Marine Social Impact Contractor

Job Title: Marine Social Impact Contractor

Line Manager: Head of Marine Strategy

Position Type: Part-time Contractor minimum 20-hours a week

Duration: 6 months with possibility to extend

Kenya-or Africa-based preferred: remote location acceptable

Application instructions: Please follow the full instructions at the end of this job advert, failure of which may disqualify a candidate.

The Organization:

NATURAL STATE is a not-for-profit organisation head-quartered in the savannas of Kenya with the aim of catalysing nature restoration globally. We design and test new nature financing mechanisms and the supporting impact monitoring systems, and train local leaders to access this finance and deliver large scale restoration projects. Our location on the doorstep of vast ecosystems means that our team can be in the field every day, testing solutions in the places, and with the people, facing the challenges.

Founded in 2021, we have built a team of 50+ team members who have a wealth of experience and proven track records in the fields of landscape monitoring, nature financing mechanism creation, the development of IT solutions, and the design and implementation of leading conservation education training programmes. It is important to us to nurture a new generation of experts in the region, so we also recruit talented career starters from the local communities who undergo rigorous on-the-job training under the wings of our more experienced team members.

Our partnerships make us stronger, and we believe that by bringing together the best-in-class partners, we will accelerate the creation of the transformative solutions needed to address the greatest issues facing humanity. We will scale our impact by making our solutions open science, packaging them up for use by the broader sector and into training programmes that we provide for local leaders to mobilise action on the ground.

We have a supporting 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation in the US. For more information, visit www.naturalstate.org.

Job Description:

The consultant will be instrumental in advancing NATURAL STATE’s (NS) goal to scale our impact monitoring systems to the marine realm, focusing on social impacts of blue nature-based solution (NbS) projects. This role will focus on five Kenyan marine projects funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC), conducting a gap analysis for socio-economic, governance, and gender monitoring for the three projects and researching best practice for social indicators and monitoring globally. Working together with the NS Social Impact Monitoring team and Head of Marine Strategy, the successful candidate will support the delivery of a standardized social indicator framework to be used across NS marine projects.

Key Deliverables:

• Conduct a monitoring needs assessment (gap analysis) for five blue economy projects in Kenya.
• Provide technical support and recommendations on how to fill gaps and improve social impact monitoring across the five projects.
• Research and provide advice on state-of-the-art social impact monitoring and best practices for marine Nature Based Solutions (NbS) projects.
• Produce key documents (gap analysis report, standardised social impact monitoring framework), supported by the Head of Marine Strategy, for the five projects.
• Provide technical recommendations on how to integrate the marine social indicator framework with the overarching NS Social Impact Monitoring system.

Required Qualifications:

• Minimum bachelor’s degree in social and/or environmental science (or similar).
• Experience working on social and gender-based marine projects.
  • Preference for marine projects coupled with nature restoration.
• More than 5 years’ work experience with social development projects, including skills training, economic empowerment of women-run enterprises, and governance.
• Excellent understanding of global trends in social impact monitoring for donor reporting and nature-based markets.
• Excellent research and writing skills.

Compensation:

A competitive salary will be offered, commensurate with experience and qualifications.

Application process:

To apply, send a detailed cover letter describing how you meet the above qualifications and a resume/CV as one document to [email protected] Deadline: Friday 31st January 2025.