Organizational Setting
This position is located in the National Forest Monitoring team (NFM team), in FAO’s Forestry Division (NFO).
Reporting Lines
The consultant will report to the Forestry Officer Measuring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) in the NFM team, under the overall supervision of the Team Leader, Senior Forestry Officer (NFO). Depending on the assigned project, the consultant will work in close collaboration with the Chief Technical Advisor (CTA) and/or Lead Technical Officer (LTO) of the projects it works for, and the consultant will work in close coordination with the country offices.
Technical Focus
The consultant will contribute to the operational success of FAO’s work on climate change, forestry and land use (change), and in specific on MRV for forests and initiatives such as REDD+ (https://www.fao.org/national-forest-monitoring/areas-of-work/data-repor…). The objective of this consultancy is to develop the capacity of countries in MRV of forest-related emissions and removals. The consultant will support in the analysis of activity data, and combine area estimates obtained from Satellite Land Monitoring Systems, with emission factors obtained from analysing National Forest Inventory (NFI) data to obtain emission estimates, to be used in greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory reporting, in the construction of reference levels and the assessment of achieved emission reductions. The overall objective is to support countries on one or several of the following: i) improve climate change reporting to the UNFCCC, in specific supporting countries in LULUCF/AFOLU reporting in the BUR/BTR/NCs, and as related to the NDCs and the enhanced transparency framework (ETF), and ii) support countries to achieve high quality MRV that meets requirements in Carbon Accounting Standards. Where appropriate, countries will be familiarized and trained in the use of FAO’s open source tools and platforms, such as Open foris (https://openforis.org/), including Collect Earth, Collect Earth Online and SEPAL.
Tasks and responsibilities
- Support countries with technical advice on LULUCF GHG reporting to the UNFCCC (NCs, BURs, BTRs, NDCs), REDD+ reference levels and BUR/BTR technical annexes with REDD+ results
- Assist in the elaboration of guidance material to help build GHG emission estimates capacity in countries (for example, online learning courses or gap assessment tools)
- Support countries in their selection of appropriate Carbon Accounting Standards, where applicable
- Perform MRV gap assessments, where applicable against a Carbon Accounting Standard selected by the country, and/or in the context of the country’s NDC/REDD+ reporting to the UNFCCC
- Support countries with their analysis of activity data (from satellite land monitoring systems) and emission factors (from national forest inventories) for MRV in the context of a selected Carbon Accounting Standard or for REDD+ reporting to the UNFCCC
- Support countries with the implementation of the ETF with focus on the forest and land use sector
- Organize and/or facilitate meetings, workshops, technical trainings etc and coordinate with relevant units in FAO, e.g. the climate change team (OCB) in FAO
- Any other duties as required