Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Officer World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

Title: Food security and habitat conservation in the Kavango Zambesi transboundary conservation area network (KAZA TFCA)

Impact Goal:

Within the concept of One Health, the program contributes to an increased resilience of communities and ecosystems, as well as improved connectivity of wildlife habitats, through enhanced food security, diversification of income and habitat conservation in the Kavango Zambesi region in Southern Africa

Countries: Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe

German Executing Agency: WWF Germany

(Local) executing agencies: NNF Namibia, IRDNC Namibia, WWF Zambia (ZCO), Green Living Movement (GLM) / WWF Zimbabwe (WWF Zim-CO), ORAP, VFWT

Duration: 3 years and 2 months from 1st November 2021 to December 31, 2024

Programme volume: Budget of 6,2 Mio. € incl. matching funds

2.  PROJECT CONTEXT

KAZA TFCA is the largest terrestrial trans-boundary conservation area in the world, covering an area of 520,000 km2. About 20% of the land falls under state protection and roughly 29% is used for agriculture including crop production (3%)

Despite the huge tourism potential, KAZA TFCA suffers from the intertwined issues of poverty exacerbated by human-wildlife conflict (most live below the poverty line), the increasing impacts of climate change (prolonged, frequent droughts), natural habitat conversion and land degradation due to unsustainable farming practices. The resilience of ecosystems is negatively impacted as are the livelihoods and food security of rural communities. Eighty percent of the people are heavily dependent upon natural resources and live largely from subsistence agriculture.

The threats to ecosystems and livelihoods of local communities are driven by a lack of sustainable and diversified livelihood systems and income streams including shifting cultivation (impoverished, eroded soils, low harvest), unsustainable, low-quality cattle herding, lack of local market access and governance challenges at multiple levels. By building the capacity of governments, CSO´s and rural communities in regard to climate smart agroecological methods (intercropping, minimal soil disturbance, diversification of crops) and support its implementation in ecologically sensitive areas of KAZA, the soil fertility can be maintained, harvest can improve fourfold, drought resistant crops provide food security even in years of low rainfall. All this should reduce the need for new fields through deforestation. Additionally, the awareness building and support for sustainable cattle herding following the One Health approach will assist soil fertility, reduce habitat encroachment, and produce healthier, more valuable cattle. By supporting pilots of private sector – community partnerships (PPP) -, the access to markets and supply chains for agroecological (organic) products (beef and vegetable) will be created and potential models for diversified income streams established, increasing resilience in communities.

To enable a more supportive political framework for sustainable agriculture, the project will strengthen national CSO platforms and their advocacy work with the agricultural ministries to provide more financial support for sustainable and small holder agriculture, building on the success from Zambia.

The project areas are: a) in Zambia: villages within the six Village Action Groups (VAGs) in three Game Management Areas: Mufunta (5,104Km2), Mulobezi (3,430Km2) and Sichifulo (3,600Km2) located to the western and southern parts of the Kafue National Park (KNP), b) in Namibia: conservancies and villages in the Zambezi region and c) in Zimbabwe, the proposed project sites are in Matebeleland North Province. The province is predominantly rural and is divided into seven districts, of which the project will target two: Binga, and Hwange.

The project has the following overarching project outcome, and the implementers are directly responsible for its achievement:

Overall Outcome:

At least 2.525 smallholder households in five project areas in the Kavango Zambesi transboundary conservation area in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia benefit from enhanced food security and livelihoods while reducing degradation of natural habitats and land conversion.

At the regional level and in the three countries, political and institutional support for sustainable agriculture including livestock keeping is enhanced by the active political participation of civil society actors.

To achieve this, the successful applicant will facilitate and promote regional exchange and learning, and support the development of a state of the art monitoring and evaluation system to provide appropriate evidence to inform adaptive decision making.

Regional exchange, joint learning 

By 2024, improved experience and best practice exchange between program partners and KAZA countries enables the scaling up and transfer of sustainable agriculture across KAZA as a viable rural development concept.

M&E System

By 2024, KAZA governments, CSOs and communities as well as other development partners in KAZA (NGO´s, Aid agencies) can assess the impact of sustainable agriculture on the socio- economic condition of communities and ecosystems and can make adaptive mgmt. decisions for sustainable rural development based on a state-of-the-art KAZA wide monitoring system.

By 2022, local grievances mechanisms in project areas are established and functioning.

These two outputs will support three primary outputs: adoption of agro-ecological cultivation methods; adoption of the One Health approach on cattle herding; and improved political and institutional support for sustainable agriculture, nationally.

Target groups:

Namibia: At the micro level, the direct target group are 600 smallholder households.  At the meso level: 84 members of regional councils, NGO´s, farmer clubs and associations, extension service and private sector actors in the Zambezi region. At national (macro) level: 5 relevant ministries.

Zambia: The direct target group at micro level are 1.100 smallholder households, At meso level: 195 members of NGO´s, community representative bodies, and government. At the national (macro level): 40 ministry staff and parliamentarians.

Zimbabwe: The direct target group are 800 smallholder households.  At the meso level: 47 members of NGO´s, government and private sector. At the national level: 30 senior officials from Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement; Department of Veterinary Services; Rural District Councils; Media Houses, Tertiary Institutions and Parliamentarians.

At the regional, macro level, there are per country at least 5 direct target group actors, i.e. 15 in total.

Monitoring: Monitoring activities in each country (Output 5) will be supported by the dedicated Regional Monitoring officer based in Zambia. The person will provide support to the Global Program team, KAZA Impact Monitoring (KIM)Working Group, implementing partners and the staff/NGO´s responsible for monitoring in the project areas. He/she will support/implement community-based monitoring systems (socio-economic and sustainable agriculture) and coordinate the data flow/collection/cleaning/uploading, coordinate the collaborative network of experts, ensure visualisation and analysis of data. He/she will work in strong collaboration with the KIM WG, the KAZA secretariat, the regional communications officer and regional coordinator to ensure the monitoring results are being used appropriately in policy dialogues on agroecology and other important land use issues in KAZA and the countries (Output 4) for adaptive management and also reported back to the communities. Local entities will be engaged to ensure capacity building on these state-of-the art processes and tools.

The M&E officer is also responsible to improve and harmonise the sustainable agriculture App to allow the establishment of one KAZA standard for agricultural monitoring in communities. In all this, local entities will be engaged to ensure capacity building on these state-of-the art processes and tools.

The regional M&E officer will engage strongly with the KAZA secretariat, which will implement output 4 under a service contract, ensuring that all relevant M&E activities are streamlined and integrated as appropriate (M&E results integration in policy dialogue and KAZA stakeholder meetings for adaptive management and learning/capacity building).

3. TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

This is a full-time position based at the WWF KAZA hub or the KAZA secretariat under the supervision of the WWF KAZA coordinator and in strong coordination with the KIM WG / KAZA secretariat.

3.1 General Tasks and Responsibilities

The Regional M&E officer is responsible for ensuring the timely and qualitative achievement of KAZA Monitoring activities including the Global Program M&E outputs (4, 5) and general monitoring, learning and adaptive management support, in the project areas in Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. He/she will work as an integral member of the global program team and works in close coordination with all implementing partners.

It is also the Regional M&E officers responsibility to develop and maintain strong relations with all relevant stakeholders at the regional level and support stakeholder liaison at national and local level in support for the projects implementation as well as with the primary project partner, WWF Germany and the co-funder, WWF NL as well as all KAZA country offices.

3.2 Specific tasks and Responsibilities:

Leadership and management of socio-economic community-based monitoring in KAZA

• Ensure the successful integration of community-based socio-economic / livelihood monitoring and tool kit within the project areas in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Namibia in close cooperation and guidance by the SE core group of KIM, the KIM WG in general and by supporting the project M&E staff in the specific countries as well as relevant stakeholders including research entities and communities,
• Liaise and Coordinate with all relevant institutions and implementing partners to achieve this livelihood monitoring and ensure sustainability (integration into research institutions or other appropriate partners)
• Ensure Data uploading, cleaning and visualization of the data in the KAZA M&E system
• Support the community-based socio-economic / livelihood monitoring in Angola and Botswana (other funding)

Leadership and management of the agroecological monitoring in KAZA

• Ensure a standardized AE/sust. Agric. monitoring is developed across KAZA by integrating the existing monitoring efforts and streamlining these in close coordination with the implementors, communities, KIM WG and other relevant partners
• Facilitate the adoption of an evidence-based adaptive management approach, framed within broadly agreed Theories of Change, in KAZA
• Ensure the implementation of the AE standardized monitoring in the project areas, aligned with agreed Theories of Change and support its good implementation
• Report in regular intervals on the AE monitoring results for policy dialogue and adaptive management to the necessary stakeholders and organise appropriate communication tools, products and events for this
• Coordinate and enable regular and timely feedback to local communities involved in participatory monitoring

Environmental and Social Safeguards Framework (ESSF) Monitoring

• Support the ESSF activities of the project and ensure that relevant safeguard monitoring is included in the socio-economic and AE monitoring systems in the focal landscapes (project areas)

Active member of KIM WG, Communication of results

• Lead on all aspects of the SE and AE monitoring within the KAZA M&E system and coordinate all aspects with the KIM WG and partners as appropriate
• Report in regular intervals on M&E results for policy dialogue and adaptive management to the necessary stakeholders and organize appropriate communication tools, products and events for this. Develop a learning network in KAZA for this effect.
• Network with all relevant monitoring initiatives in / for KAZA promoting a holistic and coordinated approach
• Liaise with academic/research organizations in KAZA and elsewhere, to further KAZA M&E and Learning

Planning, implementation and support of the Global program M&E activities

• Carry out planning of M&E with all relevant staff and integrate this into the overall projects workplans, budgets and forecasts and
• Develop project Monitoring plans with all implementing partners and support their effective and efficient implementation.
• Lead the Global program M&E working group
• Contribute to donor reports on KAZA M&E

Team member and coordination

• Build a strong sense of teamwork and cooperation amongst all project implementors and partners as well as the ARISE Project team (M&E officer, Admin). Be a good team member
• Coordinate all M&E with the Regional coordinator and the KAZA Sec as well as KIM WG
• Coordinate closely with WWF Germany on the LU/LC and other relevant M&E activities
• Actively participate in the PMU and other meeting reporting on progress and planning
• Provide all necessary reporting in a timely and high-quality manner

Capacity building and learning

• Provide capacity building to the implementing partners, M&E staff and others as relevant to fulfill the projects M&E activities and to support the KAZA M&E
• Implement the yearly M&E capacity building event
• Lead the M&E working group of the project
• Ensure results of the monitoring are reported back to the local stakeholders esp. the communities

4. QUALIFICATION PROFILE

The successful incumbent is expected to work at the interface of natural resources and social development in a multi-disciplinary thematic landscape including aspects of community livelihood development, sustainable landscape development, nature conservation and social sciences, amongst others. Therefore, it is hoped that the successful candidate offers the following:

Educational background: A Master’s degree in geography, environmental sciences,integrated natural resource management or resource economics.
At least 5 years of professional experience in monitoring natural resources, either socio-economic, community-based monitoring (PRA methods and others), agriculture and GIS systems.
A working understanding of remote sensing methods and data acquisition, including the ability to make sense of and integrate data collected at multiple scales and sources for adaptive management
Good knowledge of statistical packages (e.g., Statistica, R) and/or GIS software (QGIS, ArcGIS, other)
Two or more of the following would also be an advantage:
Experience in working with NGOs, civil society organizations and local communities.
Work experience in the KAZA region. Work experience in the project regions in Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe
Proven communication and networking skills

Demonstrated ability to handle complex process and information integration issues,
High self-motivation and self-organisation and team work
As well as:
Proven interpersonal skills and ability to establish and maintain effective working relations with people in a multi-cultural, multi-interest, multi-ethnic environment.
Good oral and written communications skills
Fluency in English and at least one other language used in the focal countries.

5. CONTRACT PERIOD AND PAYMENT SCHEDULE

The 3-year contract period will start as soon as possible and will last until the end of the project on December 31, 2024.

Place of work: either at the KAZA Secretariat offices in Kasane, Botswana, or at WWF offices in [either Lusaka or] Livingstone, Zambia.

The incumbent will be subject to WWF management procedures at all times.