Senior Associate, Food Program, WRI Africa

Job Description

This position can be based in any of the following locations: Kenya, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Ethiopia.

About the Program:

WRI Africa’s Food Program aims at transforming food systems in Africa to address food and nutritional insecurity for a rapidly growing population while driving economic development, increasing their resilience to climate change while pivoting away from potential future emissions, having positive impacts on biodiversity, and generating greater equity outcomes for women, children youth and other vulnerable groups. WRI Africa’s Food Program is anchored on four reinforcing principles: i) Producing nutrient dense foods that address food and nutritional insecurity, generating jobs for youth, women and other marginalised groups, while keeping within planetary boundaries on nature and climate, (ii) Reducing food loss and waste (FLW), including evidence generation and building partnerships with public and private sector stakeholders to advance the Target-Measure-Act approach, (iii) Restoring degraded agricultural lands to increase productivity while generating essential ecosystems services for agriculture such as soil health, water and biodiversity that is critical for pollination and other ecosystem services; iv) Protecting remaining natural ecosystems from conversion to agriculture and degradation.

Job Highlight:

As the Senior Associate, you will lead the Food Program’s research work on jurisdictional crop-type mapping, yield monitoring and food gap analysis. You will develop a research consortium to develop time series for different (to be determined) crop-types in high spatial resolution (e.g. 30m), develop yield and use (for example, use for local markets and export) data for these crop-types, carry out spatial analysis on change and crop decline (for example, rainfall and temperature) and use this data for food gap analysis for a few African jurisdictions (to be aligned with WRI priority geographies). You will work with partners to assess methods on their scalability to other African jurisdictions. The position will be lead from our WRI Africa Food team and linked to WRI’s Land & Carbon Lab, which works on monitoring all forms of land cover and land use, including monitoring of croplands around the world. You will be reporting to the Director of Vital Landscapes.

What will you do:

Research (50%):

• Develop strategy on crop-type, yield mapping and food gap analysis for Africa in priority geographies and countries aligned with the WRI Africa strategy
• Work closely with the Land and Carbon Lab and partners to refine approaches for classifying croplands and detecting net primary productivity during growing seasons using geospatial data and field data
• Develop yield and food gap analysis and give technical advice in order to support WRI’s efforts to sustainably close yield gaps in Africa while helping farmers to adapt to climate change
• Assess scalability of the methods and data developed to other African jurisdictions
• Collect and analyse available maps like the Africa soil maps, crop distribution maps, climate change maps, remote sensing data and Dynamic World tools, to understand crop-type and yields changes and extrapolated in space and time to determine trends
• Use these trends to determine location-specific crop yield gaps
• Assist Land & Carbon Lab to enable annually monitoring of all forms of land cover and land use
• Make maps, gap analysis and data available open source and open access for decision making in Africa
• Synthesize findings on diverse topics such as crop-type mapping and remote sensing, yield mapping, and methods
• Lead the production of written outputs including research papers, reports, internal briefs, blogs, presentations, and press releases
• Lead the editing, peer review, publishing of all research and communication outputs in this area of work
• Develop definitions of indicators to measure yield productivity, including methods, data sources, and means of verification, that is cross-scale, cost-effective and scalable across priority countries in Africa
• Support the monitoring and reporting of the “produce” elements of WRI Africa’s work, including working closely with managing for results team to develop and monitor the relevant crop/yield indicators

Engagement and Partnerships (20%):

• Cultivate new and help manage existing relationships to deliver on this work. This includes a coalition of partners in research and NGOs to focus resources on high resolution crop/yield mapping in a priority geographies
• Represent WRI in key events, increase the public profile of WRI’s work on the food and crop mapping
• Provide technical support to local and national partners to scale promising practices in WRI Africa’s priority landscapes
• Support the engagement of targeted decisionmakers with resulting yield gap monitoring information and solutions sets to inform farmer assistance programs. Share yield gap data as we well as best practices for scaling context specific crop yield boosting methods
• Support policy teams to ensure countries’ NDCs sections on agriculture and food systems are aligned with both mitigation and adaptation goals

Fundraising (20%):

• Identify funding and cooperation opportunities
• Lead proposals related to the advance the deployment of geosciences and their application in monitoring of crop yields in Africa
• Support the development and integration of the cropland data with other datasets within the land and carbon lab, and any other datasets within WRI, including the resources (financial and human) required to do so
• Lead and co-lead other proposals developed by WRI teams in this area of work, with an emphasis on Africa
• Review other proposals developed by WRI Africa to integrate relevant strands of work on yield monitoring

Personnel and program leadership (10%):

• Lead and nurture a growing team of researchers under the food program focusing on this area of work
• Recruit and supervise staff in relevant work areas
• Support the development of the WRI Africa food strategy with all aspects related to yields, nature and climate.

What will you need:

• Education: You have a completed master’s degree with demonstrated expertise in the application of geosciences, including GIS and remote sensing in agriculture, soil sciences, agroforestry and other sustainable land management practices
• Experience: You have 8+ years of relevant professional experience
• Demonstrated knowledge and expertise on issues related to food systems transformation in Africa, including international climate policy, and sustainability challenges related to land and natural resource management
• Experience designing and managing complex, multi-partner projects in an NGO setting, with experience creating and communicating theories of change, results frameworks, and other components of a MEL for project donors, partners, and stakeholders
• Experience with fundraising as a lead as well as part of a team
• Experience with geoscience methods and tools for assessing croplands in Africa
• A record of relevant publications
• You are willing and able to travel internationally
• Languages: You have verbal and written proficiency in English. Working knowledge of French would be desirable.

Potential Salary:
Salary is commensurate with experience and other compensable factors. WRI offers a competitive remuneration and benefits package.

How to Apply:

Please submit a resume with cover letter by the date of May 23, 2023. You must apply through the WRI Careers portal to be considered.

What we offer:

• A competitive salary
• Access to the WRI global network with the opportunity to exchange with and learn from passionate colleagues working at the cutting edge of their fields across Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the US.
• The chance to have an impact and to develop your career within a mission driven organization with access to varied learning and training opportunities.
• A workplace that strives to put diversity and inclusion at the heart of our work.
• The opportunity to join and get involved in different working groups and affinity groups to shape the future of WRI.
• Long-term commitment to hybrid working model with flexible working hours.
• Generous leave days that increase with tenure.

About Us:

Founded in 1982, World Resources Institute (WRI) is an independent, nonprofit global research organization that turns big ideas into action at the nexus of environment, economic opportunity, and human well-being. We are working to address seven critical challenges that the world must overcome this decade to secure a sustainable future for people and the planet: climate change, energy, food, forests, water, sustainable cities, and the ocean. WRI has a global staff of over 1,800 people with work spanning 60 countries. We have offices in Africa, Brazil, China, Europe, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Colombia and the United States, as well as a growing presence in other countries and regions.  

The foundation of our work is delivering high-quality research, data, maps, and analysis to solve the world’s greatest environment and international development challenges and improve people’s lives. We work with leaders in government, business, and civil society to drive ambitious action and create change on the ground. Equally important, we bring together partners to develop breakthrough ideas and scale-up solutions for far-reaching, enduring impact.

Our mission and values:

WRI’s mission is to move human society to live in ways that protect Earth’s environment and its capacity to provide for the needs and aspirations of current and future generations.

Our values are shared ideals that bind us together: Integrity, Innovation, Urgency, Independence, Respect.

Our culture:

WRI is committed to advancing gender and social equity for human well-being in our mission and applies this principle to our organizational and programmatic practices. We are committed to providing equal opportunities in employment, we embrace all diversity and encourage women, the LGBTQ+ community, persons with disabilities, Afro-descendants, and Indigenous people to apply. Recognizing our strong commitment to gender equality, WRI has also been awarded EDGE certification.

Our team in Human Resources carefully reviews all applications. 

About the Organization

World Resources Institute (WRI) is an independent, nonprofit global research organization that turns big ideas into action at the nexus of environment, economic opportunity, and human well-being. We are working to address seven critical challenges that the world must overcome this decade in order to secure a sustainable future for people and the planet: climate change, energy, food, forests, water, sustainable cities, and the ocean.

We are passionate. We value our diversity of interests, skills, and backgrounds. We have a flexible work environment. And we share a common goal to catalyze change that will improve the lives of people. Our shared ideals are at the core of our approach. They include: integrity, innovation, urgency, independence, and respect.

The foundation of our work is delivering high-quality research, data, maps, and analysis to solve the world’s greatest environment and international development challenges and improve people’s lives. We work with leaders in government, business, and civil society to drive ambitious action and create change on the ground. Equally important, we bring together partners to develop breakthrough ideas and scale-up solutions for far-reaching, enduring impact.

We have been growing rapidly: our staff has doubled in size over the past 5 years, and our operating budget is now $150 million. Founded in 1982, WRI has a global staff of 1,800+ people with work spanning 60 countries. We have offices in Africa, Brazil, China, Europe, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and the United States, as well as a growing presence in other countries and regions.  

WRI is committed to advancing gender and social equity for human well-being in our mission and applies this principle to our organizational and programmatic practices.