Senior Forestry Officer (Forest Biodiversity and Drylands)

The Senior Forestry Officer leads FAO's work on sustainable forest management and conservation of forest biodiversity and drylands. The role involves providing technical leadership, policy advice, and coordination of programmes to support biodiversity mainstreaming in forestry and dryland ecosystems, contributing to global environmental frameworks and sustainable agrifood systems.

Responsibilities

• Plans, manages or leads highly specialized or multidisciplinary teams; leads, coordinates and/or participates in Organization-wide, cross-divisional committees, project teams and working groups, and/or provides technical leadership/secretariat services on technical networks and/or international technical policy and standard setting bodies.
• Analyses global and country specific requirements and relevant technical issues to provide critical input into the FAO Strategic Framework, Programme of Work, work plans and the supporting budgets and/or resourcing strategies.
• Implements and monitors programmes of work involving the development of the approach, evidence-based strategies and related tools, methodologies and the supporting system/database, monitoring and reporting frameworks.
• Conducts, designs and oversees research and analysis of activities to support the development of technical standards, international instruments, innovation, technical reports, publications and/or ongoing programme development as well as the provision of technical and/or policy advisory services.
• Provides technical and policy advice to Members and technical support to Decentralized Offices in the development and implementation of their programmes.
• Leads and/or collaborates in, provides technical backstopping to and ensures the quality/effectiveness of capacity development and knowledge sharing activities within Member Nations such as policy support, organizational development and individual learning events including preparation of related information, learning and online tools.
• Represents the Organization at international meetings and conferences, identifies and implements strategic partnerships, advocates best practices and increased policy dialogue and develops and negotiates effective working relationships/consensus and agreements with international and national stakeholders.
• Leads and/or participates in resource mobilization activities in accordance with the FAO Strategic Framework.
• Provides leadership and guidance to mainstreaming biodiversity in forestry, sustainable forest management and sustainable dryland landscapes management.
• Supports the NFO lead of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for Food and Agriculture Programme Priority Area (BE3) of the FAO Strategic Framework.
• Coordinates and enhances support to countries in mainstreaming of biodiversity in forestry, including within dryland ecosystems, through technical support to field projects, capacity development and policy advice, in a wider context of the transformation of agrifood systems and contributing to the implementation of the FAO Strategy on Mainstreaming Biodiversity Across Agricultural Sectors and its Action Plans.
• Leads technical work with other relevant FAO units to harmonize forest and dryland biodiversity conservation with sustainable production goals.
• Coordinates forestry inputs to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF); and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), aligning KMGBF with Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) targets.
• Fosters, strengthens and manages strategic partnerships with relevant institutions at international, national and local levels, including the private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and donors.
• Oversees the secretariat services to the COFO Working Group on Dryland Forests and Agrosilvopastoral Systems.
• Mobilizes and manages financial resources for programmes and projects.
• Performs any other duties as required.

Requirements

• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in forestry, natural resources or a related field.
• Ten years of relevant experience in forestry, natural resources management or a related field.
• Working knowledge (proficiency - level C) of English and intermediate knowledge (intermediate proficiency - level B) of another official FAO language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish).
• Work experience in more than one location or area of work, particularly in field positions, is essential.
• Demonstrated expertise in forest resources management and sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity, including in dryland landscapes.
• Relevance of academic qualifications and training.
• Extent and relevance of experience in developing countries and in translating international frameworks (KMGBF, UNCCD, Global Environment Facility (GEF)) into actionable policies and field-level frameworks at local, country and regional levels.
• Demonstrated experience in integrated landscape planning, including within dryland landscape contexts.
• Experience is supporting work of governing/statutory bodies.
• Proven track record in resource mobilization and designing and managing large-scale, multi-country programmes at the forestry-agrifood system nexus.

Skills

• Forest Management
• Sustainable Biodiversity Conservation
• Dryland Ecosystem Management
• Integrated Landscape Planning
• Natural Resource Management
• Policy Development
• International Frameworks
• Resource Mobilization
• Programme Design
• Multi-country Programme Management
• Forestry-Agrifood Systems Nexus
• Technical Leadership
• Governance Support
• Field Experience
• English Language Proficiency
• FAO Language Proficiency

Languages

English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish