Background

The situation in Somalia remains fragile with continued political instability, climatic variability, and lack of basic social services. OCHA’s role is to coordinate effective and principled inter-agency humanitarian response and ensure that relief assistance reaches the people who need it in a timely manner.

In line with OCHA’s global mission, OCHA Somalia continues to:

  • Advocate for access to basic services, especially water, sanitation, education and health for vulnerable communities, including the collection, analysis and dissemination of information to humanitarian partners, and negotiation of access;
  • Support the government efforts and humanitarian organizations in relocation of internally displaced and return;
  • Coordinate the implementation of humanitarian response in Somalia with UN agencies and programmes, national and international NGOs and local authorities/communities as appropriate, with focus on strengthening the cluster approach;
  • Enhance a protective environment that respects the human rights of all, including IDPs, returnees and minority clans analysis and dissemination of information to humanitarian partners, and negotiation of access.

OCHA on behalf of the Humanitarian Coordinator produces period press releases issued to inform the general public and for advocacy purposes. Besides this, the office also produces other briefing materials especially during the Consolidated Appeal launch that require the services of a Turkish Translator.

Duties and Responsibilities

The contractor will:

  • Translate and proof-read documents and reports on a variety of subjects. All text, including text contained in figures, boxes, tables, photo captions, sources and covers requires translation and proof reading. Proofreading and editing will be done primarily using Adobe Acrobat 6. Proofreading and editing of MS Word documents will make use of track changes;
  • When required, translate into Turkish OCHA external documents such as: press releases, media advisories, editorials, public statements of the Humanitarian Coordinator, Emergency Relief Coordinator or other humanitarian officials, speeches, talking points, and any other public. The translated document has to be delivered in MS Word, PowerPoint or Excel files as required;
  • Perform terminology research (i.e. on UN/OCHA style guide/UNTerm websites and others) to ensure the accuracy and appropriateness of all translations;
  • Ensure quality and accuracy of the entire document before submitting.

Monitoring and Progress controls

Under the direct supervision of the requesting Unit Manager, the consultant will submit progress reports depending on the duration and agreement on that particular assignment. The work of the translator is evaluated every time they submit their work for quality control purposes.

Final product/Deliverables:

  • Deliver translated text in MS Word, PowerPoint or Excel files, as required. The anticipated press releases for translation will be approximately 700words, other documents for translation will vary from time to time;
  • Translated text, including text contained in figures, boxes, tables, photo captions, sources and covers.

Review/approval time

Each assignment will be reviewed upon completion before undertaking a fresh assignment. The translated material to be submitted to the Head, Public Information Unit for approval and certification.

Competencies

Core Competencies:

  • Good communication skills;
  • Analytical skills: Ability to use all sources of reference; attention to detail;
  • Teamwork: Demonstrated willingness to work as part of a team in a multicultural environment.

Functional Competencies:

  • Good translation and editing skills from English into Turkish with capacity to detect and understand nuances in the original text knowledge of agreed terms for international and government organizations; humanitarian and development concepts;
  • Good grasp of the subject matter;
  • Ability to use all sources of reference; attention to detail;
  • Ability to produce a high volume of quality content;
  • Effective execution: ability to work under pressure and meet strict deadlines;
  • Demonstrated willingness to work as part of a team in a mulitcultural environment.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • University degree in foreign languages, or any other relevant discipline.

Experience:

  • 3 years experience translating and editing texts in English and Turkish;
  • Experience with the UN system in general or similar organisations;
  • Good knowledge of computer applications.

Language:

  • Fluency in both oral and written English and Turkish.

Other Information:

  • The Translator will be required to have a personal laptop computer;
  • Two samples of recent, relevant translation work will be requested, each not being longer than three pages.

Terms of Service

This is a non-staff contract under the Individual Contractor (IC) modality of hiring of the UNDP. Individuals engaged under an IC serve in their individual capacity and not as representative of a government institutions, corporate body or other authority external to UNDP. The incumbent shall not be considered as staff of UNDP, the UN common system or the government and are therefore not entitled to any diplomatic privileges or any other special status or conditions.

Submission of application

Interested and qualified candidates are requested to submit electronic application. The closing date for receipt of applications is COB 4 May, 2015.

Applicants are required to fill and sign a P11 Form and submit it together with Curriculum Vitae on the online application.

The P11 Form can be obtained from the link below:

http://sas.undp.org/Documents/P11_Personal_history_form.doc.

Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.

UNDP will only be able to respond to those applications in which there is further interest.