Consultancy - Researcher/Writer for CIVICUS Lens

Overview: Global civil society alliance CIVICUS is seeking consultancy support for its CIVICUS Lens initiative, aimed at expanding coverage and increasing output

Location: global

Duration: 3 months

Start day: immediate

About CIVICUS

As a growing global alliance of over 12,000 members in more than 180 countries, we work together to monitor violations of basic civic freedoms, call out perpetrators and strengthen the power of people to organise, speak up and take action by supporting a more accountable, effective and innovative civil society.

About CIVICUS Lens

CIVICUS Lens offers timely analysis of the major events of the day from a civil society perspective. It highlights stories of civic action and civil society breakthroughs. It explores contemporary political, economic and social trends and their impact on civil society, and most importantly, the ways in which people’s movements are responding, innovating and scoring victories.

CIVICUS Lens is intended to demystify complex issues, encourage reflection and promote solidarity, allyship and progressive action. It strives to display a plurality and diversity of experiences and voices, including through interviews and other forms of consultation and provides the basis for the development of our yearly State of Civil Society Report, which summarises trends related to civil society action.

About the consultancy

The consultant will contribute to expand CIVICUS Lens coverage and increase its outputs. They will do so by collecting material, conducting interviews and producing analysis pieces on events and processes to be agreed upon, fitting into the platform’s various categories: struggles for inclusion, civic and democratic freedoms, elections and democracy beyond elections, economy and environment, global governance, and conflict and crisis.

Interviews are a key element in the process, as Lens stories draw from consultation with civil society stakeholders and seek to adopt a civil society perspective on the processes analysed.

Deliverables

The consultant will deliver an agreed number of interviews and stories, which will go through our established review and editing process before being published.

Interviews and articles must be structured according to CIVICUS Lens templates.

To ensure the alignment of proposals with consultancy requirements, it is strongly suggested that candidates get acquainted with the most recent CIVICUS Lens publications, available here: ARTICLES - CIVICUS LENS.

Key requirements

• Journalism, Social Sciences or International Relations degree
• Proficiency in English; additional languages a plus
• At least 5 years of research experience
• Good knowledge of civil society actors, perspectives and trends
• Good organisation skills, ability to work independently as part of a virtual team and to deliver under pressure, within deadlines and with high attention to detail

Application procedure

Interested candidates are welcome to send the following to research@civicus.org:

• A one- to two-page cover letter introducing yourself and briefly describing your relevant skills and experience and your approach to this assignment
• A brief proposal stating how tasks are to be accomplished, including weekly output, estimated hours of work and budget (estimated cost per interview and per article published)
• A writing sample

• A CV outlining expertise relevant to this assignment

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until suitable candidates are identified. Shortlisted candidates will be contacted for an interview. Please get in touch with research@civicus.org if you have any questions.

Due to high volumes of applications received, should you not have received feedback on your application within three weeks of the closing date, please consider your application unsuccessful. We reserve the right to withdraw any of our vacancies at any time.