Sustainable Land Management and Rangeland Specialist – Angola Demonstration Sites

About the role

The Global Water Partnership Southern Africa (GWPSA) is recruiting a Sustainable Land Management and Rangeland Specialist for the CUVKUN Project, which improves water resources management and community resilience in the Cuvelai and Kunene transboundary basins shared by Angola and Namibia. This is an internal vacancy open to eligible internal candidates only. The Specialist works full-time in southern Angola (Cunene or Huíla province), mostly at five demonstration sites, with regular travel to the sites and occasional travel to Namibia. The tenure is 12 months, subject to satisfactory performance and availability of project resources.

Key responsibilities

• Lead planning, implementation and verification of community-driven SLM, rangeland management and land restoration at the five Angolan demonstration sites, so that land, participation and livelihood targets are met and can be replicated through the basin IWRM Plans.
• Delineate the landscape served by each site, establish baselines on land cover, degradation drivers, land tenure and household and gender profiles, and help communities adopt geo-referenced, gender-responsive SLM and restoration plans.
• Establish or strengthen site committees with equal representation of women and inclusion of youth and the elderly, and work with traditional and local authorities on grazing and land-use agreements.
• Design and deliver a capacity development programme for extension staff, community facilitators, lead farmers and herders, using participatory approaches such as Farmer Field Schools.
• Guide communities to bring cropland, rangeland and woodland under improved practices and restore degraded areas, paying special attention to collective grazing management and bush encroachment.
• Track and verify hectares against GEF-7 Core Indicators 4 and 5, maintain a sex- and age-disaggregated register of participating households and farms, and provide data for the PIR, Mid-Term Review and Terminal Evaluation.
• Quantify inputs, materials and small works for each site plan, coordinate with the water infrastructure and early warning teams, and apply the UNDP Social and Environmental Standards, the project ESMF, site ESMPs, the Gender Action Plan and the Grievance Redress Mechanism.
• Coordinate with the Namibian sites specialist on a common hectare verification method, document practices and costs, and prepare a costed roadmap for scaling up SLM and rangeland restoration.
• Prepare monthly progress reports and quarterly reports in English, with site plans and summaries in Portuguese for communities and provincial authorities.

Required profile

• Advanced university degree (Master's or higher) in Agriculture, Natural Resource Management, Range Science, Environmental Science or a closely related field.
• At least five years of relevant professional experience, including leading multi-site field programmes.
• Experience in communal rangeland management, grazing planning and bush encroachment control.
• Experience implementing community-based SLM or land restoration in dryland or semi-arid settings in southern Africa; experience in the Cuvelai or Kunene Basins is an added advantage.
• Experience with participatory extension approaches (Farmer Field Schools or equivalent) with smallholder farmers and pastoral communities, including gender-responsive approaches.
• Fluency in written and spoken Portuguese and working proficiency in English; knowledge of local languages in Cunene and Huíla is an added advantage.
• Ability to undertake extended field assignments in remote and rural locations.

Required skills

• Sound knowledge of SLM practices, rangeland ecology, land restoration methods (including assisted natural regeneration) and the Land Degradation Neutrality framework.
• Ability to design and facilitate participatory land-use and grazing planning with communities and traditional authorities.
• GPS field data collection and QGIS or ArcGIS for mapping and verifying site areas.
• Good proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and strong technical report-writing and presentation skills.