Background

With the Central African rainforest disappearing at an alarming rate, the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) aims to establish an effective balance between the interests of the forest and of economic development. To this end, CAFI’s donors work together with its six Central African partner countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo) to recognize and preserve the value of the forests to mitigate the climate change and biodiversity crises and reduce poverty. This objective will be attained through the implementation of country-led, national scale REDD+ and Low Emissions Development (LED) investment frameworks that include policy reforms and measures to address the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation and promote sustainable development.

Lack of government capacity has been identified as a key challenge in the implementation of all CAFI’s investment plans, which impedes progress and slows cooperation. This capacity deficiency has also manifested in CAFI’s recruitment processes, where Central African applicants have been either lacking or underqualified.

CAFI’s Fellowship modality is based on UNDP’s Fellowship policy. It will contribute to increasing national expertise and capacity in CAFI’s six partner countries in the areas of sustainable development and climate change mitigation. Investing in young talents in the region will increase familiarity with donors and partners and expose them to a professional environment according to international standards and expectations. The overall objective is to promote a new generation of professionals committed to forest protection and poverty alleviation, equipped with the necessary skillsets to tackle these challenges when possibly returning to work for their national governments.

The Fellow will obtain valuable first-hand experience of the day-to-day work of the CAFI Secretariat in matters of evaluation and follow-up of CAFI-funded programmes, as well as communication and coordination with donors and Executing Agencies to advance policy dialogues and programme development.

Duties and Responsibilities

Portfolio management, results monitoring and support policy dialogue with partner countries. (35%)

• Support the development and monitoring of the project pipeline, delivery chains, gender markers and other related portfolio analysis.
• Support the monitoring of CAFI-funded programmes against their annual workplans and help manage this information in CAFI’s management platform.
• Based on reports and information exchanges with governments and implementing agencies, help analyse and compile results at impact, outcome and output level for across the different outcomes/sectors of the CAFI theory of change.
• Track progress and bottlenecks, against countries’ National Investment Frameworks and Letters of Intent/Partnership agreements.
• Track and maintain a list of past and planned evaluations.
• Extract lessons learned from the evaluations performed on CAFI-Funded projects.
• Support the delivery chain mapping exercise.
• Support the implementation of the CAFI Risk Management Strategy, including the Risk Dashboard.
• Support the gender marker analysis of the CAFI portfolio.
• Support the organisation of the MEL working group (invitations, attendance, note taking,)

Programme Management support. (35%)

• Contribute to preparation of analytical material related to programmes (performance assessment, technical content, etc).
• Support coordination of evaluation of programmes (contracting, reporting, etc).
• Contribute to the liaison and engagement of programme partners, and due diligence of their requests.
• Support the programme team in organizing field missions, with potential in-person participation.
• Facilitate the development of knowledge management products, lessons learned and innovation initiatives to support the programme management of the Fund.

Payments for Environmental Services (PES) (20%)

• Contribute to the preparation of the technical material for the PES scheme.
• Support the preparation, undertaking and follow-up of the various meetings, workshops, communication events and other events related to the PES process.
• Support the coordination between the monitoring processes specific to the PES and for the overall CAFI portfolio.
• Support the preparation of the training and communication material for the PES scheme.

Communications (5%)

• Draft regular updates about CAFI’s results for different media (web site, briefing notes).
• Communicate with governments and implementing agencies to agree on content before publication.
• Draft social media contents in French based on the above.

Other:

• Support the CAFI Secretariat in organizing Executive Board meetings and technical exchanges (note taking, preparation, summaries)
• Support other/ad hoc activities as seen relevant and needed.

Competencies

• Interest and motivation in working in an international organization;
• Good analytical skills in gathering and consolidating data and research for practical implementation;
• Outgoing and initiative-taking person with a goal-oriented mind-set.
• Communicates effectively when working in teams and independently.
• Meticulous in organizing and structuring various tasks and responsibilities.
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Responds positively to feedback and differing points of view;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive Attitude.

Required Skills and Experience

The candidates must hold the nationalities of one of the 6 CAFI Partner countries: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon or the Republic of Congo.

The candidates must submit (a) letter(s) of recommendation signed by a Government representative of their country of nationality, and/or a national or international academic/research institution based in their country of nationality.

Education:

Candidates must meet one of the following educational requirements:

• Masters’ degree in environment, sustainable development, forestry, rural development, climate change or related field

Professional experience

• At least one year of professional experience with their national governments, universities, research institutions etc. on topics related to CAFI’s mandate (sustainable development, forestry, agriculture, land-use planning, land tenure, energy, mining or demography).

IT skills:

• Knowledge and a proficient user of Microsoft Office productivity tools

Language skills:

• Fluency in French is required.
• Good knowledge of English or Spanish (read and spoken) is an advantage.