VACANCY TITLE Program Officer, Climate Smart Digital Technologies for Agriculture and Food Security (Digital Tools)

LOCATION Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire or Rotterdam, The Netherlands

INTENSITY Full time 

ANTICIPATED START DATE As soon as possible

APPLICATION DEADLINE 31 01 2022; 5pm CET

ABOUT GCA

The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) is an international organization that works as a solutions broker to catalyze action and support for adaptation solutions, from the international to the local, in partnership with the public and private sector, to ensure we learn from each other and work together for a climate resilient future. Adapting to impacts of climate change provides a “win-win” for health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security and economic growth. The work of the GCA elevates the visibility and political importance of climate adaptation and facilitates solutions, such as smarter investments, new technologies and better planning to become more resilient to climate-related threats. GCA is a rapidly growing organization with offices in Abidjan, Beijing, Dhaka, Groningen, and Rotterdam.

The GCA has an ambitious 2020-2025 business plan with three pillars:

• Programs: GCA’s Programs include: Food Security; Using Nature for more resilient infrastructure; Water for Urban Growth and Resilience; Climate Finance; Youth Leadership
• Knowledge: Building adaptation knowledge globally and in countries through cutting edge knowledge products such as the State and Trends in Adaptation Report; Data and Knowledge Platform
• Advocacy and Awareness: Formulating policy messages to move adaptation agenda forward globally and in countries.

GCA’s work program in Africa is of paramount importance. All of the components of GCA’s Business Plan must succeed to support changing the momentum and pace of adaptation in Africa. Guiding GCA’s program in Africa is the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP), co-created with the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) to implement the vision of the Africa Adaptation Initiative to support African countries on key adaptation initiatives.

The AAAP is contributing to closing Africa’s adaptation gap and supporting African countries to make a transformational shift in their development pathways by putting climate adaptation and resilience at the centre of their critical growth-oriented and inclusive policies, programs, and institutions. It is scaling up successful initiatives fundamental to African nations’ economic development, and prosperity for women and men. The four pillars of the AAAP are: Climate Smart Digital Technologies for Agriculture and Food Security, the Africa Infrastructure Resilience Accelerator, Empowering Youth through Jobs and Entrepreneurship, and Innovative Financial Initiatives for Africa.

The Climate Smart Digital Technologies for Agriculture and Food Security pillar of the AAAP has as its objective, to scale up access to climate-smart digital technologies and associated data-driven agricultural and financial services to at least 30 million farmers in Africa, supporting food security agriculture and food security across 26 countries. It will provide support to the African Development Bank’s investments in African agriculture by supporting the integration of smallholder farmers into digitally enabled agri-food systems. It will launch a blueprint to scale up Digital Climate Advisory Services (DCAS) to empower millions of farmers and local agribusinesses to become more resilient. In parallel, it will implement proof of concepts in several countries to demonstrate how advisories and associated services can be scaled up to benefit millions of farmers as primary users

ABOUT THE ROLE

Profile

GCA seeks a dynamic individual well versed in the development and use of digital technologies in agriculture to fill the role of Program Officer Climate Smart Digital Technologies for Agriculture and Food Security. The Individual will work as a core team member to drive forward the Global Center on Adaptation’s role as a solutions broker in the field of adaptation action. The primary focus of this work will be in Africa.

The Program Officer Climate Smart Digital Technologies for Agriculture and Food Security will report to the Program Lead while working closely with other members of the Leadership Team, thematic leads and colleagues. S/he will play a key role in positioning the GCA as the foremost international organization specialising in climate change adaptation

Areas of responsibility

The areas of responsibility of the Program Officer, Climate Smart Digital Technologies for Agriculture and Food Security (Digital Tools)
 include:

Programmatic Support

• Support the GCA’s work program on food security and rural well-being, including contributing to the development and updating of the detailed work plan and budget
• Participate in the preliminary evaluation of project proposals to assess their feasibility for financial support and/or technical assistance by GCA. This involves the initial screening of projects, carrying out desk reviews, preparing preliminary evaluation notes for presentation to the Workstream Lead and the Regional Director
• Participate in project development and implementation
• Ensure the successful development and delivery of the international multi-stakeholder projects within the work program to time and maintaining effective value for money
• Assess, monitor and steer implementing partners
• Deliver high-quality research to identify and disseminate good practices, and supporting peer-learning for enhancing food security and rural well-being
• Develop and expand an international network of relevant experts and policymakers to support the delivery of the work program
• Engage in cross-cutting projects to support the GCA’s overall mission of accelerating adaptation action
• Contribute to project implementation

Events and Outreach Support

• Support in GCA’s outreach activities.
• Support in organizing meetings, events and workshops pertaining to the Pillar - from the inception to the closing phases, including providing key research to inform the design of the meeting, administrative support to meeting participants including travel (for physical events) in liaison with the Finance teams, preparing letters of invitation and recording meeting proceedings as input to the reports
• Perform additional tasks that may be assigned.