Post Doctoral Fellow

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW

The Organization

The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) deliver research-based solutions that harness agricultural biodiversity and sustainably transform food systems to improve people's lives. Alliance solutions address the global crises of malnutrition, climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation.

With novel partnerships, the Alliance generates evidence and mainstreams innovations to transform food systems and landscapes so that they sustain the planet, drive prosperity, and nourish people in a climate crisis.

The Alliance is part of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future.

About the position

The Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT is seeking to hire a Post-Doctoral Fellow who can work on a wide range of research areas with a particular focus on the development of rangeland resource decision support system to provide near real-time livestock water and pasture availability and conditions to guide pastoralists and agro-pastoralists mobility and decision-making patterns and thereby by enhance their ability to cope with shocks of climate in Ethiopia. This includes a focus on improvements of water and pasture monitoring, modeling and spatial analysis, ecosystem and ecosystem services monitoring, climate smart reangled management, climate change, and drought assessment, identify and prioritize pastoralists climate adaptation and coping strategies, and nature-based solution for drought risk management and raising the productivity of rangelands. The position is aimed to synthesize rangeland evidence, knowledge, and experience and integrate with climate change to improve understanding and apply to strengthen pastoralists' drought resilience and build climate resilience livestock food systems in Ethiopia. The project has been implementing in partnership with Ethiopian research institutions, governments, and NGOs, thus, the candidate should be strong in partnership engagement at different level local, regional, national, and global scale.

Key duties and responsibilities

·       Support technical team in the designing, planning and execution of LWSM project.

·       Coordinate data analysis for the development decision support tools to provide near real time water and pasture availability and condition information. 

·       Coordinate data analyses including modeling and geo-spatial analysis to understand the relationships between rangeland resources and climate change.

·       Conduct statistical modelling and spatial analysis of rangeland resource conditions, trends, and predictions under the changing climate.

·       Develop training materials and deliver capacity building training to improve stakeholders understanding of climate smart rangeland management, rangeland resource monitoring, climate change and rangeland resources and rangeland resource decision support system or tools.

·       Provide support to apply human centered design approach for the development of locally relevant and high-quality user-oriented water and pasture decision support tools.

·       Contribute to designing of innovative approach and work with pastoralists, their representatives, and other key stakeholders to improve uptake of some of the technologies/innovations developed under LWSM project.

·       Support in advising project teams to integrate rangeland evidence, knowledge, and experience with climate change.

·       Establish and strengthen partnerships with local and national stakeholders, including high level government representatives, to enhance uptake of research findings.

·       Engage in scientific discussion with key stakeholders to co-create pastoralists' drought resilience strategies and solutions to build climate resilience livestock food systems.

·       Contribute to project proposals writing and bilateral fundraising.

·       Produce and communicate research results to diverse audiences, including scientists, change agents, policy makers, the media, and farmers.

·       Contribute to the writing of high-quality technical notes, blogs, project reports, and journal articles.

Required qualifications and experience.

·       PhD degree in production ecology, natural resource management, rangeland ecology, and management or related field.

·       Experience in research design, implementation, data collection and analysis, and scientific paper writing in rangeland resource monitoring and assessment including water, pasture, and invasive species under the changing climate.

·       Experience in project management in the field of rangeland resource monitoring, climate-smart agriculture, climate change analysis, and drought risk management

·       Strong spatial and quantitative modeling skills and a broad understanding of rangeland ecology, ecosystem services, and climate change

·       Strong background on climate-smart agriculture and nature-based solution application for drought risk management from pastoralism or dryland context

·       Proven experience with statistical/modeling analyses, and handling of large geospatial datasets using R or Python and GIS/Remote sensing.

·       Deep knowledge of the ongoing local and national needs

·       Proven experience in applying a human-centered design approach.

·       Work experience in developing countries pastoral areas is a must.

·       Fluency in English both spoken and written, local language will be valued add.

·       Ability to work in a team and supervise technical staff.

Terms of employment

This is an internationally recruited position based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The initial contract will be for up to two (2) years, subject to a probation period of six (6) months and is renewable depending on performance and availability of resources. This position is at BG08 level, on a scale of 14 levels, with level 14 being the highest.

The Alliance Bioversity-CIAT offers a multicultural, collegial research environment with competitive salaries and excellent benefits. We are an equal opportunity employer, and strive for gender, diversity, and inclusion in our staff, without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity, age, disability, marital status, or any other characteristic.

Applications

Applicants are invited to https://alliancebioversityciat.org/careers to get full details of the position and to submit their applications. Applications MUST include reference number Ref: RFP103224-Post Doctoral Fellow as the position applied for. Application and CV should be saved as one document using the candidate's last name, and first name for ease of sorting.

Applications closing date: 21st November 2023

Please note that email applications will not be considered.

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

We invite you to learn more about us at:

http://alliancebioversityciat.org