Back Senior Resilient Agriculture Specialist

A. About Asian Disaster Preparedness Center
ADPC is an autonomous international organization with a vision to reduce disaster and climate risk impacts on communities and countries in Asia and the Pacific by working with governments, development partners, international organizations, NGOs, civil society, private sector, media, and other key stakeholders.

Established in 1986 as a technical capacity building center, ADPC has grown and diversified its expertise across social and physical sciences to support sustainable solutions for risk reduction across a broad range of specialist areas. With over 100 staff from 19 different nationalities and a wide range of professional expertise from atmospheric scientists to social scientists with experiences from all levels of engagement typically required for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Resilience (CR) in an effective manner. ADPC has six strategic themes supported by seven departments: ADPC Academy, Risk Governance, Climate Resilience, Urban Resilience, Health Risk Management, Preparedness for Response and Recovery, Geospatial Information. These are supported by the Finance, Human Resources and Administration, and Strategic Planning departments. In addition to the six strategic themes, ADPC also works on three cross-cutting themes: Gender and Diversity, Poverty and Livelihoods, and Regional and Transboundary Cooperation through permanent working committees.

ADPC Strategy 2020 guides the organization in providing comprehensive risk reduction support to countries and communities in Asia and the Pacific. ADPC recognizes the importance of examining the linkages between disaster risk management, poverty reduction, gender equality, sustainability, rights-based approaches, climate change and regional cooperation.

For details please refer to ADPC website at http://www.adpc.net/

B. Background
Disasters take a huge toll on the development agenda of SAR countries. Between 2000 and 2017, disasters in South Asia incurred estimated damages of US$ 149.27 billion. Public expenditure is under stress by the repeated need to reallocate capital budgets away from long term development planning and towards reconstruction activities in post-disaster environments. For example, since 2005, Pakistan has suffered losses on the order of US$ 16 billion due to natural disasters. In Bangladesh, 2007 Cyclone Sidr resulted in damages and losses of US$1.7 billion or 2.6 percent of GDP.

To increase resilience and achieve climate commitments, there is a need for a transformational shift towards policies and institutions that enable climate-resilient investments. Investing in more resilient infrastructure is both profitable and urgent as disruptions are extremely costly for governments, households and private sector and large ongoing investments in infrastructure assets will have long-lasting repercussions as poor maintenance and natural disasters result in a vulnerable stock.

With the financial support from the World Bank Group, ADPC will be implementing a five years’ project, titled “Climate Adaptation and Resilience Project for South Asia” (CARE). The project aims to create an enabling environment for climate resilience policies and investments across South Asia. This objective will be achieved through enhanced regional cooperation and knowledge exchange for climate resilience and adaptation and mainstreaming of resilience and adaptation in national policies, plans, and investments.

Scaling up the national and regional resilience through climate-smart agriculture is vital to satisfactorily implement all the required components of the project. It would involve reviewing current strategies and identifying entry points to scale-up strategic approaches to climate-smart agriculture.

Accordingly, a highly qualified and experienced Senior Resilient Agriculture Specialist be required to oversee the overall implementation and provide technical guidance under the agriculture sector activities of the CARE project.
The objectives of this staff position are to:

• Support country implementation of agriculture sector activities through technical guidance/inputs
• Development of regional and country-specific guidelines, handbooks on climate-smart agriculture
• Conducting regional and national capacity building and training to increase understanding of climate-smart agriculture.

C. Statement of Intent
The Senior Resilient Agriculture Specialist will provide overall technical support to implement agriculture sector activities in the project countries and also provide technical guidance to agriculture sector activities under CARE project.

The Senior Resilient Agriculture Specialist will be based in Bangkok, Thailand.

Note:
It is not the intent of this Position Description to cover every aspect of the position requirements, rather to highlight the most important areas of personal and joint responsibilities.

D. Duties and Responsibilities
The Senior Resilient Agriculture Specialist shall be responsible for providing technical leadership in:

• Analyzing and evaluation existing climate-smart agriculture strategic framework in Pakistan viz-a-vis agro-climatic zoning to address gaps in the framework
• Scaling up existing climate-smart agriculture strategic framework for the
  Department of Agriculture in Punjab including improving the monitoring framework for implementation
• Conducting comprehensive review and assessment of agriculture policy analysis alongside the needs and issues in Pakistan’s agriculture sector to support in developing of a climate-informed policy action for the agriculture sector
• Conducting and developing an analysis and evaluation report on climate-smart agriculture (CSA) strategy for Bangladesh alongside a detailed study on climate challenges in livestock
• Developing strategic options on climate-smart livestock in Bangladesh
• Providing inputs for the agriculture policy and climate resilience/adaptation measures analysis in Bangladesh
• Conducting in-country comprehensive review and assessment, alongside the needs and issues assessment with strengthening climate resilience of the agriculture sector and policies in Nepal
• Lead in developing policy actions to reform the agriculture sector in Nepal
• Developing a handbook on climate resilience and adaption for the Ministry of Agriculture in Nepal
• Developing regional guidelines and focus country-specific chapters on climate-smart agriculture in the South Asia Region
• Conducting national capacity building on agro-climatic zoning, climate-smart agriculture policies and technologies for relevant ministries across focus countries
• Conducting Training of Training (ToT) for local agriculture extension officials to disseminate locally available CSA technologies for farmers in Pakistan and Nepal
• Conducting training and capacity building to disseminate climate-smart agriculture technologies at three levels in Bangladesh

The Senior Resilient Agriculture Specialist will provide further support in:

• Integrating strategic climate considerations for climate-smart livestock including monitoring framework to strengthen CSA in Bangladesh
• Developing detailed policy actions to reform the agriculture sector in Bangladesh to be more climate-informed
• Reviewing agro-climatic zone documents and conducting risk information related to the stakeholder and needs assessment for agro-climatic zoning in Nepal
• Conducting a training needs assessment on the agriculture sector with a focus on climate change adaptation, climate public policy, and climate finance in three focus countries
• Conducting a series of training for the agriculture sector with a focus on climate change adaptation, climate public policy, and climate finance in three focus countries.
• Performing other relevant tasks as assigned by the supervisor.

E. Qualifications

• An advanced degree in agriculture, agronomy, or other relevant fields of study with a strong background in institutional capacity building. Ph.D. in related subject areas will be an added advantage.
• A minimum of 10 years of professional experience in the field of agriculture and food security
• A minimum of 7 years of professional experience of working in climate change adaptation and climate-smart solutions for the agriculture sector
• A minimum of 5 years of professional experience in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) in Asia and the Pacific region
• Experience in designing and implementing project component for climate change adaptation, mitigation through climate-smart and conservation agriculture
• Experience in providing technical advice on sustainable agriculture, climate adaptation and mitigation through effective climate-smart, climate-resilient and conservation agriculture will be preferred
• An excellent understanding of the current regional (Asia-Pacific) and global discourse related to climate-resilient agriculture
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and capacity to work under pressure and short deadlines
• Cross-cultural awareness and ability to work amongst a diverse group of staff, and partners
• Experience in training, capacity building and facilitating high-level discussions
• Excellent English proficiency in oral and written communication, including a demonstrated track record in technical report writing and ability to communicate technical matters effectively to a general audience.
• Required computer proficiencies: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Microsoft Teams, working knowledge of SPSS or similar statistical software and GIS application would be preferred.

F. Reporting Relationships
The Senior Resilient Agriculture Specialist will report to the Director of the Climate Resilience Department and work in close coordination with the Project Implementation Unit (PIU) of the CARE project. The specialist would also coordinate with the other CARE project specialists at the regional and national level to carry out different activities under the project.

G. Contract Duration
The contract duration will be for two (2) years initially with a possibility of extension based on performance and technical requirements of the position.

H. Selection Method
A staff member will be selected in accordance with ADPC’s recruitment and/or
capacity assessment process.