National Technical Programme Coordinator for Land Degradation Neutrality

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:    

• Advanced University degree from a recognized university in a relevant area of science, geography, environmental science, agriculture, geographic information systems;
• At least 5 years’ experience in scientific research, including data management;
• Working knowledge of English
• National of Tuvalu

Source: https://jobs.fao.org/careersection/fao_external/jobdetail.ftl?job=2403397