Digital Strategy Consultant At CIVICUS

CIVICUS is hiring a Digital Strategy Consultant to carry out a digital ecosystem analysis between September and December 2021 focused on the intersection of civic activism, digital rights, and digital transformation. This is a unique opportunity to contribute to a digital strategy that will help to define how CIVICUS supports its global community of informed, inspired and committed activists to use technology and digital spaces to contribute to a more just, inclusive, and sustainable world.

The successful candidate will have the opportunity to co-design the approach to this assignment with the CIVICUS research team, while also engaging staff and members across the alliance in the implementation. The primary purpose is to inform CIVICUS’ work advocating for digital civic freedoms, contributing to an enabling digital environment, and enhancing digital programming and operations to both meet our duty of care for how we manage constituent data and to support CIVICUS members to engage with technology and participate in digital spaces safely, securely and on their own terms.

The digital ecosystem analysis should help in responding to the following areas of investigation, which will help CIVICUS determine how to contribute to locally driven, network supported systems change:

1. Who are the players, the participants in the ecosystem?
2. What roles do they play?
3. Why are they able to command attention? What are the sources of their power and influence?
4. How did they achieve their position in the ecosystem? Who are their allies? challengers?
5. Who are the stakeholders?
6. What opportunities and threats can we identify? How healthy is the ecosystem?
7. Where could CIVICUS engage? Do we have the capabilities to influence? How will we make an impact?

It is expected that in carrying out the analysis, the digital strategy consultant will also help to define key terms so that we have a common language for discussing a digital strategy and identify and map promising examples of how civil society is engaging with technology and digital spaces to exercise their civic freedoms and progress struggles for human rights and social justice.

About you

The ideal candidate will bring a Global South, activist perspective, and commitment to strengthening civil society and citizen action. You may have a background working in the tech industry or employing tech for human rights and social justice. You are curious about issues that arise at the intersection of civic activism, digital rights, and digital transformation. You have demonstrated research experience and understand the importance of rigour in research, but also think creatively about inclusivity and engagement approaches.

You understand and will strive to reinforce the principles underpinning the CIVICUS digital strategy:

• Systems change. We won’t be satisfied with tinkering at the edges. We will work to understand the power imbalances and rights abuses in digital spaces, how new digital systems impact civic freedoms, and who and how we should target our advocacy to change digital systems that undermine people’s civic rights.
• Networked approach. We will focus on where we can add the most value based on our strategic niche and core mandate to protect and promote civic freedoms, while working in coordination and solidarity with others who are contributing in different ways to digital rights and freedoms. We will embrace what we do not know, interrogate our assumptions, and learn from others who have different expertise and experiences, hold different opinions, engage in different spaces, and take different actions.
• Constituent-focused. We will ensure that the expertise and experience of civil society groups and the communities they serve are reflected in the recommended actions. We will enable their participation in defining emerging digital systems, technology, and policy. And our advocacy agendas, programmes, and operations will reflect their needs and priorities, protect and promote their interests, and leverage digital technologies in their service.

About CIVICUS

CIVICUS exists to defend people’s power. As a growing global alliance of more than 11,000 members in 175 countries, we work together to monitor violations of basic civic freedoms, call out the perpetrators of violations and strengthen the power of people to organise by supporting a more accountable, effective, and innovative civil society. We strive to promote excluded voices, especially from the Global South. We were established in 1993 and since 2002 have been proudly headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, with additional hubs across the globe.

Our definition of civil society is broad and covers non-governmental organisations, activists, civil society coalitions and networks, protest and social movements, voluntary bodies, campaigning organisations, charities, faith-based groups, trade unions and philanthropic foundations. Our membership is diverse, spanning a wide range of issues, sizes, and organisation types.