Great Rift Valley Landscape Restoration Manager at World Resources Institute (WRI)

About the Program:

• WRI’s Restoration Initiative informs, enables, and invests in people that restore degraded land, converting them to socially, economic and environmentally productive lands. WRI’s restoration work in Africa supports the goals of the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, AFR100, where with other partners, we have identified more than 700 million hectares of cleared and degraded forest and agricultural lands suitable for restoration across Africa. Since 2023, WRI is supporting landscape-focused restoration in Africa. Done well, landscape-scale restoration can revitalize African landscapes, while enhancing human well-being through food, energy and water systems that conserve, restore, and sustain the continent’s rich natural heritage while generating evidence for scaling within and across landscapes. In WRI Africa, restoration is anchored within the Vital Landscapes Pillar, that aims at revitalizing and protecting landscapes for people and the planet. The Vital Landscapes Pillar aims to build the resilience of our natural ecosystems to sustainably provide vital ecosystem services such as food, water, carbon sequestration, and climate regulation.

Job Highlight:

• We are looking for a landscape leader, who can manage team dynamics and inspire the team to deliver on a shared landscape goal. The position requires a technically competent landscape restoration expert, who can steer diverse experts (policy, finance, capacity development, monitoring communications, etc.) to achieve a shared goal of landscape restoration. In this position, you will manage and lead all the restoration activities in the Greater Rift Valley landscape and coordinate the landscape delivery team. You will serve as the focal point for the planning, implementation, and learning,  coordinating and managing a rapidly growing team comprising of experts in finance for restoration, capacity building, monitoring, communication, policy, hydrology, food and nutrition, and other disciplines relevant to landscape restoration. You will harness the team’s expertise, as well as your own, to realize the goals of AFR100 – Africa’s ambitious commitment to restore 100 million hectares of land by 2030 – as well as contribute to WRI’s overarching goals on people, nature and climate. You will report to the director of vital of landscapes and the AFR100 manager, while, working closely with the AFR100 technical advisor and the larger landscape delivery team. This position is for candidates willing to be fully based in the landscape but could become hybrid depending on available office space in WRI’s offices in Nairobi, and the ability to support other restoration activities at the national level.

What will you do:

Program Leadership and Partnerships Development (70%):

• You will lead the greater Rift Valley delivery team to co-design and achieve the Restoration Initiative’s vision and goals in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley. This includes preparation of the landscape theories of change with clear outcomes and activities, annual work plans and budgets, coordinating implementation throughout the year with all partners, holding annual joint learning and planning events that help the delivery team learn from the past year of implementation and have adaptative management and planning for subsequent years of activities
• You will mobilize and lead local restoration partnerships, including local champions (CBOs, SMEs, registered women and youth groups), local governments, development partners, technical partners, etc. in the effective partners for WRI in the restoration agenda
• You will provide internal coordination of WRI’s teams including those working on monitoring, capacity building, finance, communications, and policy as well as WRI partners such as One Tree Planted, Realize Impact, and One Acre Fund to deliver on the goal of restored landscapes
• You will supervise staff operating in the landscape including portfolio specialists, monitoring analysts, communications officers, capacity-building specialists, etc. to ensure effective delivery of programs and projects
• Working closely with program leads, you will coordinate key stakeholder engagements in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley around WRI’s current Restoration programs in Africa, e.g., the Land Accelerator Africa, TerraFund for AFR100, Restoration Policy Accelerator, Landscape Monitoring Accelerator and other Capacity building programs
• You will support the customization of WRI’s Restoration programs and tools, e.g., the Land Accelerator Africa, TerraFund for AFR100, Restoration Policy Accelerator, Landscape Monitoring Accelerator and other Capacity building programs, to fit the Kenya’s Great Rift Valley context
• You will support the adoption of relevant tools, methodologies and datasets during the research, planning, implementation and tracking of restoration activities in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley
• You will support convening and building synergies between sub-national stakeholders that include Government Agencies, CSOs, local NGOs, academic institutions, the private sector to foster landscape restoration and sustainable landscape management
• You will support the development of “Restoration Registries” a system for cataloging technical assistance and financing requests for restoration activities in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley; support building sub-national government and stakeholders buy-in into the concept, validating the Registries governance structure and identifying sustainable sources of data
• You will guide, support and supervise consultants to provide technical assistance in the development and implementation of the FLR activities in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley as needed
• You will organize and support the planning and coordination of key events related to land restoration in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley
• You will represent WRI in meetings with the sub-national Government, project consortia, and other partners in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley
• You will support the development and implementation of an integrated landscape approach in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley combining expertise and contributions from food, forests, water in alignment with WRI’s Food-Land and Water programs
• You will support documentation of lessons learned and best practices from implementing integrated landscape approaches in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley to foster learning and knowledge sharing across WRI’s priority landscapes and beyond
• You will be part of a team that is dedicated to excellence in research, evidence generation, and learning, and contribute to different research activities and outputs including WRI peer-reviewed reports and articles, external peer-reviewed journal articles and policy

Communications and Fundraising support (20%):

• You will guide and review communication strategy for the landscapes and support the production of high-quality and effective communication products and tools
• You will provide inputs into fundraising efforts, including contributing to the proposal and participating in meetings with development partners as requested

Program Planning and Administration (10%):

• You will provide input into WRI administrative processes (e.g. project planning, landscape budget reviews, donor reporting, among others)

What will you need:

• Education: A completed Master’s degree in environmental sciences, natural resource management, forestry, agriculture, rural development, geography, or similar field
• Experience: You have 7+ years’ of work experience at the landscape/field level managing projects and teams in natural resource management, forestry, agriculture, environmental management, or related fields
• Solid experience in facilitating partnerships and collaboration at the sub-national level across government, donors, private sector, NGOs and local community-based organizations, among other stakeholders
• Understanding of policies and regulations on restoration and natural resource management in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley or similar ecosystems
• Experience in environmental research with forest and landscape restoration topics
• Willingness to live, work and travel to remote areas
• Good analytical skills both qualitative and quantitative desirable
• Languages: Proficiency in verbal and written English