Technical Specialist- Partnerships and Policy

The Technical Specialist will play a key role in the orientation, coordination, and communication of CAFI activities in DRC, acting as the national focal point for the secretariat to the government and implementing organizations, and facilitating engagement with national and regional initiatives. The role involves managing partnerships, policy dialogue, and supporting the executive management of the CAFI Secretariat to achieve sustainable development and forest conservation objectives.

Responsibilities

• Contributes to the development, manages and implements CAFI`s country engagement process in DRC, including liaison and coordination with relevant officials internal and external to CAFI at both strategic and technical levels.
• Serve as the national focal point for the secretariat to the government and partner institutions.
• Drive and coordinate all stakeholder engagement efforts in DRC under the supervision of the Chief Policy Dialogue and Country Engagement, to identify and document opportunities for initiating a strategic dialogue.
• Establish and maintain strategic engagement with relevant institutions developing strategic partnerships with government institutions, donors, NGOs, the private sector, academia, civil society, and other stakeholders and beneficiaries at the national, regional, and local levels.
• Facilitate dialogue and advocacy mechanisms, forums, south-south cooperation, political and technical exchanges.
• Support country engagement with relevant multilateral and regional initiatives & fora (COMIFAC, ECCAS, CBFP, IMF, IFIs, EITI, etc.).
• Participate in meetings with CAFI donors and partners, prepare and deliver presentations of project results, and follow up with relevant counterparts.
• Prepare and coordinate generic and country-specific background materials, briefing notes, agendas and meeting documentation to support strategic dialogues and stakeholder meetings.
• Proactively identify innovative opportunities to strengthen and create synergies between existing country and regionally led initiatives, platforms and mechanisms that support CAFI`s mandate to maximize collective impact.
• Support the design of and delivery of strategic investments and engagement opportunities with donors and DRC government partners to optimize programme efficiency.
• Enable, with support from CAFI Secretariat experts, the development of standardised models for innovative financial support mechanisms to support DRC’s sustainable development objectives whilst reducing and avoiding negative impacts on forests.
• Synthesize and document lessons learned and best practices from CAFI programmes to develop knowledge products, inform strategic communications, and respond to queries regarding programme progress and impacts.
• Support the implementation of CAFI`s engagement process in DRC, including the policy dialogue under the LOI, as well as the development and implementation of partnership agreements between CAFI and DRC.
• Identify key engagement areas, and develop engagement plans including actor mapping, to maximize CAFI`s programme strategies and interventions.
• Collaborate within the technical and political outreach efforts with all stakeholders (line ministries, prime minister’s office, president’s office, CAFI Embassies, RCO, implementing organizations and non-state actors).
• Research and analysis of information to donors, preparation of substantive briefs on possible areas of cooperation.
• Develop texts for partnerships agreements and identify solutions to resolve outstanding negotiating position between CAFI and DRC.
• Participate and represent CAFI in the different development partner coordination mechanisms (general, national and sectoral development partner coordination mechanisms in DRC to identify relevant points, strategic issues and topics for collective action.
• Oversee the development of milestone monitoring matrices further to the existing LOI.
• Oversee the organization of the annual partnership reviews in-country and other ad hoc coordination meetings as required by national circumstances.
• Facilitate dialogue between the DRC government and the CAFI Secretariat by leading discussions and proposing draft language for political commitments and milestones, governance bodies and monitoring mechanisms.
• Enable and strengthen the policy dialogue between CAFI and the DRC government by identifying and documenting key areas for strategic support. Produce papers, policy briefs, and notes with strategic analysis and policy recommendations.
• Support the executive management of the CAFI Secretariat and ensure liaison with other sub-teams within the CAFI Secretariat such as Operations, M&E, Programming, Communications.
• Reviews and takes due diligence on the annual work planning and target setting for the CAFI DRC portfolio including reviewing workplans, tracking deadlines and flagging bottlenecks.
• Promote effective coordination and communication among CAFI supported programs and partners.
• Facilitate CAFI programming operations through identification, support and monitoring of institutional capacity building & reform projects and initiatives to ensure delivery of defined programme outcomes.
• Coordinate and participate in quality control mechanisms to ensure the technical quality of the project outputs, publications, and policy discussions.
• Mobilize partnership engagement for strategic interventions such as Expressions of Interests, specific projects, Fast-Tracks, etc.
• Advise and proactively support the CAFI communications team on defensive and proactive policy dialogue related communications, the production of communication products and content for the CAFI webpage.
• Oversee the development and presentation of policy dialogue related topics for the CAFI Executive Board meetings.
• Contribute to resource mobilization efforts by identifying strategies and opportunities and providing inputs to the Head of Secretariat and the Chief Policy Dialogue and Country Engagement.
• Advise programming team on policy support programs and vice versa obtains input from programmes for policy dialogue.
• Ensure provision of top quality advisory services and facilitation of knowledge building and management.
• Identify policy-driven issues; and identify and synthesize best practices and lessons learned directly linked to programme country policy goals.
• Establish/strengthen national and international advocacy networks. Implement relevant, high -impact advocacy with key partners.
• Coordinate and ensure integrated support in development of policies and institutions to address country problems and needs in collaboration with the Government and other strategic partners.
• Support policy advisory services that contribute to inclusive societal digital transformation and take digital technology risks and opportunities or futures signals into account.
• Provide sound contributions to knowledge networks, communities of practice, and digital knowledge platforms.
• Organize and deliver training for the operations/ projects staff on programme related matters.

Requirements

• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in Environment, Ecology, Forestry, Business Management, Law, Economy, or related field is required, or a first-level university degree (Bachelor’s degree) in the areas mentioned above in combination with additional 2 years of qualifying experience, will be given due consideration in lieu of Master’s degree.
• Minimum 5 years (with Master´s degree) or 7 years (with Bachelor´s degree) of professional experience in the field of natural resource management, development economy and/or climate change policy in Central Africa is required.
• Demonstrated work experience in partnership agreements and programming modalities of the UN, the World Bank or other development cooperation institutions is required.
• Demonstrated direct experience with development assistance policies and procedures, including programmes in the sectors covered by CAFI’s mandate is required.
• Experience in working with senior-level development partners at a minimum head of country office level is desired.
• Proven experience with political engagement with government counterparts, at a minimum with DG level is desired.
• Proven experience in the management of complex multi-stakeholder processes and the engagement of various groups of stakeholders including constituencies from local communities, civil society, and private sector is desired.
• Fluency in both French and English is required.

Skills

• Natural Resource Management
• Development Economy
• Climate Change Policy
• Partnership Agreements
• Programming Modalities
• Development Assistance Policies
• Multi-stakeholder Process Leadership
• Political Engagement
• Policy Dialogue
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Forest Conservation
• Sustainable Development
• Senior-level Partner Coordination
• Government Relations
• French
• English

Languages

French, English