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Senior Project Environmental Officer
USAID/Haiti AVANSE program ( Feed the Future Partnership: Northern Corridor)
Statement of Work
Background & Objective:
The USAID-funded Appui à la Valorisation du Potentiel Agricole du Nord, à la Sécurité Economique et Environnementale program (AVANSE) is a five-year, $87.8 million project designed to catalyze inclusive, sustainable economic growth in a potentially highly productive agricultural area. AVANSE brings improvements in small farmer agricultural practices and investments in rural infrastructure, some of which have possible environmental consequences.
Like any activity funded by USAID, AVANSE must comply with USAID regulations specified in Title 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations 22 CFR 216, commonly called “Regulation 216,” and in USAID directives (ADS 204 and others). The approved environmental plan for AVANSE is the project level Environmental Mitigation Plan and Report (EMPR). The implementation of AVANSE’s activities entail completing appropriate environmental analyses of possible impacts and devising specific mitigation measures that are fully consistent with USAID environmental compliance regulations and the approved environmental documentation. USAID has requested a revised Environmental Assessment (EA), which will result in revision of the EMPR.
Several months after AVANSE was launched the Government of Haiti (GOH) declared a Marine Protected Area (MPA) whose terrestrial domain lies inside the AVANSE project zone. AVANSE’s Environmental Compliance Team is responsible for conducting the necessary oversight, analyses, training and reporting to ensure that the project complies with USAID environmental regulations and, specifically, the approved EMPR.
The Senior Project Environmental Officer (Sr. PEO) will manage the AVANSE Environmental Compliance Team and assume overall responsibility for the project’s compliance with USAID and GOH environmental regulations and adherence to international best practices. Because of the large amounts of data generated by environmental activities and the Environmental Compliance Team’s need for seamless linkage with AVANSE’s field data collection and management systems and economists, the Environmental Compliance Team is located within AVANSE’s Information, Analysis and Environmental Compliance Unit.
Specific Tasks and Responsibilities:
Technical Responsibilities:
The Senior Project Environmental Officer will have general responsibility to implement the Environmental Management System (EMS) described in the Project Environmental Mitigation Plan and Report (Project-EMPR). The Sr. PEO will take the lead and work with technical staff to do the following:
- Screen all pending activities to ensure that they are covered by the EMPR or the new EA and do not require separate environmental assessment (see Table 1 of the project EMPR);
- Work with project staff to define specific mitigation measures for activities determined to have moderate risk (using the general mitigation measures specified in the annexes to the approved EMPR);
- Conduct Environmental Due Diligence of potential Implementing Partners (IPs) to define required training and technical assistance;
- Conduct “cleaner production, pollution prevention” assessments of enterprise subprojects/sub grants where pollution or waste may be an issue;
- With project technical staff, lead preparation of activity EMPRs that specify mitigation measures, monitoring and reporting for any activities;
- Ensure that monitoring of mitigation measures from the field is timely and reliable;
- With project monitoring staff, collect monitoring reports covering all mitigation measures;
- Review implementation of mitigation measures by the project and by IPs and the project to improve performance;
- Assist with environmental aspects of baseline surveys;
- Review compliance with safer use action plan of the approved PERSUAP covering pesticide use, procurement or recommendation;
- Participate in baseline surveys and interpretation of the environmental baseline;
- Assist with the technical aspects of the procurement process for consulting services related to environment or procurement of inputs or services that require environmental conditions;
- Assist project technical staff to define Good Agricultural Practices and mitigation measures and to develop training materials for farmers and enterprises;
- Assist project administrative staff to make sure that subprojects have complete environmental terms of each IP agreement, subcontract and grant; that the subproject is screened for environmental risk; that Environmental Due Diligence has been performed prior to obligating funds for the activity, that each subproject has been cleared for environmental compliance, and that environmental compliance documents are in order;
- Summarize implementation of environmental compliance for project reports to USAID prepare drafts of the environmental section of Annual and Quarterly Reports and other AVANSE publications;
- Design surveys and other activities to monitor project environmental impact and report on compliance with USAID environmental policy;
- Assist the project to support the new Three Bays Park as required by the COP; and
- Undertake additional actions required by the Chief of Party to ensure compliance with USAID regulations.
Management Responsibilities:
The Sr. PEO will manage all environmental compliance activities for the AVANSE project, and will supervise three environmental compliance staff members.
Qualifications:
- Advanced degree (graduate level: doctorate, master’s, etc.) in a relevant field;
- Minimum 15 years of relevant professional experience;
- Strong experience producing documentation to comply with USAID environmental regulations;
- Experience with development projects and small holder farmers;
- Spoken and written fluency in English and French;
- Working ability in Haitian Creole preferred;
- Demonstrated understanding of the Haitian context;
- Experience producing technical reports and managing data;
- Understanding of quantitative data used for monitoring and reporting;
- Proven record of achieving development impacts in a similar context;
- Demonstrated ability to work and coordinate effectively with a wide variety of stakeholders;
- Excellent interpersonal and leadership skills.
Reporting: Reports to the Director of Information, Analysis and Environmental Compliance Unit.
Location: Cap-Haïtien, Haiti
Application deadline: July 30, 2014.
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