Call for Online Moderator: Community of Practice on Challenges and Opportunities for African Youth in Forestry (West, Central and North Africa)

This is a remote position.

1.1 RATIONALE

For its plan of work for 2025, AFF is recruiting one regional expert to moderate an online Community of Practice (CoP) on “Challenges and Opportunities for African Youth in Forestry” for the West, Central and North African regions. The CoPs will provide an opportunity for young people-led associations, youth entrepreneurs, leaders from different educational backgrounds, and other interested youth, together with forest scientists to advance knowledge sharing about best practices for sustainable forestry.

The CoP will be hosted on a virtual web-based platform and will involve both webinar series and Chat interactions. The online moderator is expected to encourage / engage and guide interested stakeholders to attend the webinar series and the web-based discussions and  share their knowledge, experiences and best practices on innovative solutions to forest-related challenges for African youth. At the end of each session, the moderator will  synthesize views, lessons and recommendations to be posted on the CoP’s Howspace, easily accessible to all community members.  

1.2 PURPOSE OF THE CONSULTANCY

The purpose of the Consultancy is for a regional forestry expert to moderate an online Community of Practice that aims to reflect on innovative solutions to forest-related challenges for African youth. The event will also provide a platform for sharing and validation of findings from a research study conducted in West, Central and South African regions on the barriers against meaningful contribution of youth to sustainable forest use and opportunities for the youth to formulate their visions of forest conservation and management.

1.3 SPECIFIC TASKS

The key tasks of this assignment are as follows:

i)                    In collaboration with project partners, develop a concept note and elaborate a programme for the CoP, including topics for the online discussion forum;

ii)                  Promote the CoP, identify a wide range of stakeholders and start engaging them on the “Howspace” platform at least one week before the webinar sessions;

iii)                Work with project partners to tailor discussion topics in line with the thematic area of the CoP as well as the project outcomes.

iv)                Identify and engage a broad range of stakeholders including relevant networks, individuals, and institutions with specific expertise and experiences on African youth involvement in forestry, then invite them to participate to enrich the online discussion;

v)                  Identify guest speakers to develop daily presentations on the selected topics that will guide the online discussion;

vi)                Actively guide the discussion to ensure it remains focused on the agenda, address all discussion questions and at the end of each session, draft and post a daily summary note.

vii)               Daily tasks of the CoP’s moderator, to be done during the 2-hour webinar and Chat sessions starting from the 17 February – 4 March 2025 include:

a.      Welcome participants to the virtual discussion;

b.      Introduce the topic, prepare, and deliver presentations and/or facilitate their delivery by identified guest speakers and drive discussions to address any open/pending issues.

c.       Provide encouragement/energizer to drive the discussion when no contributions have been posted, by posing/fielding questions, contacting members directly through the platform, posting complementary content such as documents, websites, and text.

VIII)    Propose and discuss with the CoP members plausible approaches and a strategy to sustain interactions on the platform after the two-weeks’ Community of Practice.

IX)     Document key issues raised, and actions proposed from the CoP members.

1.4 DELIVERABLES

This assignment aims to deliver the following:

• Useful resources for the e-discussion uploaded and shared regularly.
  
• Daily summaries of the e-discussions
  
• A strategy and action plan to sustain interactions and peer-to-peer learning among the community after the webinar sessions.
  
• Final report of the assignment to be submitted one week after the end of the virtual sessions.
  

Requirements

• At least a Master’s degree in forestry or natural resource management with experience in climate change and climate finance, a PhD will be an added advantage.
  
• At least five years’ working experience in sustainable forest management in the context of climate change;
  
• Proven experience in the issues youth and young professionals in forestry or in the issues
  
• of gender in natural resources management in general;
  
• Proven skills and experience in writing technical reports and the like, on topics related to
  
• sustainable forest management taking into account gender issues particularly youth participation;
  
• Excellent communication skills in French. Knowledge of English is an added advantage.
  
• Experience in moderating CoPs, multi-stakeholders’ participatory actions or events are desirable.