Organizational Setting
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) contributes to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda through the FAO Strategic Framework by supporting the transformation to MORE efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agri-food systems, for a better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind. The Forestry Division leads FAO's work in promoting sustainable forest management and providing leadership on the environmental, social and economic dimensions of forestry, including contributions of forests and trees to poverty reduction and food security and nutrition.
The post is located in the National forest monitoring and MRV, platforms, analytic tools Team, who supports FAO member countries on all aspects of forest monitoring; providing reliable information for national forest and land use related policy development, planning and sustainable management; as well as aiding them to fulfil international reporting requirements under the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC. The Team also supports countries on technical issues related to National Forest Monitoring Systems (NFMS), Restoration Monitoring in support the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, and the development of cost effective and high integrity Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV). The NFM Team develops and maintains Open Foris and SEPAL (Digital Public Goods for forest and land use monitoring). It works closely with the Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD ) Teams.
Spatial Informatics Group, LLC (SIG), is an environmental think tank focused on solving complex environmental problems and taking unique solutions to market. SIG combines spatial analytics with ecological, social and economic sciences to understand and quantify the impacts of management and policy choices on the short and long-term stability of ecosystems. In particular, SIG has been leading the development of the collect.earth online (CEO) platform of the OpenForis Initiative.
Reporting Lines
Under the general supervision of the Forestry Officer, the consultant will contribute to the project “Forest Data Partnership (FDaP): Eliminating Supply Chain Deforestation & Catalyzing Ecosystem Restoration” (GCP /GLO/WRI/1052) through further developing CEO with an application that efficiently and effectively enables remote sensing validation data for monitoring of deforestation/degradation free commodity supply chains. In particular, she/he will:
Technical Focus
The Forestry application developer will provide technical support to the design, development and maintenance of the CEO application from the OpenForis toolkit.
Tasks and responsibilities
The Technical Specialist will:
• Contribute to the development and improvement of CEO the Forest Data Partnership and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration
• Organize and contribute to regular meetings with the CEO co-developing team
• Complete development processes using Clojure/Clojurescript, Java/Javascript, and other languages/technologies as required below.
• Implement version control procedures with Git and Github/Gitlab, including creating/closing issues, creating/reviewing/merging pull requests, and good branch management
• Contribute to data collection campaigns for the Forest Data Partnership
• Contribute to data collection campaigns for the Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring
• Perform any other task requested by the program.
CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING
Minimum Requirements
• University degree in Informatics, Computer Science, Geospatial Engineering or a related discipline
• Minimum three (3) years experience developing web applications
• Experience in Clojure/Clojurescript or experience in a different Lisp dialect (e.g., Scheme, Common Lisp)
• Experience with web mapping using OpenLayers or Mapbox
• Experience with geospatial processing using Postgresql, PostGIS, GeoTools, and/or GDAL/OGR
• For Consultants working knowledge of English and limited knowledge of one FAO language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish, Russian)
• For PSAs working knowledge of English
• Working knowledge of French or Spanish will be considered an asset.
FAO Core Competencies
• Results Focus
• Teamwork
• Communication
• Building Effective Relationships
• Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement
Technical/Functional Skills
The consultant will have to demonstrate the following skills:
• Advanced expertise in programming in Java, Clojure or Lisp;
• Excellent skills in key IT tools (MS Office, Github, App development);
• Very good organizational skills;
• Ability to prioritize tasks;
• Ability to cope with high volumes of work;
• Ability to work in a harmonious and efficient manner in a multicultural team;
• Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to maintain effective working relationships with managers and colleagues.
Selection Criteria
• Extent of relevance of experience on providing NFI support to developing countries.
• Knowledge of French and experience in African region particularly in demand.
• Experience in conducting trainings in NFI design and implementation, as well as data entry, management and analysis tailored to country capacities; (experience in conducting trainings in French language highly valued).
• Knowledge of Open Foris functionalities is an advantage.
• Familiar with functional reactive UI development using ReactJS and/or Reagent
• Familiar with functional programming techniques (e.g., pure functions, immutable data, closures, laziness, function composition, memoization)
• Comfortable working in a Linux environment from the command line and administering remote servers over SSH
• Ability to travel internationally and work under demanding field conditions.
• Ability to organize and conduct workshops and training sessions.
This vacancy is archived.