Senior Specialist, Technical, NBS, Climate Projects - Africa at South Pole

Job summary

• As part of the Project Technical unit, you will oversee the timely and effective generation and delivery of emission reductions of Nature Based Solutions (NBS) projects in the African region throughout their lifecycle focusing on adhering to robust internal and external carbon standard certification guidelines. In this role, you will take ownership of producing high-quality project description documentation and monitoring reports to ensure the smooth validation and verification of NBS projects in line with the certification standard requirements. You will be able to perform calculations adhering to the standard methodologies formulas and to analyse spatial results. Your role will also ensure that the projects are developed to have a reliable climate impact providing advice and support to project partners on the actions needed to adhere to the carbon standard.
• You will participate in business rounds, technical sessions, site visits, and other relevant events.
• In addition, you will support the commercial team in the technical assessment of any opportunities and coordinate with other teams in order to expand the NBS opportunities in the African Region. As a Senior Specialist for NBS Projects, you have to be able to work in a team of people, in order to reach the required result.

Main tasks and responsibilities

• Management of climate mitigation projects and of the carbon cycle project development until the issuance of credits
• Responsible, together with the NBS team, for writing NBS certification documents following the existent carbon standards and methodologies (e.g., VERRA, CDM, GS)
• Define and plan content and structure to support the certification of a project: work plans, work schedules, budgets, and deliverables
• Perform carbon credit estimation based on the existent methodologies and analyse data coming from the fields
• Work with local partners and clients to define project development, including the data collection and analysis
• Provide technical and budget reviews and quality checks
• Plan and conduct site visits and other types of business trips/training whenever needed

Essential skills and experience

• University degree in forestry engineering, agriculture, environmental science, natural resource management, ecology, or any other related field
• More than 3 years of work experience related to project development and monitoring preferably in Forestry, Climate Change Mitigation/Adaptation or related fields in the African context
• Understanding of carbon project development and certification, including familiarity with carbon standards like CDM, VERRA, GS4GG, CCB, among others
• Ability to create high-quality written documents (PDD and MR) in English ● Strong calculation capacity and mathematical skills 
• Strong calculation capacity and mathematical skills
•  Experience in GIS analysis in the natural resource sector, particularly Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) analysis, and in the field of natural resources management in the varied African ecosystems
•  Excellent oral and written skills in English
• Ability to manage targets and priorities and develop own goals

Desired skills and experience

• Ability to work within an interdisciplinary, global team (Junior to mid-level project coordinators) including internal and/or external collaborators sitting in different countries
• Knowledge of one of the other major African languages such as French, Kiswahili, Portuguese, etc. will be considered a plus.