WRI seeks a full-time Congo Basin Regional Coordinator to lead development of national strategies and manage on-the-ground implementation of Global Forest Watch (GFW) activities across six countries in Central Africa.  The Regional Coordinator will also be responsible for high-level oversight and management of WRI’s regional office in Kinshasa, DRC.  WRI-GFW’s objectives in the Congo Basin focus on working across stakeholder groups and through partnerships to improve land-use decision-making and forest resource monitoring.  As such, the Regional Coordinator will be required to have a diverse skillset from which to draw from, including familiarity with forest management challenges in Africa, landscape-based land-use planning, application of technology to improve forest management and monitoring (notably GIS and remote sensing), effective written and oral communication, working across diverse stakeholder groups in Africa, as well as project and personnel management. 

The Congo Basin Regional Coordinator will be based in Kinshasa, DRC and lead a growing GFW team and partnerships across Central Africa (including closely supporting WRI’s work under USAID’s Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment – CARPE).  The Regional Coordinator will report directly to WRI’s Africa Forests Manager and will serve as a key liaison between GFW activities in the Congo Basin and those in other priority regions (e.g. SE Asia, Latin America, West Africa).  The post will require regular travel both within the region and abroad, in support of project implementation.

GFW’s mission is to make high-quality information about forests universally accessible and useful for people worldwide, so as to empower them to manage forest landscapes sustainably and improve the livelihoods of local people. The GFW platform (www.globalforestwatch.org) unites satellite technology, open data, and human networks to provide free access to the most timely, reliable, and actionable information about forests around the world. The GFW initiative supports governments, civil society, and the private sector to apply this information to solve critical forest monitoring and management challenges (see also www.forest-atlas.org). 

General

• Lead the development of national strategies and implementation of WRI’s forest activities in support of WRI-GFW’s country-based teams, across the Congo Basin
• Coordinate the provision of regular technical, analytical, communication and strategic support to WRI forest team staff across the Congo Basin
• Ensure quality control of publications (including data products) related to WRI’s work in the Congo Basin
• Support elaboration and implementation of MOUs with key WRI partners
• Work closely with WRI’s global forest team and partners to ensure functional integration of Congo Basin partners, information and activities
• Identify opportunities for WRI to expand the impact of its forest initiative in Central Africa
• Contribute significantly to proposal and report writing in support of WRI-GFW’s objectives

Project, Personnel and Office Management

• Ensure the smooth functioning of and a dynamic, professional and productive work environment in WRI’s regional office in Kinshasa
• Provide high level oversight of projects coming through the Kinshasa office, including management of reporting requirements, budgets, sub-grants/contracts and donor/partner relationships
• Ensure effective coordination, capacity building and career development of WRI’s Congo Basin staff, through the direct management of ~5 and indirect management of ~15 employees

Research and Analysis

• As part of national strategy development, identify and pursue a set of research priorities through which WRI can support partners across the Congo Basin to improve management of forests
• Coordinate the production of original, policy-relevant research and analytical outputs (e.g. reports, blogs, maps, data products) based on WRI-GFW and partner datasets
• Facilitate WRI colleagues and partners across the Congo Basin to produce research and analysis using WRI-GFW data

Outreach and Communication

• As part of national strategy development, identify and pursue effective means to communicate about WRI’s Congo Basin forest work and analytical content to non-technical audiences, including existing and prospective funders
• Facilitate national technical capacity building by supporting the development of training materials on WRI/GFW data and related data generation and data validation methodologies.
• Represent WRI’s Congo Basin forests work through meetings and presentations to partners, as well as at relevant conferences and workshops.