Communications Manager

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) seeks to recruit a Communications Manager to provide strategic communications leadership and oversight of the Rural Employment through Animal Feed production (REAP)program's communications strategy, ensuring coherent, high-impact communications across all consortium institutions, country teams, and thematic workstreams.

About the position

REAP is a five-year multi-country initiative intended to advance education and relieve poverty by enabling 1,000,000 financially disadvantaged young women and men, aged 18 to 35 years, to access new work opportunities in sustainable feed and livestock value chains across the seven countries. The Program will equip young people with technical, entrepreneurial, financial; digital and workplace capabilities linked to real economic opportunities and enable financially disadvantaged young people to access work, finance, productive assets, markets and income-generating opportunities that improve household resilience and wellbeing. Among its participants, the Program shall target 70% young women and at least 5% youth with disabilities and 20,000 refugees and displaced young people.

The programme will support youth-led and youth-inclusive enterprises to enter, stabilise and grow in feed and livestock markets; strengthen market systems, services, and commercial relationships; and improve policy, finance, innovation, extension, and other enabling systems required for youth-led enterprises to succeed and generate additional employment opportunities. Across these areas, it applies gender-transformative and inclusive approaches to address restrictive gender and social norms, reduce barriers to young women’s participation, and strengthen their agency, voice, leadership and access to resources and opportunities. Safeguarding measures are embedded throughout the programme to protect young people from harm and support their safe participation.

Led by ILRI, the consortium includes ICARDA, IITA, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, and icipe, working with downstream delivery partners, enterprise-support organisations, financial institutions, government and private sector actors. The Director draws on partners’ expertise in feed and livestock systems, enterprise development, market systems, inclusive finance, digital innovation, policy, and gender and social inclusion to guide country delivery and achieve measurable youth work outcomes, adapting implementation in response to evidence.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership and direction in the design, refinement, and execution of REAP's integrated communications strategy, ensuring alignment with ILRI and Mastercard Foundation priorities and reporting requirements.

• Lead the program's external positioning and influence strategy, repositioning the livestock feed sector as a modern, dignified, and economically rewarding space for young women and men through peer-led, influencer-driven, and edutainment content.

• Design and own REAP's programme-wide digital influencer and ambassador strategy, setting the vetting framework (audience, engagement, values, and authenticity criteria), brand-safety contract clauses, and exit mechanisms that country teams apply, and overseeing the scale-up of influencer and participant-creator activity across the programme's phased roadmap.

• Oversee and coordinate communications across the consortium institutions and multiple country teams, ensuring coherence, consistency, and strategic alignment of messaging and outputs.

• Drive strategic partnerships and stakeholder engagement, cultivating relationships with high-level partners, media, government counterparts, and platforms to expand REAP's regional and continental visibility and influence.

• Ensure timely and consistent internal communication and learning exchange across the consortium and country teams, working closely with MEL to capture and circulate evidence, learning, and most-significant-change stories that inform adaptive management.

• Lead the development of the evidence-based investment case for youth-led feed enterprises, working with MEL and technical teams to translate programme data into formats relevant to private sector partners, financial institutions, investors, and policymakers, including through the PAFFIN platform.

• Provide leadership, mentorship, and capacity strengthening to the PMU Communications Officer and country-level Communications Managers, fostering a high-performing, coordinated team and quality assurance across all communications products.

• Ensure brand integrity and strategic positioning, maintaining consistent messaging, narrative coherence, and adherence to approved branding across all internal and external outputs.

• Oversee communication risk management, ensuring protocols are in place and applied consistently across countries to mitigate risks related to backlash against women's visibility, influencer or ambassador misalignment, and tokenistic representation of people with disabilities.

Requirements

• Master's degree in Communications, Journalism, Public Relations, International Development, or a related field (a Bachelor's degree with significant additional relevant experience may be considered).

• At least 8 years of progressively responsible experience in strategic communications, preferably within international development, research-for-development, or donor-funded programmes.

• Demonstrated experience leading communications for multi-country or multi-partner consortium programmes.

• Experience designing or overseeing influencer, ambassador, or creator-partnership programmes at scale, including vetting frameworks, contracting, and brand-safety and performance management.

• Experience managing donor reporting and relations, ideally with foundations such as the Mastercard Foundation.

• Experience supervising and mentoring communications staff across multiple locations.

• Excellent strategic thinking, writing, and editing skills in English; working knowledge of French or other regional languages is an advantage.

• Strong digital and multimedia storytelling skills, including social media, video, and campaign management.

• Sound knowledge of the digital creator/influencer economy and youth-relevant social media ecosystems (e.g., TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp), including brand-safety practices and performance measurement.

• Skilled in stakeholder engagement and relationship-building with donors, government, media, and private sector partners.

• Sound understanding of youth employment, gender, and inclusion issues in agriculture or livestock systems.

• Strong project management and cross-cultural team leadership skills.

Post location: The position will be based in Nairobi, Kenya

Terms of Appointment

This position is at job level HG17 and it is only open to Kenyan nationals. The position is a 3-year contract, renewable subject to satisfactory performance and availability of funding. ILRI offers a competitive salary and benefits package which includes pension, medical and other insurances.

How to apply

Applicants should send a cover letter and CV expressing their interest in the position, what they can bring to the job and the names and addresses (including telephone and email) of three referees who are knowledgeable about the candidate’s professional qualifications and work experience to the Head of People and Culture through our recruitment portal by clicking on "Apply Now" on or before 11 November 2026. The position title and reference number REAP/02/2026 should be clearly marked on the subject line of the cover letter.