Resilient Agriculture Specialist

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, the Human Resources and Administration, and the 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/

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 policies on agro-climatic zoning is vital to satisfactorily implement all the required components of the project. It would involve reviewing relevant documents and conducting a needs assessment in Bangladesh. Accordingly, a highly qualified and experienced Resilient Agriculture Specialist be required to support in implementing various agriculture sector initiatives in Bangladesh.

The objectives of this staff position are to:

• Technical review of the agriculture sector policies, strategies, and plans in Bangladesh.
• Support in conducting consultations and workshops for needs assessment in the agriculture sector in Bangladesh.
• Conducting data analysis to support development of a scientific base for Bangladesh’s agro-climatic zoning policy.
• Support design of training modules on climate-resilient agriculture.

Statement of Intent

The Resilient Agriculture Specialist will provide support in reviewing regional and national guidelines for the agriculture sector. The Specialist will further support in identifying adaptation and investment needs to strengthen the agriculture sector in Bangladesh. The Resilient Agriculture Specialist will be based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Note: It is not the intent of this Position Description to cover every aspect of the position requirements, rather highlight the most important areas of personal and joint responsibilities.

Duties and Responsibilities

Technical Review and Analysis:

• Conduct and develop analysis and evaluation report on climate-smart agriculture (CSA) strategy for Bangladesh and detailed study on climate challenges in livestock;
• Prepare strategic options on climate-smart livestock and validate through a participatory process;
• Conduct deep-dive agriculture policy analysis in Bangladesh;
• Analyze climate resilience and adaptation measures in the agriculture sector for specific needs and issues;
• Assess needs and issues related to agriculture sector being climate-informed;
• Develop detailed policy actions to reform the Agriculture sector in Bangladesh to be climate-informed;
• Identifying national and sub-national best practices and methods of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and livestock practices;
• Reviewing on various documents including policies, plans, acts, guidelines, institutional set-up related to CSA and livestock practices;
• Providing information suitable for climate-smart agriculture strategic framework that considers climate-extreme risk and mitigation solutions.

Tools and Guidelines Development:

• Preparing draft guidelines for climate-smart agriculture and livestock;
• Conducting validation workshop with relevant stakeholders in agriculture and livestock;
• Developing strategic monitoring framework for climate-smart agriculture to strengthen CSA;
• Revising draft and finalizing climate-smart agriculture strategy and including monitoring framework to strengthen CSA;

Needs Assessment:

• Conducting key informant interview (KII) and focus group discussions (FGD) to analysis and evaluate CSA strategy and to identify needs and issues of the agriculture sector;
• Support in conducting consultations and workshops to use climate-related hazard and risk assessment methodologies for the agriculture sector.

Capacity Building:

• Developing training modules for training of trainers (ToT) on the overall concept of CSA practices and policy into interventions;
• Developing training modules and case studies to conduct capacity building for government officials on CSA policy, agro-climatic zoning and climate financing for agriculture and livestock sector;
• Other duties and responsibilities as assigned by the supervisor.

Qualifications

• A master’s degree in one or more subjects such as Agriculture, Agronomy or other related fields;
• At least 7 years’ experience in the field of agriculture and food security;
• Minimum 3 years of experience in climate change adaptation and climate-smart solutions for the agriculture sector;
• Strong understanding and knowledge of climate change impacts on agriculture sector in South Asia and Bangladesh;
• Knowledge of or related to agro-climatic zoning strategies and policies at the national level;
• Teamwork with strong 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 and capacity building;
• 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 general audience.
• Fluency in Bengali is preferred;
• Required computer proficiencies: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Microsoft Teams, working knowledge of SPSS, or similar statistical software and GIS application would prefer.

Reporting Relationships

The Resilient Agriculture Specialist (Bangladesh) will report to the Director of the Climate Resilience Department and perform day-to-day activities in close coordination with the CARE Country Project Lead and the ADPC’s Country Representative in Bangladesh. The technical oversight will be provided by the Resilient Agriculture Specialist (Regional) based at the Bangkok office. The specialist would also coordinate with the other CARE project specialists at the regional and national level to carry out cross-cutting activities under the project.

Selection Method

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