National Project Specialist – Community Development, Climate Smart Agriculture, Disaster Risk Management

The National Project Specialist will lead the implementation of project activities in Tonga focusing on community development, climate smart agriculture, and disaster risk management. The role involves stakeholder engagement, capacity building, project management, and coordination with government and non-governmental partners.

Responsibilities

• Lead the implementation of project activities in Tonga and work closely with the National Project Focal Point in the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Fisheries and other relevant stakeholders.
• Conduct assessment of gender sensitive value chain fisheries and identify priority needs for procurement of fisheries inputs and capacity building to support women fisheries beneficiaries.
• Lead CSA training, including logistics, preparation of training resource, material and prepare reports from training and demonstration activities.
• Distribute agriculture inputs, set up field demonstration sites, and conduct capacity building training on climate smart agriculture.
• Conduct field visits and monitoring of demonstration activities and sites and report on successes and lessons learned.
• Coordinate closely with the relevant national government and non-government stakeholders on the development of village disaster risks management plans.
• Identifying capacity needs for capacity building in areas including climate smart agriculture, value chain, and disaster risk management planning.
• Manage activities of the Letter of Agreement (LoA) on gender and land tenure rights, including regular meetings, monitoring and reporting on progress of the LoA signature and support local partner in the assessment of gender land rights in Tonga and provide technical feedback where required.
• Map relevant stakeholders, engage with stakeholders and organize stakeholder consultations.
• Actively arrange and participate in meetings with SAP colleagues, national stakeholders, and development partners.
• Support implementation of the project activities including mobilization of all project inputs to local/site levels and in accordance with FAO procedures for nationally executed projects.
• Organize project procurements of supplies and input for project activities and trainings workshops in project sites.
• Report project progress to the LTO.
• Liaise with FAO, relevant government agencies, and all project partners and NGOs for effective coordination of all project activities, both site and National.
• Support Natural Resource Officer/LTO and Policy Officer with activities and preparation for the Pacific Week of Agriculture and Forestry where required.
• Perform other duties as required.

Requirements

• University degree from an institution recognized by the International Association of Universities (IAU)/UNESCO in Science, Agriculture, Environmental Science or related fields from recognized and reputable institutions.
• Minimum three years of relevant experience in community development, disaster management and emergency response, agriculture, project/programme management, including experience in capacity development related to climate change, and development of national plans and strategies.
• Working knowledge of English and Tonga.
• National of Tonga
• Minimum experience of three years in providing technical advice in relation to national agriculture projects.
• Demonstrated project management experience.
• Demonstrated knowledge of stakeholder engagement, CSA, disaster risk management and emergency responses and activities.
• Demonstrated engagements with Country Strategic Frameworks, and/or related document development.
• Demonstrated experience with implementation, monitoring and reporting of pilot demonstrations.
• Experience working with a cross-section of stakeholders, including senior government officials, women organizations, non-government organization in Tonga.
• Strong writing and reporting skills and language proficiency

Skills

• Community Development
• Disaster Risk Management
• Climate-Smart Agriculture
• Project Management
• Capacity Development
• National Plan Development
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Emergency Response
• Programme Management
• Technical Advice in Agriculture
• Monitoring and Reporting
• Pilot Demonstration Implementation
• Country Strategic Frameworks
• Report Writing
• Cross-sector Collaboration

Languages

English, Tonga