Carbon Specialist – IPSA 10

The Central African region is home to the second largest tropical rainforest in the world, is sucking out about 1.5 billion tons of CO2 of the atmosphere or 4% of the world’s emissions every year and provides a habitat to more than 10,000 plant and animal species. Forest loss is accelerating despite ongoing efforts, as government action alone has not been enough to establish an effective balance between the interests of the forest and of economic development. On this basis, a coalition of donors together with Central African partner countries – Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, and the Republic of Gabon – have decided to enter into a collaborative partnership to establish the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI). 

The CAFI Trust Fund is the principal means to implement the Central African Forest Initiative. It is administered by the MPTF-O, that also provides the Secretariat services.

CAFI aims to contribute to two impacts: mitigate climate change and contribute to sustainable development, working both though high level policy dialogue and funding the implementation of country-led, national scale REDD+ and Low Emissions Development (LED) investment frameworks that include policy reforms and measures to address the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation and promote sustainable development. 

The CAFI portfolio is at the same time maturing, with projects on the ground that started in 2016, and expanding in scope (increased number of partner countries with Letters of Intent) and depth, while shifting to new modalities. These include the development of a private sector pipeline and an ambitious initiative of payments for environmental services (PES), based on performance, to both empower and incentivise land and forest resource users to adopt more sustainable practices that reduce pressures on forests and rebuild forest carbon stocks. Carbon revenues are considered an important source of finance for many private sector-led projects in the thematic areas covered by CAFI (agriculture, energy including clean cooking, forestry, etc).

1.1 Develop and refine a methodology to estimate the anticipated carbon impact of the various CAFI funded activities (projects, programs, initiatives) in a systematic and simple way.

1.2 Develop and refine a more sophisticated model (i) to quantify the expected outcomes from CAFI’s initiative for PES, including the expected carbon impact and related multiple benefits; (ii) to test various factors and variables in order to optimize impacting a cost-effective way.

1.3 Map carbon impact potential based on existing and potential land uses, including for PES

2. Estimating and disseminating actual carbon impact 

2.1 Develop and ensure the dissemination and proper use of guidelines for spatial reporting.

2.2 Develop, maintain and continuously improve the online database to compile cartographic (GIS) and regular data from CAFI-funded projects, including working – for DRC-based interventions – in close collaboration with the DRC National REDD Fund.

2.3 Advise on the tools, methodologies and processes that support and streamline the collection, centralization and analysis of data from CAFI interventions, as well as on forest cover change, and well as the analysis of causality. This includes mobile data collection, drones, remote sensing digital applications, etc.

2.4 Collect and organize such data and provide inputs on methodologies and criteria to verify data. 

2.5 Analyse data to derive carbon impact estimates.

2.6 Develop, feed, maintain and enhance online platforms, such as on power BI, to visualize carbon impact (estimated and actual) from CAFI investments, including in relation to PES.

2.10 Support communication of these results to the CAFI community, including the CAFI Executive Board and partner governments, in collaboration with CAFI communication team. 

3. Exploiting external research 

3.1 Map and help develop partnerships with relevant international and national research institutes.

3.2 Analyse existing datasets from the wider scientific community to estimate CAFI’s carbon impact related to its support to agriculture, forestry and energy sectors.

4. Ensure effective project oversight

4.1 Support the CAFI Secretariat in providing guidance and oversight on relevant projects funded by CAFI, at national or regional levels, including remote sensing and payment for environmental services.

The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.

Institutional Arrangement

The Carbon Specialist will be supervised by the Technical Specialist (Private Sector & Carbon Finance), P4 in Geneva, under the team leadership of the Chief Programming P5 in Geneva.