Environmental Externalities Specialist

The Environmental Externalities Specialist reports to the EX-ACT Coordinator under overall supervision of the Senior Economist, iSMART, under the overall leadership of the ESA Director. He/she will also be reporting, through ESA Management, to technical cooperation units as well as donors funding the programme.

Technical Focus: 

The Consultant/PSA will conduct carbon balance appraisals, biodiversity assessments and/or socio-economic analysis on a broad range of projects, programmes and policies related to sustainable agriculture and value chains, at various stages of their development including design, implementation and monitoring; conduct trainings; support technical development of the tools; update and maintain various underlying databases.  The Consultant/PSA will also contribute to research on cost-effectiveness of agri-food sector interventions in terms of their climate change resilience, mitigation and biodiversity conservation outcomes.

Tasks and responsibilities:

The assigned tasks and responsibilities related to this area of work may include a mix of the following:

• Conduct carbon balance, biodiversity and/or socio-economic appraisals, collecting associated data and preparing associated economic and financial reports as required;
• Support development and maintenance of the EX-ACT application, including methodological advancements and their implementation;
• Support the design of agrifood projects to ensure their sustainability, and in particular maximization of their climate change mitigation and biodiversity outcomes;
• Support the research on cost-effectiveness of climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation options in agri-food sector to support formulating robust recommendations for strategic orientation of policies and investments of FAO’s Member Countries;
• Liaise with internal and external partners, including governments, donor institutions, international organisations, NGOs, national institutions, and academic and research organizations;
• Prepare and providing training and information material (capacity building) on the use of tools to a wide range of stakeholders with diverse background;
• Provide technical inputs into communication materials, including briefs, leaflets, presentations and text for the website;
• Any other tasks as required.

Minimum Requirements:

• University degree in economics, agricultural economics, environmental economics, agronomy, natural sciences or closely related field;
• Relevant experience in environmental economic analysis, climate change mitigation and/or biodiversity conservation assessments in the agri-food sector:
• For Consultants/PSA level B: at least five years of relevant experience;
• For PSA level C: one to four years of relevant experience;
• For Consultants level C: two to four years of relevant experience
• Working knowledge of English and limited knowledge of French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese or Russian

Source: https://jobs.fao.org/careersection/fao_external/jobdetail.ftl?job=2403730