Positions in: Anywhere in Africa.
Do you want to engage the audience of Africa’s largest network of journalists, civic technologists and scientists through compelling storytelling?
Code for Africa (CfA) has an immediate vacancy for a full-time Content Manager, based anywhere in Africa, for our Engagement team.
CfA’s Engagement team is responsible for managing CfA’s public audience, by curating our platforms, communications and brand. The team actively works to grow CfA’s reputation and amplify our thought leadership and accomplishments through compelling multimedia storytelling.
Candidates must have demonstrable experience creating and managing multimedia content. Using their powerful digital storytelling skills, they will oversee the CfA’s content strategy from ideation to distribution.
The successful candidate will manage a team of both written and visual content producers, and balance administrative tasks alongside their editorial duties.
The role will be for an English-speaking Content Manager. Proficiency in local African languages and any additional international languages, such as Arabic or French, will be advantageous.
Required: minimum requirements include:
- At least five years in an editorial management function, preferably within the NGO, media or tech sectors
- Comfortable finding creative ways of building an online presence, as well as using analytics to create, implement and drive content strategies that help build organisational reputations and raise their profile as thought leaders within their fields
- Strong skills in creating original content that targets a specific audience and meets CfA’s objectives
- A proven ability for multimedia storytelling and managing multiple teams in content, graphics and video
- Experience using popular content management systems like medium or equivalent
- Basic technical knowledge of HTML and web publishing
- A thorough understanding of digital production pipelines that help you oversee and improve the development of blogs, graphics, design, video, podcasts and written communications including long and short form copy
- Demonstrable experience as a project manager, or an understanding of project management methodologies and practices
- Adept at keyword placement and SEO best practices
- Meticulous attention to detail with the ability to work in a fast paced deadline driven environment
Preferred: candidates who are able to demonstrate the following will have an advantage:
- Familiarity with the African media landscape, ideally with a pre-existing network of contacts
- Experience in or familiarity with the non-profit landscape and an understanding of donor requirements and reporting
- Bachelor’s degree or diploma in journalism, communications or a related field
- Working knowledge of at least one major regional African language, such as Amharic, Fulani, Swahili, Yoruba, etc
- Digital-first workplace skill-sets, including proficiency in collaborative work solutions such as Google Workplace (Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, etc.), Slack (or equivalents such as Teams, etc), and project management tools like Trello (or equivalents such as AirTable, etc)
- Demonstrable experience managing a remote team
Language and Location Requirements:
- Location: Applicants from across Africa will be considered
- Primary language: English
- Preferred languages, but not required: Amharic, Arabic, Hausa, French or Kiswahili
About the Role:
The successful candidate will join CfA’s Engagement team. The team is responsible for telling CfA’s story, keeping it accessible and engaging. We amplify the work of our experts and external project partners across Africa to drive a more open, connected, and technologically empowered continent. You will join as team lead, and lead the copy, graphics and multimedia desks to produce world-class content that tells the stories of CfA’s projects and partnerships.
On a daily basis you will work with the Engagement team, partners, and CfA’s in-house teams of technical experts. You will oversee and direct the production of incisive, well informed content for CfA’s platforms, including, but not limited to, thought leadership blogs, captivating visuals and illustrations and innovative storytelling.
You’ll also manage the launch of special tools and products, rebranding CfA initiatives, and more.
Responsibilities: Your daily responsibilities will include:
- You will own and help steer the strategic communications objectives of the organisation, continually ensuring that they grow and adapt with the organisation’s needs
- You will manage the day-to-day operations of a small, transnational team of writers, editors, illustrators, video editors and designers
- You will ensure the team meets strict deadlines and reporting requirements for partner deliverables
- You will implement SEO best practices to ensure all content ranks well and demonstrates an understanding of its target audience
- You will review analytics and search performance reports to assess the success of content marketing initiatives
- You will create and maintain a streamlined content calendar that keeps the whole team on track
- You will stay up-to-date with industry innovations and best practices, ensuring that CfA’s content remains worldclass
- You will perform regular content audits to ensure content is accurate, optimised, updated and relevant to the target audience
- You will regularly drive brainstorming sessions with your teams to generate new ideas to draw audience’s attention
- You will ensure consistency in brand and tone of voice across all CfA communication mediums and platforms
What We Offer:
- A competitive salary, subject to experience, with opportunities for performance-based growth, both in terms of career path and public stature.
- Medical insurance cover, underwritten by a remote-first provider to ensure cover wherever you are
- A dynamic workplace, with a transnational team, occasional international travel, and generous vacation benefits.
- Ongoing opportunities to learn new cutting-edge skills and techniques/technologies to future-proof yourself in a rapidly evolving industry.
- A chance to shine on a global stage, writing for international audiences and interacting with colleagues around the world.
How to apply:
Please fill in this form by 30 November 2023.
About Us:
Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest network of indigenous African civic technology and investigative data journalism laboratories, with over 100 staff in 21 countries, who build digital democracy solutions that are intended to give citizens unfettered access to actionable information that empowers them to make informed decisions and that strengthen civic engagement for improved public governance and accountability.
This includes building infrastructure such as the continent’s largest open data portal, open.AFRICA, and largest open source civic software portal, commons.AFRICA, as well as the largest repository of investigative document-based evidence, source.AFRICA, as well as incubating initiatives as diverse as the africanDRONE network that gives citizens their own ‘eyes in the sky’, the PesaCheck fact-checking initiative in 12 African countries, and the sensors.AFRICA remote-sensing citizen science initiative to combat air/water pollution.
CfA also incubates the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), as an association of the continent’s best investigative newsrooms, ranging from large traditional mainstream media to smaller specialist units. ANCIR member newsrooms investigate crooked politicians, organised crime and big business. The iLAB is ANCIR’s in-house digital forensic unit, with teams in east, south and west Africa. ANCIR uses its resources to strengthen newsrooms’ own internal capacity, by providing access to the world’s best whistleblower encryption and investigative semantic analysis technologies, as well as skills development, and seed grants for cross-border collaboration.
At CfA, we don’t just accept differences – we celebrate it, we support it, and we thrive on it for the benefit of our employees, our products and our community. CfA is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.
To all recruitment agencies: CfA does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our employment application line, CfA employees or any other CfA contact. CfA is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.