Thematic Lead – Agriculture and Food Security at Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD)

Reporting to the Science, Data and Technology Lead, the holder of this position will be required to provide technical leadership and coordination in all SERVIR Eastern and Southern Africa (E&SA) work relating to the Agriculture and Food Security service area. The position will leverage on his/her knowledge and expertise in Agriculture and Food Security, Earth Observation and GIS tools and technologies, with an emphasis on major issues of interest at global, regional and national levels, and therefore contribute to SERVIR's goal of developing services that respond to societal problems in this field.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Identify developmental problem areas through engagement of relevant stakeholders and design of appropriate services to respond to these problems within the scope of the project capabilities and demographic reach.
• Engage partner institutions in problem definition, proposal development, and execution of a project to achieve desired results within your thematic area. Partner institutions could be, but are not limited to, SERVIR implementing partners, implementers of Applied Science Projects, etc.
• Identify, design and implement Earth Observation data, tools, products, capacity building activities to address identified developmental problems in focus countries.
• Coordinate and work with different agencies and SERVIR partners (e.g. governments, non-governmental organizations, universities, research institutes, etc.) to derive products that are relevant to policy and/or operations.
• Develop work plans for the thematic area, in liaison with other Thematic Leads under SERVIR-E&SA and contribute to the overall SERVIR-E&SA work planning process.
• Ensure timely delivery of results for assignments under the thematic area, and strictly adhere to reporting guidelines and deadlines.
• Lead and coordinate analysis of data and information, write articles for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Present the results of the thematic area effectively and communicate findings to diverse audiences, either at policy level, scientific forums, and/or community-based organizations.
• Make timely reports (submissions of proposals, work plans, quarterly reports, annual reports and budgets) to the relevant Technical Manager(s).
• Liaise with the SERVIR User Engagement Lead and M&E Officer to ensure that the outreach and monitoring and evaluation data and information from your thematic area are captured adequately.
• Liaise with the Capacity Development Lead to ensure capacity building activities under your theme are coordinated and delivered appropriately.
• Liaise with the Gender & Environment Specialist to ensure the services designed and implemented under your thematic area are integrated with gender.
• Maintain close consultations with other thematic area leads to ensure activities that cut across your thematic area and others are conducted in an organized manner, avoiding duplication of efforts or conflicting activities.
• Provide technical leadership to the thematic team under you, to work effectively and come up with results as per SERVIR-E&SA's Work Plan and the SERVIR Global Strategic Plan.
• Carry out other activities related to the job as may be assigned by your supervisor.

Qualifications and Experience

• At least a Masters’ degree in remote sensing, Earth observation, GIS, geo-spatial information with a strong bias to agriculture or agronomy.
• Seven (7) years of verifiable experience using GIS & RS for agriculture and food security related work, with at least 3 years in a supervisory position.
• Advanced knowledge of Earth observation/remote sensing and GIS applications.
• Advanced knowledge and skills in standard and recent computing platforms, and good programming skills (Python, R etc).
• Good understanding of crop related models including aspects of yield forecast and estimations, crops and crop type mapping.
• Demonstrated experience in conceptualization of developmental challenges in agriculture area and design of appropriate services to address these challenges.
• Excellent organization and coordination skills with the ability to organize and direct a team to achieve timely positive results.
• Project management experience, including a proven record of productive engagement with government institutions, NGOs and scientists is required.
• Knowledge of major agricultural issues of interest at global, regional and national levels, with demonstrable capacity to engage peers in the thematic area in problem definition, proposal development, and execution of a project to achieve a desired result.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English, demonstrable by published work in reputable media (peer reviewed journals, published reports, etc.) in the respective field of specialization.
• The candidate must exhibit the following competencies: proactiveness, problem solving, timely decision-making, achievement oriented, good communicator and teamwork.

Contract Duration: The position is for an initial fixed-term of two (2) years, after which further employment is subject to performance and the continued availability of funds.