Background

The objective of the GEF-funded project ‘Sustainable Land and Forest Management in the Greater Caucasus Landscape’ is the sustainable land and forest management in the Greater Caucasus Landscape secures the flow of multiple ecosystem services, including carbon storage and sequestration and water provisioning services, while ensuring ecosystem resilience to climate change. The project will engineer a paradigm shift from the current unsustainable practices to sustainable land and forest management practice. The project will address barriers to sustainable pasture and forest management. In doing so it will support measures to mitigate CC such as managing natural forests to emphasize natural regeneration through improved grazing and wood collecting in forests. It will avoid GHG emissions caused by degradation, increase sequestration through enhanced biomass and improve the productivity of forests and pasturelands. This would result in short and long-term global benefits.

Duties and Responsibilities

The work comprises two discrete, but complementary components:

Component 1: Capacity assessment (state of readiness to implement the UN-REDD program)

Work under this component includes the following activities:

  • A review of the enabling legislative and policy framework for implementing the UN-REDD programme in Azerbaijan;
  • An assessment of the national institutional and governance capacities for the effective reduction of emissions from deforestation and degradation in Azerbaijan;
  • An evaluation of the regional and national technical capacities to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in Azerbaijan.

These technical capacities will include inter alia:

  • The definition of a baseline and reference scenarios for emissions from deforestation and degradation, and the availability of data,
  • Current REDD implementation strategies, including the identification of priority areas for forest conservation and reduction of deforestation; and
  • A national monitoring and reporting system;
  • An appraisal of the tools (e.g. manuals, protocols, methodologies) and standards (e.g. CCBA) that are applied to REDD initiatives and programmes in Azerbaijan;
  • An assessment of the funding available for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in Azerbaijan;
  • Identify and prioritize the key weaknesses and gaps in the readiness of Azerbaijan to implement the UN-REDD program;
  • Identify the training, skills and capacity development needs of the key public institutions (MoENR, DFD, FE and EMD); and.
  • Consolidate the above information into a comprehensive ‘report on the state of readiness of Azerbaijan to implement the UN-REDD program’.    

The state of readiness work will need to be implemented, using a consultative and participative approach.

Component 2: Training (facilitating UN-REDD implementation in Azerbaijan)

Work under this component includes the following activities:

  • Design of an umbrella training program/curriculum for UN-REDD implementation in Azerbaijan;
  • Identification of available training resources (e.g. professional short courses, webinars, e-based training courses, etc.) for elements of the training program;
  • Development of targeted training courses to address the priority training and skills-development needs identified in the ‘report on the state of readiness of Azerbaijan to implement the UN-REDD program’ (see above).

These training courses may include inter alia:

  • National forest monitoring and reporting systems;
  • Procedures for national reporting to UNFCCC on forest GHG emissions;
  • Forest carbon emissions assessment methodologies;
  • Forest resource assessments to provide the information needed for carbon and co-benefits inventory data;
  • Implementation of methods to estimate emissions from forest area and in establishing historical reference emission levels,
  • Assessing forest soil organic matter carbon pools;
  • Monitoring forest area changes through remote sensing; and
  • Forestry Certification Standards;
  • Integration of the training program, external training resources and project-developed training courses into the MoENR’s “Expertise Enhancement Training Center” program;
  • Consolidate the above information into a ‘training manual for UN-REDD implementation in Azerbaijan.

Competencies

  • Displaying cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
  • Outstanding communication, coordination, presentation and reporting skills;
  • Excellent interpersonal and cross-cultural communication skills;
  • Outstanding time-management and organizational skills;
  • Sharing knowledge and experience, communicating ideas and managing information flow;
  • Strong team building skills, team management;
  • Respond positively to feedback and differing points of view;
  • Planning, organizing and multi-tasking;
  • Analytical thinking;
  • Strong computer skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • A post-graduate degree in a sustainable forestry, or related environmental field.

Experience:

  • At least 10 years of experience;
  • Knowledge information about available best international  practices on the implementation of the UN-REDD program.

Language:

  • Fluent in written and oral communication in English;
  • Knowledge of Russian will be an asset.