Natural Resources Management, Agriculture and
Environment
Based at the UN Food and Agriculture
Organisation, Rome 11 months contract
The CGIAR Independent Science and Partnership
Council (ISPC) Secretariat is looking for a consultant to work in the area of
Natural Resources Management, Agriculture and Environment for a period of 11
months (ideally 1st November 2010 to 30th September 2011).
Background
The Consultative Group on International
Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is an international agricultural research system
working towards a common vision: to reduce poverty and hunger, improve human
health and nutrition, and enhance ecosystem resilience through high-quality
international agricultural research, partnership and leadership.
The Independent Science and Partnership Council (ISPC)
currently has a mandate in the CGIAR for three areas of strategic importance to
the CGIAR system as a whole:
- Foresight studies: To examine issues of
strategic importance to the future of the CGIAR system as a whole, and provide
advice on likely implications for the direction of agricultural research
- Mobilizing science: To enhance the quality,
relevance and impact of science and to mobilize the global scientific
community towards the mission and goals of the CGIAR.
- Impact assessment: To provide CGIAR members
with timely, objective and credible information on the impacts at the system
level of past CGIAR investments and outputs in terms of the CGIAR goals, and
to feed this information back into CGIAR priority-setting
In 2010/11, one foresight study will examine the
state of NRM research in the CGIAR and the factors affecting impact at scale in
the future.
In 2011, the ISPC is planning to hold a second
Science Forum 1 which will focus on a range of issues related to the
agriculture-environment nexus (such as: input use efficiency; land-saving from
increases in agricultural productivity; low carbon agriculture; peak
phosphorous; climate change adaptation; biodiverse farming systems). It is hoped
that this agenda will engage the large number of environmental Non-Governmental
Organisations (NGOs) that increasingly have an interest in agriculture but that
have not been traditional partners of the CGIAR.
Terms of Reference
Reporting to the Executive Director of the CGIAR
Independent Science and Partnership Council (ISPC) Secretariat, and in
collaboration with members of the ISPC and Secretariat colleagues, the
consultant will provide technical support to the Foresight and Mobilizing
Science portfolios of the ISPC as follows.
1) Manage a survey of NRM activities in the CGIAR
(December 2010 – March 2011)
The aims of this activity are to get an external
view on how the CGIAR system is performing in NRM research, and to highlight
some of the contrasts within the CGIAR system on the perspectives of what NRM is
and how it was to achieve impacts at scale 2.
The consultant will bring together a small panel
of centre scientists and independent specialists to help design the survey and
analyse the results, and then to advise the ISPC on whether a more
comprehensive, deeper study (featuring visits to CGIAR centres, field site
visits) is merited.
2) Write a background paper on NRM for the
Science Forum (April – June 2011)
Based partly on the experience gained in carrying
out the survey in 1), and partly from reviews of the wider literature and
drawing on previous professional experience where possible, the consultant is
expected to work with ISPC members in drafting a paper on the topic: “Challenges
to achieving impact from CGIAR NRM research”. This paper should critically
examine the theoretical basis for the impact pathways (either implicit or
explicitly stated) for a range of NRM research outputs and examine where
assumptions regarding adoption, scale or trade-offs among competing objectives
have limited the possibility for CGIAR NRM research to have an impact on CGIAR
goals.
3) Contribute to the organisation of the Science
Forum 2011 (tasks throughout period of consultancy)
The date and venue of the Science Forum is to be
determined but tasks will run throughout the period leading up to the forum and
beyond it (communicating the outcomes):
- Providing technical input to the development
of background papers for the forum
- Researching and proactively contacting some
key people to invite from the academic and NGO communities, discuss their main
strategic interests in these areas for possible inclusion in the forum
- Attending the forum, contributing to reporting
of sessions, and to a final report / special issue of a journal3
- Other duties as required, in collaboration
with ISPC members and secretariat colleagues
Person Specification
- Advanced university degree (MSc or Ph.D) in a
discipline related to natural resource management
- Five years of relevant experience in
environmental science / ecology or agricultural development in less developed
countries with particular emphasis on the relationship between agriculture and
environment
- Demonstrated ability to write clear and
concise reports
- Experience of organising large events
involving participants from multiple countries
- Excellent knowledge of English
- Excellent IT skills
- Working knowledge of a second UN language is
desirable
Instructions for applicants
Interested parties should send the following to
the address below, to be received not later than 23.59 hrs (Rome time, GMT +2
hrs) 18th October 2010
- Personal History Form, found on the Internet
site at: http://www.fao.org/VA/adm11e.dot
- cover note explaining how your experience
enables you to successfully fulfil these terms of reference
- names and contact details for three people
willing to provide references
Candidates should be ready to participate in
interviews by video link (Skype preferred) in the week beginning 25th October
Email (preferred):
muriel.pougheon@fao.org
Post: Ms Muriel Pougheon, Room C-630, FAO, Via
delle Terme di Caracalla 00153, Rome, Italy
Fax: +39 06 570 53298
1 In 2009, the ISPC (in collaboration with the
CGIAR Secretariat at the World Bank, the Alliance of the CGIAR Centers, the
Global Forum on Agricultural Research, and Wageningen University and Research
Centre) organised a Science Forum1 that cut across a number of important issues
for the future of agricultural research and brought together more than 300
participants from 55 countries.
2 Equivalent to that recently undertaken in the
Stripe Review of Social Sciences: http://www.sciencecouncil.cgiar.org/fileadmin/user_upload/sciencecouncil/Systemwide_and_Ecoregional_Programs/SSSR_for_web.pdf
3 A special issue of the journal Crop Science was
published to feature the major contributions http://www.sciencecouncil.cgiar.org/fileadmin/user_upload/sciencecouncil/Reports/CROP_SCIENCE_FOR_WEB.pdf