Back Food Systems Expert, Restore Local Project, Greater Rift Valley

This position is hybrid requiring a few days per week in the WRI Africa office in Nairobi, Kenya. Existing work authorization is required at the time of application submission. WRI is unable to sponsor any visa work sponsorship for this position.

About the Program:

The Restore Local project provides Restoration Champions (community-based organizations, and small and medium enterprises) in priority landscapes across Africa with the support they need – finance, technical capacity, policy and monitoring to support to scale restoration of degraded land and forests. Because agriculture remains a key driver of deforestation and land degradation, the success and sustainability of the restoration program is contingent upon its ability to effectively integrate restoration and agricultural practices that enhance agriculture productivity, provide households with diversified sources of income, and food and nutrition needs whilst delivering positive outcome for nature and climate. Champion under Restore Local are already integrating some of these practices. However, there is room to improve outcomes on productivity, track the outcomes through our M&E systems and provide evidence for improvements, if we develop shared, systematic and consistent understanding and guidelines for implementation.

Job Highlight:

Reporting to the to the Food Systems Transformation Associate, you will develop and facilitate delivery of practical and technical knowledge on context-specific best practices that integrate food and nutrition security in restoration to the restoration champions. This will include practices that improve different dimensions of food and nutrition security – availability, access, utilisation, and stability. You will lead the evidence generation on local degradation challenges and production suitability across different agroecological zones within the focus landscape, especially at the Restoration Champions sites. You will also carry out a review of the Restoration Champions proposals, to identify gaps and opportunities for integrating food and nutrition security in proposed restoration activities.

You will lead the contextualization of guidelines for integrating food in restoration and develop training materials to meet the needs of the individual champions. You will also build internal capacity of the restoration team – TerraFund, Land Accelerator, Policy, and Monitoring - on integration of food dimension in restoration. You will identify strategic partner(s) to deliver practical and technical capacity to the Restoration Champions. You will coordinate training delivery, and support of champions to adopt and implement the practices they will be trained on. You will coordinate the setting up of farms demonstration plots and experiment/trials, and monitor progress by tracking and reporting on identified indicators. The training, adoption/implementation support and trials will help the program to expand and scale restoration practices that have a clear impact on food and nutrition security. For local embeddedness and sustainability, you will convene and coordinate with the local government agencies and stakeholders and ensure harmonization with the existing programs and strategies.

What will you do:

Research (50%):

• Conduct need assessment to build evidence on local degradation challenges and production suitability across the different ecological zones within the restoration champions sites
• Conduct analysis on agronomic and restoration practices, degradation trends and contributing factors in restoration sites
• Analyse existing data on soil health (from government institutions) or coordinate data gathering and analysis on the same if absent or limited
• Review Restoration Champions proposal for gaps and opportunities for integrating food and nutrition security dimensions in proposed activities
• Support market assessment for restoration products
• Coordinate participatory trials with restoration champions and development of field level data collection tools
• Support the monitoring, tracking, learning and reporting on food outcome area key indicators
• Participate in selection and training of enumerators
• Lead field data collection – mobilising enumerators, monitoring data quality and uploading the data on ODK or other software

  Technical assistance / capacity building (30%):

  • Lead the development of context-specific training modules, and training program for respective Restoration Champions
  • Identify strategic partner and coordinate capacity development (internally and externally), on best restoration practices that enhance local food and nutrition security – on-site/in-farm training, workshops, and other forms of in-person events to champions, farmer cooperatives, individual farmers and other stakeholders
  • Coordinate the setting up of farm demonstration plots and field experiment/trials
  • Coordinate the support of select Restoration Champions to adopt and implement restoration practices to enhance local food and nutrition security
  • In collaboration and coordination with the Regeneration and other partners, support the Champions with market linkages or market systems development for the restoration value chains’ products

    Engagement and Partnerships (20%):

    • Ensure coordination and harmonization between restore local program and government and other stakeholders’ programs vis-à-vis food systems transformation and forest and landscape restoration in the focus countries/counties
    • Participate in the establishment of market partnership for the restoration products by facilitating connection between the Champions and market stakeholders
    • Collaborate with stakeholders in different sectors in the value chain; county government department of agriculture, private sector and other stakeholders in the landscape to enhance sustainable consumption and production, including market systems development
    • Contribute to policy strengthening for restoration practices that enhance food and nutrition security
    • Represent WRI in key events, increase the public profile of WRI’s work on integrating food security in restoration at the landscape level.

      What will you need:

      • Education: You have completed a bachelor's degree in agriculture, agronomy, agroecology, agroforestry, sustainability, environmental science or related fields
      • Experience: