Rural Infrastructure, Climate and Environment Specialist

IFAD LBR organization mission TBD

Liberia and Sierra Leone are among the most climate-vulnerable countries in West Africa. Both economies are highly dependent on agriculture, which employs the majority of the population. Increasing floods, droughts, coastal erosion, and land degradation threaten food security, rural livelihoods and biodiversity. IFAD programmes in both countries invest in climate-resilient rural infrastructure, feeder roads and drainage, small-scale irrigation and water harvesting, storage and market facilities, nature-based solutions, while mobilizing climate co-financing. This assignment adds technical capacity to shape resilient designs, ensure safeguards and unlock climate finance for priority investments through the provision of hands-on technical support and knowledge transfer to design, supervise, and maintain climate-resilient rural infrastructures that strengthens smallholder market access and livelihoods in Liberia, in full alignment with IFAD SECAP and national standards.”

Reporting directly to the Country Director for Liberia and Sierra Leone, and collaborating closely with both the Regional Technical Lead - Climate and Environment, WCA (ECG Division), and IFAD Rural Infrastructure experts, as well as maintaining coordination with the IFAD Country Team for Liberia and Sierra Leone, the UN Volunteer will:
• Ensure compliance with IFAD’s Social, Environmental and Climate Assess-ment Procedures (SECAP) in all rural infrastructure designs and contracts. This includes Environmental and Social Management Plans (ESMPs), occupa-tional health and safety (OHS), grievance redress mechanisms (GRM), and measures against gender-based violence and sexual exploitation (GBV/SEA).
• Ensure the Technical support to the Projects implementations Units of the portfolios in Liberia and Sierra Leone on rural infrastructures (rural roads, irri-gation systems, etc)
• Support the Country Director and Country teams in Liberia and Sierra Leone in technical inputs and participate in design, start-up and supervision missions. Track agreed actions with project teams, engineers and contractors on rural infrastructure; lead or contribute to climate risk assessments and vulnerability screening; define practical adaptation options consistent with national climate strategies such as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs); and update the risk management system within IFAD and the projects units.
• Review technical studies and infrastructure specifications. Confirm that resili-ence standards, lifecycle costing and maintenance plans form part of all de-signs.
• Provide technical inputs for proposals to global climate funds such as the Ad-aptation Fund, the Green Climate Fund and the Global Environment Facility. Coordinate responses to external reviews of these proposals.
• Define and track indicators that measure the performance of climate-resilient infrastructure and adaptation results. Input data into project monitoring sys-tems.
• Facilitate collaboration with ministries of public works and agriculture, road funds, municipal authorities, producer organizations, contractors and financi-ers in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
• With the projects PIUs, and in close collaboration with IFAD procurements ex-perts and IFAD country team, define and track the infrastructures plans and implementation, and strengthen the capacity of the PIU engineers when needed.
• Document lessons and produce short notes, checklists and knowledge prod-ucts. Support learning events and contribute to communication activities.
• Ensure that rural infrastructure promotes smallholder market access. Develop a feeder-to-market access plan linking works such as roads, drainage or wa-ter points with value chains and market hubs.
• Produce a SECAP compliance tracker for each sub-project, linking required safeguard instruments—such as environmental and social impact assess-ments (ESIA), ESMPs, contractor environmental and social plans (CESMP), and community health and safety measures (CHS)—to Adaptation for Small-holder Agriculture Programme Plus (ASAP+) outcomes.
• Support procurement and quality assurance. Develop climate-resilient design checklists and compile short adaptation results briefs that summarize works completed (culverts, bridges, drainage) and risks reduced (for example, flood days avoided).
• Facilitate short skills clinics on supervision and quality control for county staff and community representatives.
• Compile lesson notes on market access impacts, effective climate features, good inclusion practices and maintenance performance. Share results with ministries such as Public Works (MPW), Agriculture (MoA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and county engineers.
Other tasks: Perform any additional duties assigned by the Country Director for Li-beria and Sierra Leone as well as Regional Technical Lead.
Furthermore, UN Volunteers are required to:
• Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by reading
relevant UNV and external publications and take active part in UNV activities (for instance
in events that mark International Volunteer Day);
• Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host
country;
• Reflect on the type and quality of voluntary action that they are undertaking, including
participation in ongoing reflection activities;
• Contribute articles/write-ups on field experiences and submit them for UNV publications/websites, newsletters, press releases, etc.;
• Assist with the UNV Buddy Programme for newly-arrived UN Volunteers;
• Promote or advise local groups in the use of online volunteering, or encourage relevant
local individuals and organizations to use the UNV Online Volunteering service whenever
technically possible.