Position summary:
The Specialist, Sustainable Landscapes and Natural Climate Solutions is the regional technical lead advancing the Rainforest Alliance’s sustainable landscapes, climate resilience, adaptation and mitigation interventions in the land-use sector. S/he will provide regional and global thought leadership and support high-quality and consistent execution of these selected strategic interventions in the region. To advance Rainforest Alliance's global, regional and country strategies, s/he will lead the development of plans and tools for sustainable landscape and natural climate interventions and support regional staff in their implementation. To achieve this, s/he will coordinate closely with global counterparts in the Programs portfolio to infuse these interventions with global best practices and tools. S/he will provide technical support to country teams and support implementation of selected regional initiatives. S/he will grow the scope and scale of our impacts by cultivating results-based partnerships with key stakeholders, by leading the technical design of strategic donor-funded initiatives and by ensuring the technical quality of donor proposals and reports.
The main thrust of work for carrying out these responsibilities will be through supporting the Latin America piloting and development of the Landscape Standard (LS). See: https://verra.org/project/landscape-standard/. The LS is a new, collaborative initiative, led by the Rainforest Alliance, Verra and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA), which aims to drive improvements in sustainability performance at a landscape scale. The LS provides a standardized approach for assessing the state and trajectory of sustainability within a landscape. This framework can be used by communities, businesses, governments and investors to understand and communicate the cumulative impact of activities within a and demonstrate improvements in sustainability performance at landscape scale. This will enable this information to be taken account of in sourcing and investment decisions, linking market incentives to improved sustainability performance at landscape scale. To ensure that the framework developed is practical and fit for purpose, the Rainforest Alliance leads piloting activities in Guatemala, Peru and Mexico.
Responsibilities:
Leadership and Management:
- Deliver effective and impactful implementation of RA’s mission by coordinating the Landscape Standard regional initiatives and a limited, strategic set of related landscape & climate initiatives, ensuring that RA attains its technical, financial and contractual commitments for this work.
- Ensure the timely and high-quality completion of related organizational, government and donor annual workplans, budgets, reports and audits.
- Coordinate annual planning for Landscape Standard activities in the region, as well as complementary sustainable landscape & climate interventions.
- Mentor and coach local staff to build their capacity to execute sustainable landscapes and natural climate solutions related interventions, with a particular focus on successful piloting and replication of LS methods and tools.
Strategic and technical excellence:
- Serve on required LS technical working groups, functioning as the liaison between field teams piloting LS in Guatemala, Mexico and Peru, and the LS Secretariat, Working Groups and Senior RA staff.
- Ensure that lessons learned from field pilots fully inform global LS framework development and business modelling and that field teams are kept abreast of international developments.
- Ensure that the global demand-building strategy is complementary to local needs by facilitating multi-level engagement with key corporate brands and outreach to business and finance partners as a function of local needs.
- Serve as the regional technical lead for RA’s sustainable landscapes, climate resilience, adaptation and mitigation interventions in the land-use sector. This work will be carried out in close coordination with regional staff, the global program, and global counterparts in the Programs portfolio.
- Deliver thought leadership and guidance by, i.e. staying abreast of internal and external trends, delivering periodic internal presentations and webinars to relevant teams, promoting horizontal and vertical information flow, and providing technical support to staff when requested.
Advocacy and External Engagement:
- Author policy briefs, blogs, white papers or other technical publications that demonstrate RA’s thought leadership on sustainable landscapes and natural climate solutions.
- Directly cultivate and maintain results-based partnerships with a subset of strategic regional contacts, and function as RA representative in selected strategic regional and global multi-stakeholder fora.
Fundraising and business development:
- Secure long-term financing for regional landscape and climate-related programming, through leading the design of a subset of high-priority, high-impact regional proposals to companies and donors.
- Serve as lead writer on selected proposals and donor reports, which include landscape and climate-related elements and are focused on Latin America.
- Contribute strategic advisory and technical reviews to writing and budgeting of fundraising proposals which include a landscape and/or climate component or element and are focused on Latin America.
- Proactively identify funding opportunities and cultivate long-term relationships with senior leads and decision makers from selected regional-level intergovernmental organizations, companies, NGO partners, aid agencies and CFR donors.
- Other tasks as assigned by supervisor.
Supervisory Responsibilities:
This position may oversee consultants.
Salary:
Commensurate with experience.
Notes:
Only candidates authorized to work in Peru, Guatemala, or Mexico will be considered.
The Rainforest Alliance is an equal opportunity employer.
Application:
Deadline June 30, 2019. Application process: Please apply online. Combine resume and cover letter in one single document and upload.
