Global Natural Resource Management (NRM) and Forestry Advisor

Job Description

About Self Help Africa

Self Help Africa is an international development organisation that works through agriculture and agri-enterprise development to end hunger and extreme poverty. In 2021, Self Help Africa merged with United Purpose, doubling our size.

The organisation now works in 17 programme countries, 15 of these are in sub-Saharan Africa. Subsidiary organisations, ‘Self Help Brazil’ and ‘Self Help Bangladesh’ have been created for our programmes in the two countries where we are working outside of Africa.

In early 2023 we launched a new five-year organisation strategy, which defines shared mission as the alleviation of hunger, poverty, social inequality and the impact of climate change through community-led, market-based and enterprise-focused approaches, so that people can have access to nutritious food, clean water, decent employment and incomes, while sustaining natural resources.

Our wider organisation also includes social enterprise subsidiaries Partner Africa, which provides ethical auditing and consultancy services, TruTrade, an innovative trading platform in East Africa, and CUMO, Malawi’s largest micro-finance provider.

Our three core values are:

▪ Impact: We are accountable, ambitious and committed to systemic change.
▪ Innovation: We are agile, creative and enterprising in an ever-changing world.
▪ Community: We are inclusive, honest and have integrity in our relationships.

Job Purpose:

Climate change, population growth and the demand for food and resources is creating enormous pressure on natural resources across SHA’s operational countries and the sustainable management of natural resources is critical for the future of the communities we work with. Many donors, both governmental and private sector, realise the need for sustainable natural resource management, and are issuing calls for highly technical proposals that are increasingly linked to carbon credits and biodiversity. Trees are a long term investment and it is critical that the selection of tree species takes into account climate change predictions to ensure that trees planted by SHA are appropriate for future climates.

SHA and its predecessor organisations have a strong track record in natural resource management, focusing on watershed management. SHA uses the Functional Management Approach for the participatory community management of wetlands and catchments, which has proved to be highly sustainable. SHA has contributed to FAO manuals on watershed management and has a close relationship with leading watershed and hydrology research institutions.

The Global Natural Resource Management (NRM) and Forestry Advisor will provide technical support to the SHA and its partners and collaborators in the design and implementation of NRM and Forestry proposals, including opportunities to create revenue for communities from tree carbon and biodiversity credits and payments for ecosystem services.

The Global Natural Resource Management (NRM) and Forestry Advisor will be part of a team of Global Advisors covering Agriculture; Enterprise; Dairy Systems; Gender, Inclusion and Social Protection; Nutrition and Food Safety; WASH.

Key Responsibilities:

• Proposal Development and implementation: Support the development of new proposals and budgets and work plans for NRM and Forestry projects. Provide evidence to strengthen proposals.
• Integration: Support national staff to integrate SHA’s approaches into project design and implementation: nutrition, gender, agriculture, localisation, Enterprise Development,
• Integration: develop Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) approaches that integrate WASH into FLA.
• Planning: Input into country strategic plans.
• HR: support the design of JDs, shortlist CVs and participate in interview panels for NRM staff.
• Training: Support, train & mentor country staff and partners to build their technical skills in:
• Functional Landscape Approach (FLA),
• Natural forest management,
• Agroforestry,
• Applying historic climate trends and GCM climate predictions to the selection of tree species.
• Establishment and management of woodlots and plantations,
• Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR),
• forest surveys/ forest mensuration/ carbon stock assessment,
• Tree species identification, selection and propagation.
• Forest management; tree disease & pest management.
• Sustainable harvesting and value chains of timber and NTFPs.
• Mangrove restoration,
• Soil and water conservation,
• Landscape restoration,
• Remote sensing and GIS.
• Tree growth and carbon modelling
• Measuring biodiversity, ecosystem health and ecosystem services.
• Blue Economy: Marine and estuarine ecosystems.
• Logs and Procurement: provide technical support for the design of specifications, sourcing of suppliers, review of bids, selection of consultants.
• M&E: Expand the evidence base on the effectiveness (or otherwise) of FLA and SHA’s Forest Management approaches. Develop metrics to track carbon, biodiversity, ecosystem services, ecosystem health. Support the design of project midterm and final evaluations and take part in joint reviews. Review project narrative and evaluation reports. Data analysis and reporting if required.
• Research: work with the SHA Carbon Coordinator, researchers, peer organisations and carbon accreditation agencies to develop models and protocols for measuring tree growth (allometric models) and carbon sequestration in trees and soils, revenue sharing models to incorporating carbon financing into NRM projects and climate change predictions for project sites.
• ICT for NRM: Support the role-out of the Treemetrics Forest HQ platform for tracking tree growth and carbon stocks.
• Learning: Identify learning and best practise in NRM from projects and evaluations. Support the development of position papers, technical guidance, and other relevant technical documents.
• Networking: Develop links with relevant National and International Forestry and NRM Research Institutions, Donors, Government Ministries and peer organisations and explore opportunities for new Partnerships.
• Donor Relations: support Program Funding, Fundraising, POST to answer donor queries and prepare donor reports. Support Fundraising to maintain the tree planting database.
• Policy: Provide country management and project staff with information on relevant national, regional and international polices and commitments related to forestry, NRM, carbon credits. localisation. Represent SHA at technical fora and support national staff to contribute to national policy forums.
• Communications: Support the Comms team to develop communications products across multi-media platforms and run public and online events.
• Development Education: Provide the Dev Ed Team with technical information for schools and assist the team to run events if required.
• Leadership and compliance: The Global Advisors are expected to be role models for the organisation, applying and promoting best practice across the organisation and provide guidance to country teams on SHA’s ethos, approaches, polices, systems and processes.
• Other duties and tasks as assigned by the head of GTART.

Key Relationships:

Internal

• Head of GTART
• Director Impact, Strategy & Policy
• GTART members
• SHA Carbon Coordinator
• Country Management
• Project staff

External

• Treemetrics
• Global Evergreening Alliance
• Donors.
• Implementing partners
• NGO partners
• Research Institutions
• Specialists in Peer organisations.

Knowledge & Experience:

Essential:

• Master’s degree, with a BSc or MSc in Forestry, Agroforestry, Rangeland Management, Ecology, Environmental Science, Environmental Engineering, or Physical Geography.
• 5-10 years’ experience of working in an international NGO or research organisation working in international development/ NRM/ tropical forestry and forest conservation/ watershed and wetland management.
• Excellent written and spoken English.
• Capacity to travel (up to 25% of role requires overseas travel).
• Core technical skills:
• natural forest management,
• agroforestry,
• establishment and management of woodlots and plantations,
• forest surveys & forest mensuration
• Tree species identification, selection and propagation.
• tree disease & pest management.
• Tree growth and carbon modelling
• Climate Change trends and GCM model outputs.
• Sustainable harvesting and value chains of timber and NTFPs.
• Soil and water conservation,
• watershed management
• restoration of severely degraded landscapes.
• topographic mapping, GNSS field surveys, GIS software and Remote Sensing.
• Developing community natural resources plans and maps.
• Proven coaching and mentoring skills. Capacity to deliver a wide range of training courses to project and partner staff.
• Good understanding of gender roles in NRM, forestry and pastoralist societies and practical experience of integrating gender equality into NRM, forestry, watershed and rangeland management.
• Strong ICT skills in MS word and excel, GIS software, statistics software and experience of using data collection apps in the field.
• Excellent communication, diplomacy, negotiation and relationship building skills.
• Self-starter with the ability to take the initiative to solve problems and take corrective action and work as part of a remote international team across jurisdictions and cultures with limited supervision.
• Good understanding of current climate change research.
• Commitment to the vision, mission and values of Self Help Africa and international and humanitarian NGO codes, standards and practices

Preferred:

Preferred

• Additional Technical skills:
• Functional Landscape Approach to watershed management.
• Mangrove restoration,
• Blue Economy (marine and estuarine ecosystems).
• Carbon stock assessment,
• Measuring biodiversity, ecosystem health and ecosystem services.
• Rangeland management and working with pastoralist and agro pastoralist communities.
• Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration
• Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES)
• Tree-based carbon projects, carbon accreditation, and assessing carbon stocks in tropical forests. Experience of REDD+ and UNFCCC protocols.
• Basic knowledge of hydrology.
• Land tenure systems in Africa.
• Integrating nutrition into NRM and forestry projects (nutrition sensitive).
• Previous experience in an advisory role.
• Working knowledge of French or Portuguese.
• Research and data analysis skills and experience of working with academic researchers.
• Experience developing proposals for the major donors (EU, FCDO, USAID).
• Additional IT skills: Salesforce.

How to Apply:

Full Job Description here.

Please upload a completed Application Form, CV and cover letter outlining your suitability for the role here

Please note incomplete applications will not be considered for shortlisting.

There is a rolling deadline for this role, Self Help Africa reserves the right to review applications on an ongoing basis.

Self Help Africa strives to be an Equal Opportunities Employer

All candidates offered a job with Self Help Africa will be expected to sign Self Help Africa’s Safeguarding Policies and Code of Conduct as an appendix to their contract of employment and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these documents.  Specific roles may require Police/DBS/ vetting.