Positions.

We are currently accepting applications for Relief International’s Surge Roster for short-term assignments (varying from weeks to months) to manage periods of emergency and transition within Relief International.

Position Summary.

The External Relations and Liaison officer will support with building and maintaining RI’s relationships, facilitate communications, and coordinate activities with RI and external agencies and organizations. The External Relations & Liaison officer will act as a representative of RI, and will streamline operations and handle public communications, coordination efforts, and incident response and conflict resolution. They will also act as technical or subject matter experts for RI Turkey.

Key Responsibilities and Duties.

• Contribute to the preparation of internal and external communications products including briefing notes, speeches, talking points etc., in support of RI’s engagement in external events, workshops, meetings or conferences;
• Assist in the development of a strategy for engagement with RI Focal Points and other stakeholders and identify of most effective modalities for engaging with them with the view to ensure their feedback is taken into account;
• Liaise with different stakeholders in planning and coordination of RI activities, meetings and other events and development of the related documentation;
• Contribute to the preparation of various draft concept notes, briefing notes, background papers, minutes and conclusions for external communications;
• Provide substantive support to the team, for consultative and other meetings, conferences, including proposing agenda topics, identifying participants, preparation of documents and presentations;
• Provide substantive support to communications with member governments and observer organizations overseeing the flow of correspondence, and ensures the necessary follow-up;
• Organize briefing and familiarization sessions and ensures the briefing documents are kept up to date;
• Assist with coordination of bilateral meetings by preparing briefings, arranging and participating in meetings as required;
• Assist with procurement activities related to publications and translations as well as similar activities;

Other related tasks that may arise from time to time.

• Uphold and promote RI’s commitment to ensuring the safeguarding and safety of the vulnerable communities we serve.
• Consistent with RI’s safeguarding and protection policies, contribute to ensuring that all those who come into contact with Relief International staff and the communities we serve can be trusted to work safely with them
• Support and develop systems that create and maintain an environment that prevents sexual exploitation and abuse and promotes the implementation of the Code of Conduct and safeguarding policies.
• Work collaboratively with the Global Safeguarding Manager to advocate for the inclusion of safeguarding activities and resources within program
• Ability to demonstrate knowledge of donor requirements of safeguarding standards and protection from exploitation and abuse.

Role requirements.

Experience and skills required for the role.

• Master’s degree or equivalent in international relations, international law, political science or a closely related field.
• Substantial experience in international relations, communications, partnership building or related field is required. Experience in preparing and coordinating intergovernmental sessions involving various stakeholders and relevant documents.
• Working knowledge of the humanitarian aid sector
• Demonstrated ability in planning and coordinating conferences, regional outreach events and bilateral meetings.
• Demonstrated ability to plan, organize and manage multiple workloads with minimum supervision.
• Excellent organizational, communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work in a multicultural environment and to foster diversity and team spirit.
• Excellent knowledge of Turkish language (both oral and written). Arabic would be a bonus.

RI Values.

Guided by the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, as well as “Do No Harm,” Relief International Values:

We value:

• Integrity
• Adaptability
• Collaboration
• Inclusivity
• Sustainability

How to apply.

• To apply for this post, click on the “Apply” button in the job advert page
• You will be asked to upload a CV and Cover Letter. 
• The cover letter should be no more than 2 pages long and explain why you are interested in this post with Relief International and how your skills and experience make you a good fit.

Closing date. Please apply immediately we will be reviewing applicants on a rolling basis, therefore may withdraw the position for the job board closing date.

Please apply by uploading your cover letter and up-to-date CV on our website .

Due to limited resources, only short-listed candidates will be contacted

Relief International has a zero-tolerance policy for unlawful harassment, sexual exploitation and abuse. Relief International is committed to protecting our staff and the communities we work with from abuse and harm including sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and sexual harassment.

All staff are expected to abide by our Code of Conduct.

Recruitment to all roles in Relief International include a criminal records self-declaration, references and other pre-employment checks, which may include police and qualifications checks.

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