Expertise France is seeking to recruit two different Stakeholder Engagement Officers for the French Development Agency (AFD) -funded “Solwara Na Graun Blo Pipol” project (SoNG) in Papua New Guinea (PNG), which means “Ocean and Land for the People” in melanesian language, tok pisin.

Expertise France is establishing a Country office in Papua New Guinea, which will encompass this project along with other projects led by the agency.  

Each Stakeholder Engagement Officer will work within the SoNG project team in PNG, alongside the project manager, the deputy project manager responsible for biodiversity expertise, the second stakeholder engagement officer and the other team members. The project team will also be supported in the implementation by international experts.

She/he will be responsible of ensuring good communication, coordination and alignment between the key project stakeholders on the ground - selected provincial authorities - so that their activities are synergetic, coordinated and complementary, both technically and operationally as part of an integrated vision for the project implementation.

One position will be based in Madang while the other position will be based in Bougainville.

Main tasks:

1. In coordination with the provinces:

·       to ensure the circulation of information at all governance levels, visiting provinces and communities to raise awareness of the importance of public conservation policies;

·       to provide a link between local initiatives, provincial and national authorities, fostering a vertical integration and multi-level governance of natural resources;

·       to support provincial authorities in organizing “Protected Area Roundtables” to inform them on how to strengthen sustainable value chains, and thus instigate actions for the sustainable management of natural resources;

·       Define the collaboration with any other relevant entities in the zone;

·       to coordinate with the other Stakeholder Engagement Officer to implement an integrated approach to the provinces coordination activities lead across the project.

2. Cross-cutting to the whole project:

·       to support the consistency of the activities engaged across two first components of the project, in coordination with the project manager and the deputy project manager;

·       to ensure the technical and operational articulation and complementarity of the project activities with those implemented by the EU-FCCB including in their geographical scope, working either with provinces that do not already benefit from its support, or hand in hand focusing on the same provinces and building on their complementarity;

·       to pay a particular attention to Environmental & Social risks, in order to be able to identify, prevent and manage them with the social and environmental expert’s support;

·       to suggest solutions based on its observations for consistent project implementation;

·       to ensure compliance of the activities driven by the project’s stakeholders with AFD's safeguard policies and current legislation in Papua New Guinea;

·       to make available all data and information from his observations required for the preparation of periodic reports on project implementation;

·       to represent Expertise France to the various project stakeholders.

The Stakeholder Engagement Officer will be based in Port Moresby, with frequent trips through the provinces in order to meet the various stakeholders (provincial authorities, community representatives, etc.) and will report to the Project Manager and the deputy project manager.

The inception phase will determine the provinces targeted by the project, where the Stakeholder Engagement Officer will carry out her/his duties. She/he will work in functional liaison with Expertise France headquarters in Paris. She/he will work in close coordination with the agency's other projects in the country (EU-FCCB), and will ensure that the activities carried out are in synergy with the agency's other projects and initiatives.