North Africa Conservation Director -WWF Retour vers les opportunités

Position title: North Africa Conservation Director 

Reports to: North Africa Director                                         

Location: Tunis

Date: December 2022

•   Mission of the Department:

• To lead, oversee and coordinate WWF North Africa’s conservation efforts in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya by defining WWF North Africa conservation priorities, linking them with WWF global conservation outcomes, monitoring progress and assessing impact. To help and provide support the WWF NA Office grow in strength and influence by supporting the development and implementation of strongly defined and engaging strategies and projects portfolio.
• Ensure that consistent and integrated approaches are developed to deliver transformational conservation impacts at scale and maintain WWF’s influence in the North Africa Region.

•   Major Functions

• Under the supervision of the WWF North Africa Director, ensures that WWF North Africa delivers conservation impact at scale and reaches the agreed level of conservation performance measured by KPI’s. Streamlines business processes and procedures and ensures effective implementation of all adopted conservation policies and standards, application of best practices, and meeting programme reporting requirements. Oversees and gives strategic direction to the North Africa Conservation team. 
• Support fundraising effort, link project portfolio with WWF NA strategic goals and expected outcomes. ensure WWF NA project and portfolio contribute to achieve the conservation strategy and make midterms evaluation and updates on the conservation part of the strategic plan. 
• Develop a common understanding of sub-regional trends and opportunities, and identify and accelerate the development, design and implementation of high-quality initiatives that capitalize on these opportunities and deliver the greatest conservation impact on country and WWF global practice outcomes.
• Promote WWF social policies and uphold social and environmental safeguard standards in North Africa.
• Leverage synergies and develop capacity across countries.
• Establish and leads the technical conservation team.
• Ensure Conservation audits/evaluations.

•   Major Duties and Responsibilities:

Regional Conservation leadership  

• Develop a common understanding of regional trends and opportunities for delivering impact against WWF Global Practice Outcomes;
• Lead the development of multi-year and annual overarching plan to deliver conservation initiatives in the sub-region;
• Ensure that WWFs conservation work on the ground is aligned to its social policies, clearly upholding the human rights of people and communities;
• Facilitate collaboration frameworks, guide and provide oversight and support for seamless delivery of transboundary conservation initiatives;
• Support learning and ensure development of global communities of practice on best practices & partnerships for delivering conservation initiatives and operational excellence in the sub-region.

Support to Program team conservation work

• Provide timely advice to Program managers and program team on emerging opportunities and challenges for conservation delivery;
• Ensure that WWF programs have established solid baselines and SMART indicators for their biodiversity targets and footprint objectives; and support Program team in developing robust and sharp conservation strategies, clearly contributing to global goals and responding to trends, opportunities, whilst supporting in developing the appropriate delivery models for these strategies;
• Ensure effective performance monitoring of the implementation of conservation plans, by promoting timely and effective reporting against agreed Dashboard and KPIs, based on annual and strategic plans.
• Establish, implement and oversee Monitoring and Evaluation of conservation programmes and priorities in line with strategic plans which demonstrate our conservation targets.
• Work with financial staff for programme budget preparation, monitoring, and reporting activities; guarantee the financial integrity and accountability of project budgets; facilitate support to Project/ Programme Managers in developing and managing project budgets.

Support to Regional thematic programs, Global Practices and other broader frameworks

• Support regional thematic Program leads in developing and implementing program’s strategies in NA and deliver conservation impacts at scale;
• Support the Practices in uncovering innovations within NA and advise on how these can be best supported, incubated, prototyped and accelerated;
• Identify capacity and operational constraints to the effective implementation of practice strategies, Area of Collective Action and Innovation (ACAIs) and high impact initiatives (HIIs) within NA (including how program team are able to engage in Practice structures and processes); advise Program managers, Practices and WWF Europe and North Africa Regional Office on these matters.

Regional policy and partnerships

• Identify regional policy opportunities in line with North Africa Programs and WWF Global Practice Strategies and represent WWF in these fora as requested;
• Identify and pursue crucial opportunities for joint action with other conservation groups in the sub-region to co- lead and promote unified conservation agendas such as the global deal for nature and people;
• Represent WWF with regional partners and help to manage these relationships as requested;
• Participate and take up policy and partnership level engagement as necessary to influence change at all levels;
• Support conservation team in networking with key governments and private sector institutions to grow key stakeholders/partners toward influencing conservation impact at scale;

Communication and Fundraising

• Support the ‘packaging’ of initiatives in a way that is compelling to funders and interacts with donors as needed and requested;
• Provide inputs to communications products/campaigns to ensure accurate information will be published to promote the image of the organization and its conservation activities;
• Acts as spokesperson for conservation issues in the sub-region to the media, WWF Network, partners and the outside world when required and in coordination with the program team.

• Profile:

Required Qualifications: 

• At least Masters’ degree (PhD preferred) in Environment, Natural Resources management related field;
• At least 15 years in a senior conservation leadership role;
• Experience of working in an international, matrix organization;
• Proven track record of managing internal and external multi-cultural stakeholders to influence and drive change;
• Clear evidence of enabling conservation delivery and experience in the North Africa;
• Good knowledge of the various national political, socio-economic and ecological contexts in the sub-region;
• Fluent in French and English.

Required Skills and Competencies: 

• • ‘Leading through influence’ skill and management style with focus on creating enabling environment for others;
  • Demonstrated success in managing multi-disciplinary teams and multiple donor budgets;
  • Proven knowledge and experience of human rights and community based approaches to conservation
  • Strong ability to bring together and inspire various teams together for impact delivery;
  • Entrepreneurial approach and eye for spotting innovation;
  • Superb interpersonal skills which helps connecting people, expertise and hence multiplying conservation impact;
  • Superlative diplomatic and communication skills to bring teams and stakeholders together;
  • Demonstrates WWF behaviors in way of working: Strive for Impact, Listen Deeply, Collaborate Openly, Innovate Fearlessly;

• Adheres to WWF’s values, which are: courage, collaboration, integrity and respect. 

• Working Relationships:

Internal – Works closely with Country Directors and Country Conservation Leads in the sub-region, Initiative leads, relevant Practices, their core teams and other relevant stakeholders within the broader WWF network.

External – Creates and fosters close collaboration with external partners in governments, intergovernmental institutions, business and industries, NGOs and local communities to promote the Practice strategies and achievements in order to consolidate the impact of the Practices and Initiatives in the sub-region.

This job description covers the main tasks and conveys the spirit of the sort of tasks that WWF proactively anticipates from staff members. Other tasks may be assigned as necessary according to organizational needs.