Antecedentes

The SMSMCL Project Document was approved and signed on 31st October 2013. The first Project Group Meeting to initiate the project was held in February 2014, but the project started in earnest following the contracting of a Senior Technical Advisor and a Project Manager in October and November 2014 respectively.

The primary objective of this project is to strengthen local capacities, incentives and actions for integrated landscape management in order to reduce land degradation and greenhouse gas emissions and promote nature conservation whilst enhancing sustainable local livelihoods. In order to achieve this objective the project will support local household and wider community actions to reduce pressures on natural resources from competing land uses in the wider landscape.

Several recent developments and projects were either completed or initiated during the planning period of the SMSMCL project and its signing, until the Inception Workshop. They had an impact on the results-based framework, on the need to review and re-assess indicators baseline and target figures, and also on outputs and activities’ implementation. In addition, several new policies related to SLM and Forestry are in their final stages of preparation, based on recent 2013-2014 National Land Cover mapping, Carbon Biomass assessments and National Forest Inventory and mapping, including updated assessments of deforestation and land degradation.

A major part of the Inception Phase had the project team held meetings and a technical consultations series with key stakeholders to review and update and/or validate the main project elements.  Apart from local communities in both Savaii and Upolu, three groups of stakeholders were particularly targeted and included institutions, organizations and Government Divisions that were involved in the original project design.  The findings re-affirm the validity of the project assumptions and priorities in terms of outputs and activities of the SMSMCL project to address issues related to land degradation and forest conservation.

On behave of the Government of Samoa and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, UNDP is now recruiting an expert to develop a training programme for sustainable agricultural practices for farming communities in project targeted areas. The project will target at least 5000 households to get adopted sustainable land and water management practices in their land by the end of the project. These will include land to be cultivated with ecologically sustainable traditional agricultural practices bolstered by integration with environmental friendly climate and pest resistant crop varieties, mixed cropping, organic farming, agroforestry, contour/alley/terracing farming, as well as land to be covered with indigenous tree plantations under community management.

Deberes y responsabilidades

The project will assist farmer households to adopt sustainable land and water management practices on parcels of land they utilize under household management. The project will work with farmers in targeted sites to assist them in adopting sustainable land and water management practices and assist other farmers outside the targeted areas.

The tasks of the expert will include, but are not limited to:

• Conducting a preliminary needs analysis and profile understanding of the community core groups to be trained;
• Identify and document which sustainable agricultural practices needs to be applied in Samoa building on ecologically sustainable traditional practices while at the same time integrating environmentally friendly climate and pest resistant crop varieties, mixed cropping, organic farming, agroforestry, contour/alley/terrace farming and indigenous tree plantations under community management and other sustainable agricultural practices;
• Support the project management unit in developing a plan for how 18,000 ha land can be cultivated through ecologically site-appropriate sustainable traditional agricultural practices as described above;
• Liaise with the Samoa Qualification Authority (SQA) which is the principal organisation mandated to quality assurance of PSET in designing a training programme (including training materials/resources) for farmers incorporating the various needs of the target audience as well as the site appropriate sustainable agricultural practices;
• Build modules around concepts to be delivered;
• Share training programme and modules with trainers and to conduct 3 trainings to test programme and transfer training of learning and facilitation skills to local facilitators.

Development of an action plan for the project to ensure training is transferred in to day to day practices of the project team, their advisers and partners engaged in the field implementation of the trainings and capacity-building of farmers, including NGOs and Government Ministries’ staff.

Competencias

• Demonstrates commitment to UNDP mission, vision and values;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Focuses on result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Remains calm, in control and good humoured even under pressure;
• Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities;
• Good inter-personal and teamwork skills, networking aptitude, ability to work in multicultural environment.

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Education:

• Post-graduate degree in natural resources management or related fields specialising in the area of sustainable agriculture.

Experience:

• A minimum of 10 years practical and proven experience in planning, designing and implementing training programmes on sustainable agricultural practices and sustainable land management;
• Working experiencewithin the Pacific region in general and Samoa in particular would be highly desirable;
• Experience with UNDP-GEF projects or other donor project in land management , SLM or natural resource management in the Pacific is a requirement, in Samoa a strong asset;
• Experience in working as part of a multidisciplinary team of experts and consultants.

Language:

• Fluency in English (oral and written) is a requirement.