National Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) Technical Coordinator

Organizational Setting

The FAO Subregional Office for the Pacific Islands (SAP) was established in 1996 in Samoa to coordinate the FAO work in 13 member countries in the Pacific subregion - Cook Islands, Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and one Associate Member, Tokelau. SAP is responsible for developing, implementing and overseeing programmes and projects to address food security, nutrition, agriculture, and rural development priorities. It develops and maintains relations with subregion wide institutions and entities. The Subregional Office is a subsidiary of FAO’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP) in Bangkok.

The main aim of the FAO country offices, which are headed by an FAO Representative, is to assist governments to develop policies, programmes and projects to achieve food security and to reduce hunger and malnutrition, to help develop the agricultural, fisheries and forestry sectors, and to use their environmental and natural resources in a sustainable manner. 

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has approved the “Integrated Agro-ecosystem approach for enhancing Livelihoods and Climate Resilience in Tuvalu” with GEF total budget of USD 2.64 million and total co-financing of USD 6.6 million. This project will be implemented by FAO in partnership with the Government of Tuvalu, executed and coordinated by the Ministry of Natural Resources, in close collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs, Climate Change and Environment, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, and the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.  

The main objective of this project is to reverse land degradation, enhance local livelihoods and increase climate resilience through integrated agro-ecosystem (IAE) approach in all the islands of Tuvalu. The IAE approach emphasises a systems approach to local food production to reduce land degradation and improve the health of agro-ecosystems while ensuring socioeconomic benefits. This overall Objective will be achieved by: 
•    Strengthening enabling framework for implementation of integrated agro-ecosystem approach (Component 1). 
•    Implementing integrated agro-ecosystem approach in all the islands (Component 2). 
•    Ensuring project implementation is supported by an M&E strategy based on measurable and verifiable outcomes and adaptive management principles (Component 3). 

During project design phase, it was recognized that there is limited scientific technical capacity in Tuvalu to assess land productivity/land potential to support and facilitate the development and implementation of the proposed Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) Strategy and to assess the health of agro-ecosystems.  To address this gap, the project in close collaboration with research institutions, university, regional technical agencies, will establish a LDN National Technical Support Programme with overall objective to build analytical capacity at the national level to: (i) support the localization of the LDN general categories of land cover, land productivity and carbon stocks, under the LDN Strategy, using locally-relevant LDN indicators; and (ii) assess land potential and health of agroecosystems that provide the ecosystem functions and services for livelihoods and climate resilience of agri-food systems (Output 1.1.3).

The proposed National Technical Support Programme for LDN will be established and hosted by MLGA, led and coordinated by a scientist with relevant research background and experiences.

Reporting Lines

The incumbent will work under the direct supervision of the National Project Director, with technical supervision of the Technical Adviser and the Lead Technical Officer. 
He/she will work in close collaboration with the National Project Coordinator and the UNCCD National Focal Point at DOE/MPWIELMD and the Climate Office at MOF responsible for climate adaptation projects.  

Technical Focus

The technical focus will be on the conceptualization of the LDN Strategy and the LDN target setting process to identify Tuvalu-specific targets, support the localisation of the LDN indicators, and the update of UNCCD NAP. In particular, the scope of the assignment will be to establish a LDN National Technical Support Programme, with the overall objective to build analytical capacity at the national level to: (i) support the localization of the LDN general categories of land cover, land productivity and carbon stocks, under the LDN Strategy, using locally-relevant LDN indicators; and (ii) assess land potential and health of agroecosystems that provide the ecosystem functions and services for livelihoods and climate resilience of agri-food systems

Tasks and responsibilities

He /she will be responsible for leading the implementation of work plan activities of the NTSP-LDN, including:

•    Facilitate the update of the UNCCD NAP (2016) and the LDN Strategy development, in close collaboration with the UNCCD Focal Point; 
•    Coordinate and guide the LDN target setting process;
•    In close collaboration with research institutions, university, regional technical agencies, develop protocols to implement the LDN strategy through collection and managing the necessary datasets and building of analytical capacity to ensure quality of data required for measuring locally relevant LDN indicators and metrics for land use change, land productivity dynamics (measured as net primary productivity, NPP) and carbon stocks (measured as soil organic carbon, SOC);
•    In close collaboration with research institutions, university, regional technical agencies, coordinate and facilitate capacity building of key actors to assess and monitor LDN indicators through the use of remote sensing (e.g. Collect Earth, Google Earth);
•    Facilitate the LDN baseline and target setting process through the definition of methodologies and protocols for the assessment and monitoring of land degradation trends, analysis of drivers and hot spots;
•    Facilitate the definition of protocols for the validation and ground-truthing of a spatial (GIS) database and maps for monitoring land use changes, land productivity (Net Primary Productivity) and Soil Carbon Stock (SOC);    
•    Coordinate and facilitate collection and management of data on production yields as impacted by improved soil fertility to provide evidence to convince communities to adopt ecosystem-based approaches to food production;
•    Develop methodologies and protocols to analyse nutrient contents of locally produced food products (e.g. breadfruit flour) to support the food value chain and marketing;
•    Perform any other duties deemed necessary for the successful execution of the project.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements
    
•    Post-graduate University degree from a recognized university in a relevant area of science, geography, environmental science, agriculture, geographic information systems;
•    At least 15 years’ cumulative experience in scientific research, including data management and in Tuvalu public service
•    Working knowledge of English
•    National of Tuvalu

FAO Core Competencies

•    Results Focus
•    Teamwork
•    Communication
•    Building Effective Relationships
•    Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

•    Computer literacy required; 
•    Knowledge of the UN system and procedures preferred; 
•    Efficiency, competence and integrity as well as negotiating skills, tact and diplomacy are essential; 
•    Fluency in spoken and written English is required.
•    Able to work with multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural project partners at regional and international level

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION