Environmental & Social Expert – SoNG Project in Papua New Guinea

Position: Environmental and Social Expert

Place: based at Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

Duration: 2 years across 2025-2026

Mission description

Expertise France is seeking to recruit an Expert to provide a consultancy on Environmental and Social risks for the AFD-funded project “Solwara Na Graun Blo Pipol” (SoNG) implemented by Expertise France (see below for project details).

Main tasks:

• to oversee the overall Environmental & Social Impact/Risk management system of the project;
• to update the Environmental and Social Commitment Plan (PEES), then draw up the Environmental and Social Management Framework (CGES);
• to draft the annual E&S risk monitoring report for the AFD;
• to train the project team in E&S risk management and implementation of the CGES;
• to participate in the selection of NGO grants recipients on the basis of E&S criteria;
• to ensure the dissemination of E&S best practices for support structures and project stakeholders (e.g. NGO grants recipients, partner universities and research centres) so that they have an effective E&S risk management framework;
• to train the project team, in particular project manager, liaison officers, grant officers and the monitoring and evaluation officer (SERA), in identifying, preventing and managing these risks;
• to ensure compliance with E&s requirements, in accordance with AFD’s safeguard policies and current legislation in Papua New Guinea;
• to ensure that the environmental and social risks generated by the Project’s target activities are taken into account. Beyond the “risk management” approach, the E&S Expert will also be tasked with proposing solutions aimed at maximizing positive environmental and social impacts;
• to capitalize on the E&S risk management approach of similar projects (e.g. EU-funded FCCB Project);
• to make available all data and information relating to E&S studies required for the preparation of periodic reports on project implementation.

The Environmental and Social Expert will be based in Port Moresby and will report to the Project Manager. Expertise France is currently opening a Country Directorate that will be deployed in 2025 and within which the project will fit. The country office will be made up of a project support unit (PSU) and project management units (PMU) of the agency in Papua New Guinea. He/she will work in functional liaison with Expertise France headquarters in Paris, to whom he/she will be accountable for the progress of the project. He/she will work in close coordination with the agency’s other projects in the country, and will ensure that the activities carried out are in synergy with the agency’s other projects and initiatives.

Expected deliverables and planning

The expected timeline of the E&S expert’s activities is as follows:

This represents a preliminary plan and anticipated deliverables. The specific activities and deliverables expected from the E&S expert, along with the allocated number of days to complete the tasks, will be detailed in purchase orders jointly developed by the Project Manager. Each purchase order will specify the mission’s objective, duration, number of expertise days, activities to be undertaken, and the expected deliverables within the defined timeline.

 The templates provided by Expertise France will be used to develop all these documents.

The Project

As part of the Forest and Climate Leaders Partnership (FCLP) and the follow-up to the One Forest Summit in Libreville, coalitions of stakeholders are providing technical and financial support to achieve international climate and biodiversity objectives.

In Papua New Guinea, the SoNG projet is part of the French contribution. This is a project financed by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and implemented by Expertise France, focusing on community-based management at local level for biodiversity conservation and rural development.

The overall objective of this project will be to ensure the long-term sustainability of forests and marine and coastal ecosystems, as well as the improvement of living conditions for the people who depend on them. This general objective would be divided into two specific objectives:

• Sustainably strengthen the resources and means available to communities, especially women and youth, with a view to strengthening their organisational, legal, technical and economic capacities, contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of marine forests and ecosystems and to the improvement of their living conditions;
• Strengthen the governance framework for marine and forest ecosystems, biodiversity and climate at all levels of government to achieve the 30×30 target.

The planned operational components will aim to:

• Strengthen and extend the network of protected areas and other conservation measures by supporting community and civil society initiatives, improving their management capacities and developing sustainable agricultural and fisheries sectors that ensure the livelihoods of local people and generate income. Activities will focus on the Bismark Forest Corridor and the Bismark Sea, in particular for tranche 1 of the project;
• Support the implementation of national and provincial public policies for the conservation and management of natural resources and to ensure their coordination and coherence with actions carried out by local communities and civil society on the ground;
• Support training and research for the recognition and enhancement of traditional knowledge and cultural practices associated with the conservation and management of biodiversity (in conjunction with the projects supported under the previous component).
• Strengthen the role of the Papua New Guinea Climate and Biodiversity Fund as an independent vehicle for long-term financing of protected areas and other conservation and climate change measures.

The main objective of the project, which is rated B+ in terms of E&S risks, concerns the management of natural resources in rural areas, which could potentially raise several environmental and social risks. The most significant risk pre-identified in AFD’s exclusion list is that of the absence of residual impacts on critical habitats, even though the project is intended to preserve biodiversity, and therefore to conserve/restore these critical habitats.

It therefore needs to be fully taken into account, both through prior screening of ecosystems and their biodiversity, and through planning to ensure that community activities likely to have an impact (subsistence farming, etc.) take place in degraded habitats. This is all the more important in PNG, given the status of land tenure and the local development imperative to be pursued as part of any biodiversity conservation/management activity via protected areas or other conservation measures.

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