Contract type: Short Term 

Starting date:  23 October 2023 

Contract duration:  From 23 October to 15 December 2023 (with a maximum of 26 invoiced days) 

Location: Tunis  

Background: 

Democracy Reporting International (DRI) is an independent organisation dedicated to promoting democracy worldwide. We work towards a world that empowers informed people to elect their governments, irrespective of social status, gender, religious belief, ethnicity, age, or ability. We strengthen democracy by supporting the institutions and processes that make it sustainable, and work with all stakeholders towards ensuring that citizens play a role in shaping their country. 

DRI’s office in Tunisia is currently leading the implementation of the #Y-TeD project, aimed at enhancing young people’s informed participation in political processes in Tunisia, with a specific focus on enhancing awareness around the developments triggered by the referendum of July 2022 within the context of non-violent conflict transformation. The #Y-TED project uses the digital media campaigns to contribute to creating an enabling environment for peaceful and pluralistic on-line information and reflexion, de-escalating polarisation and challenging misconceptions or misinformation, empowering young people to make informed decisions. To reach Tunisia’s young population and encourage their political participation, #Y-TeD engages with them where they are most active: social media. Democracy Reporting International and its partners Alqatiba and Yaluna have implemented a comprehensive digital media campaign to improve young people’s understanding of key political concepts, deconstruct preconceived ideas, and explain the implications of the choices approved by the referendum and elections on upcoming processes, including the implementation of constitutional reforms. 

After one and a half years of implementation, the project partners have accumulated numerous lessons learnt and good practices on how to best engage youth politically online and discuss democratic concepts using social media tools. To document such practices, and explore more methodologies on emerging trends, tools, and youth engagement methodologies, DRI is looking for a social media engagement expert with experience working on youth engagement to develop a toolkit that explores the online space, explaining the online spaces and platforms where young people discuss politics and the best strategies to target youth on these platforms. The toolkit should also take into consideration mainstream youth engagement methodologies and explores how it is different on the online space. The toolkit must be tailored to Tunisian youth, with a deep analysis and understanding of the demographics and dynamics of Tunisian youths on the online space. The assignment can be conducted in person or remotely, candidates based in Tunisia are preferred. 

Objectives of the assignment 

The objective of this consultancy is to develop a concise and practical toolkit that provides actionable guidance on engaging young Tunisians through social media on political issues, drawing from the experiences and insights gained by #Y-TeD project partners. The main audience of the toolkit is organisations and institutions which aim to engage young people in Tunisia in political discourse, many of whom have a basic understanding of the social media landscape and tools. The toolkit must be well structured, clear and practical and must take in consideration different levels of organisational digital capacities.  

Through the toolkit, the expert is required to answer the question of: How to best inform and engage young Tunisians on social media about and in political discourse? 

To do this, the expert  must first build on the lessons learned from the #Y-TeD project through conducting meetings with partners, project video hosts, project community managers, influencers who were part of the online campaigns and youth engaged through the #Y-TeD project. The expert must also take read and analyse the project documents, evaluations and previously collected lessons learned and change stories. To give the toolkit a wider scope, the expert must gather input from a broader audience through conducting a social media mapping and a survey targeting young people to explore and explain where young Tunisians express themselves online and what tools and platforms are appropriate for political conversations. A series of 2 focus groups must be conducted with Tunisian youth to support their participation in the co-design of the toolkit. Concrete examples from the #Y-TeD project and other similar initiatives must be highlighted in the toolkit. A validation focus group with young Tunisians must be conducted to validate the outcomes of the research exercise and the toolkit. The outcomes must also be validated with the project partners. 

A participatory, human-centred research approach must be employed where young Tunisians are engaged throughout the drafting process through participatory tools and are part of the validation process. To ensure this, the expert may reach out to other organisations, initiatives, platforms, youth groups and conduct joint thinking and mapping sessions. The expert must identify how s/he will employ this approach in the draft methodology submitted with the application.  

The draft toolkit should be submitted within a maximum of 20 days after the approval of the methodology, the results of the social media mapping, survey and 2 FGDs should be annexed. DRI will provide feedback on the draft and the expert is expected to work on the feedback. The toolkit should be produced in English. 

The expert is expected to prepare a visual presentation with the main outputs of the toolkit to share with DRI, partners and the donor in a Final Project Conference.  

 Qualifications and competencies required: 

 Experts must meet the following qualifications: 

• University degree in data science, political or social science, or other relevant fields.  
• 5 to 8 years of work experience in research 
• At least 3 years of experience in social media mapping, social media analysis and community management  
• At least 2 years of experience working for international funded projects related to democratic governance, peace-building or civil society and media strengthening. 

• Proficient IT skills and English language.  
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills. 
• Cultural and gender sensitivity. 
• Experience in working on projects based in Tunisia is a strong asset;  
• Fluency in English, and Arabic is mandatory.