29874 - Project Officer - the Sustainable Palm Oil Initiative (SPOI).  

BACKGROUND

“UNDP is the UN's global development network, an organization advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We are on the ground in about 170 countries and territories, including Indonesia, working to eradicate poverty while protecting the planet. UNDP supports implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In Indonesia, UNDP works with the Government to integrate SDGs into national plan and policies.”

The rapid growth of palm oil production globally has largely come at the expense of forested areas. Indonesia, as one of the world’s largest producers of palm oil, has received much attention in recent years particularly from the global community concerning the sustainability of its palm oil production. For example, oil palm expansion caused one-quarter of all deforestation in Indonesia between 2009 and 2011 (Greenpeace 2013). Fifty six per cent of the oil palm plantations in Indonesia have replaced forests (Koh & Wilcove 2008), most significantly in the provinces of North Sumatra, Riau and Jambi, and the south-western borders of Kalimantan (Romijin et al. 2013). Continued deforestation adds significant environmental pressures on ecologically sensitive areas, with extensive impacts on biodiversity, habitat fragmentation, land degradation and soil erosion.

Currently, palm oil represents 17% of total agricultural revenues, making it a key agricultural product of Indonesia. In 2016 palm oil represented 2.36 % of Indonesia’s GDP (The World Bank 2016; Indonesia Investments 2017). This shows that the benefits and apparently positive economic impact of this commodity are significant. However, the conversion of land towards homogenous structures leads to the degradation of important ecosystem functions and an unprecedented loss of tropical biodiversity. Identifying more environment and biodiversity friendly oil palm management options is therefore considered critical to reconcile economic and ecological functions in tropical lowland regions and peatland area.

Addressing the above situation alongside concerns of the international community, the Government of Indonesia (GoI) has taken steps towards building a greener economy that promotes growth, equity, improved livelihood and environmental integrity including in the palm oil sector. Aiming to support the government’s actions, UNDP has been working together with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs in Indonesia to achieve the country’s goals of sustainable palm oil production through the Sustainable Palm Oil Initiative (SPOI). The SPO initiative aims to improve the capacity of palm oil smallholders and conserve natural resources together with the Government of Indonesia’s Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) system. One of the key activities of the SPOI is to facilitate a government-led multi-stakeholder forum (FoKSBI) to develop, formalize and then support in the implementation of a Sustainable Palm Oil National Action Plan (NAP-SPO, or RAN-KSB).

The NAP has now been finalized and legalized through Presidential Instruction; and SPOI has expanded its scope of work with support from new funding sources including the Good Growth Partnership programme, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and SECO, IKEA and GIZ´s contributions to the Green Commodities Programme, all parallel sources of funding to achieve the SPOI´s goals. SPOI, through those globally managed projects, has already directly supported NAP´s implementation by improving the enabling policy environment for sustainable palm oil at national and subnational level including through landscape level land use planning, and by strengthening smallholder farmers’ support systems.

The SPO Initiative is under National Implementation Modality with the Ministry of Agriculture, and in coordination with the Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs, with support services from the UNDP Country Office. Taking into account the parallel financing mentioned above, SPOI is being re-organized around 4 components aligned with the NAP:
1. Support smallholder farmers via the creation of sustainable farmers support systems that will enhance their engagement, their organization and governance (through Farmers Groups) and their adoption of good agricultural practices;
2. Enhance dialogues, build consensus and partnerships with key national and regional stakeholders related to palm oil production, and create more effective policy enabling environments;
3. Collaborate with the government and other stakeholders to improve environmental monitoring and management; and
4. Strengthen the national palm oil ISPO standard for greater market access.

In support of the GoI’s efforts to pursue sustainable palm oil development the SPOI will continue in its implemention, with the support from new funding source, which in turn further contributes towards the National Action Plan (NAP) implementation. In ensuring effective implementation of activities under SPOI as an entirety, UNDP seeks to hire a SPOI Project Officer.

Under direct supervision of the National Project Manager and in coordination with the Programme Manager at the country office and the Global GGP Manager, the SPOI Project Officer will provide support in the oversight of the SPOI’s activities related to project implementation and operations. S/he will support the National Project Manager to ensure that the project produces the relevant outputs, achieves the detailed targets as specified under the SPOI project components and separate donor specific result frameworks, whilst maintaining proper project operational administration and implementation as per UNDP policies and regulations. S/he will also seek advice and consult with the relevant administrative/operational/technical officer of the Environment Unit of UNDP Indonesia Country Office on matters related to UNDP contract administration and implementation.

Duties and Responsibilities
SPOI Project Officer will be responsible for the following aspects:
1. Effectively provide project operational and management support to SPOI’s activities implementation to achieve project outputs; in alignment with donor specific requirements:

• Support the NPM, in collaboration with other SPOI team members, in the development of SPOI´s Annual Work Plan (AWP) including activities from parallel funding sources (GGP, SECO, IKEA, GIZ, etc) and the disaggregation of these plans per source of fund and donor requirement.;
• Provide operation management and administrative guidance and support to the operations, platform and landscape implementation teams to execute their activites effectively, including identifying and resolving critical issues;
• Provide support to ensure quality assurance of the operation and administrative management of SPOI activities including those implemented by responsible parties, as well as their financial delivery.
• Work closely with respective current and future project execution partners (e.g. responsible parties such as CI), in providing operational and administrative advice to them to allow for successful implementation of the activities assigned to them, ;in close coordination with and/or through SPOI colleagues overseeing the relationship,
• In close consultation with the NPM, support in mobilizing goods and services and other project inputs, including reviewing and approving the ToRs for related expert consultants, meetings and workshops; to ensure alignment toward proper project operation management and administration procedures.
• Provide support to ensure effective and efficient use of resources and its reporting in a transparent and accountable manner as per specific donor requirements, in close collaboration with the Finance Associate;
• Support in perform monitoring, analysis, and quarterly reporting of project performance with inputs from relevant team members, as well as support towards identifying the need for and timely readjustments of the AWP in consultation with the National Project Manager, the Global GGP Manager, and Programme Manager at UNDP CO Indonesia.
• Consult with the GGP Global Manager, and the SPOI National Program Manager and/or UNDP-CO Focal Point on any operation management and administrative issue that requires their attention, including issue related to deviation from the approved work plans and its tolerance;
• Support in monitoring risks to project implementation, including operation management and administration; and devise/revise risk mitigation strategies.
• Support to ensure timely preparation of high quality and results oriented annual progress reports to be submitted to UNDP and Donor Partners via the NPM and /or Technical Officer, Environment Unit, UNDP CO Indonesia.
• Provide additional inputs and data for external project reports if required by the project Assurance Team.
• In coordination with the National Project Manager, report regularly to the GGP Global Manager on the progress of the GGP Production Project implementation;

2. Provide support to the implementation of resource mobilization

• Support in providing administrative review of sub contracts related and/or relevant to SPOI work-streams;
• In collaboration with the Communication & Knowledge Exchange Officer, provide inputs and support to relevant SPOI project communication & knowledge activities;
• Support identification opportunities and facilitate resourcemobilization for SPOI, and prepare substantive briefs on possible areas of cooperation;

3. Contribute to knowledge management

• Contribute to identify best practices and lessons learnt from SPOI that could be replicated and scaled up in SPOI or of interest to other projects in Indonesia and elsewhere;
• Contribute to the production of knowledge products such as best practices and lessons learnt for knowledge sharing, as relevant, especially as they relate to operational and administrative procedures but also as identified through support to monitoring and reporting;
• Cntributes to knowledge networks and communities of practice and more specifically the Green Commodity Community.

4. The incumbent of the position should avoid any kind of discriminatory behavior including gender discrimination and ensure that

• Human rights and gender equality is prioritized as an ethical principle within all actions;
• Activities are designed and implemented in accordance with “Social and Environmental Standards of UNDP”;
• Any kind of diversities based on ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, disability, religion, class, gender are respected within all implementations including data production;
• Differentiated needs of women and men are considered;
• Inclusive approach is reflected within all actions and implementations, in that sense an enabling and accessible setup in various senses such as disability gender language barrier is created;
• Necessary arrangements to provide gender parity within all committees, meetings, trainings etc. introduced.

Competencies

Core Competencies:

• Demonstrating/safeguarding ethics and integrity
• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment
• Building and promoting effective teams, including working in teams and empowering project staff to create an enabling gender equality environment on non-hierarchical bases.
• Self-development, initiative-taking
• Acting as a team player and facilitating team work
• Strong leadership and managerial skill with track records of management roles in a team of multi-diversity background;
• Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively
• Creating synergies through self-control
• Managing conflict
• Learning and sharing knowledge and encourage the learning of others. Promoting learning and knowledge management/sharing is the responsibility of each staff member, including Ability to transfer knowledge and motivate people and to build relationships with colleagues, partners, beneficiaries, government authorities, donor organizations and other stakeholders.
• Informed and transparent decision making
• Communication skills to exchange information, and key ideas in a manner that engages the audience and helps others to understand and retain messages about gender equality and parity

Functional Competencies:

Advocacy/Advancing A Policy-Oriented Agenda
Preparing information for advocacy

• Identifies and communicates relevant information for a variety of audiences for advocating UNDP’s mandate
• Advocacy skills to promote gender equality approaches, to achieve the UNDP Gender Equality agenda or national gender equality agenda with internal and external partners

Results-Based Programme Development and Management
Contributes into results through primary research and analysis

• Assesses project performance to identify success factors and incorporates best practices into project work
• Researches linkages across programme activities to identify critical points of integration
• Monitors specific stages of projects/programme implementation
• Analyzes country situation to identify opportunities for project development
• Participates in the formulation of project proposals and ensures substantive rigor in the design and application of proven successful approaches and drafts proposals accordingly
• Excellent written communication and analytical skill to synergize project financial delivery and support internal capacity;

Building Strategic Partnerships
Maintaining a network of contacts

• Maintains an established network of contacts for general information sharing and to remain up-to-date on partnership related issues
• Analyzes and selects materials for strengthening strategic alliances with partners and stakeholders
• Strategic thinking and building partnerships to promote Gender Equality

Innovation and Marketing New Approaches
Enhancing processes or products

• Generates new ideas and proposes new, more effective ways of doing things
• Documents and analyses innovative strategies/best practices/new approaches

Resource Mobilization (Field Duty Stations)
Providing inputs to resource mobilization strategies

• Analyzes information/databases on potential and actual donors
• Develops a database of project profiles. Identifies opportunities for project proposals for presentation to donors

Promoting Organizational Learning and Knowledge Sharing
Basic research and analysis

• Generates new ideas and approaches, researches best practices and proposes new, more effective ways of doing things
• Documents and analyses innovative strategies and new approaches
• Promotes knowledge management on gender equality issues

Job Knowledge/Technical Expertise
Fundamental knowledge of own discipline

• Strong aptitude on public administration and management of development project in the public sector;
• Understands and applies fundamental concepts and principles of a professional discipline or technical specialty relating to the position
• Possesses basic knowledge of organizational policies and procedures relating to the position and applies them consistently in work tasks
• Strives to keep job knowledge up-to-date through self-directed study and other means of learning
• Demonstrates good knowledge of information technology and applies it in work assignments
• Demonstrates in-depth understanding and knowledge of the current guidelines and project management tools and utilizes these regularly in work assignments
• Ability to carry out gender-related economic, environmental, public research and analysis, to contribute to the formulation of policies, programme interventions, procedures, guidelines and tools.

Global Leadership and Advocacy for UNDP’s Goals
Preparing information for global advocacy

• Identifies and communicates relevant information for advocacy for UNDP’s goals for a variety of audiences
• Identifies and takes advantage of opportunities for advocating for UNDP’s mandate

Client Orientation
Establishing effective client relationships

• Maturity and confidence in dealing with senior and high ranking members of national and local institutions, government and non-government.
• Researches potential solutions to internal and external client needs and reports back in a timely, succinct and appropriate fashion
• Organizes and prioritizes work schedule to meet client needs and deadlines
• Anticipates client needs and addresses them promptly

Required Skills and Experiences
Education:* •
Master’s degree or equivalent in Sustainable Development, Business Development, Public Administration/Policy or related fields.

Experience:*

• Minimum 2 years of prior relevant work experience in the field of project management. Experience in developing country is an advantage;
• Proven experience in implementation of projects that have components on sustainable development, climate smart agriculture, environmental policy, environmental management and climate mitigation; project management is desirable.
• Experience with UNDP or another UN agency is an advantage.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in written and spoken English is a mecessity;
• Fluency in written and spoken Bahasa Indonesia is required.

Other Requirements:

• Excellent organizational skills;
• Excellent ability in writing project monitoring and annual reports;
• Excellent inter-personal and team building skills;
• Full time availability for project managemet duties is essential; and
• Up to date computer skill required.
• Knowledge on social and environmental issues related to palm oil development is desirable;

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

UNDP Indonesia reserves the right to select one or more candidates from this vacancy announcement. We may also retain applications and consider candidates applying to this post for other similar positions with UNDP Indonesia at the same grade level and with similar job description, experience and education requirements.