WASCAL (West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use) is a research and education-focused institution designed to provide knowledge and services to help tackle climate change challenges and enhance the resilience of human and environmental systems. It does so by strengthening the research capacity and infrastructure in West Africa related to climate change by pooling the expertise of ten West African countries and Germany. The West African countries include Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo.
WASCAL seeks to recruit a Post-Doctoral Scientist at its Competence Centre in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The candidate will be required to service WASCAL by providing support to the project DecLaRe (Decision Support for Strengthening Land Resilience in the Face of Global Challenges), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research BMBF under the guidance of the local project coordination team at WASCAL.
DecLaRe aims to identify recommendation domains for scalable innovations towards sustainable crop production and animal husbandry in West Africa. Focusing on northern Benin and Ghana DecLaRe builds on available local and scientific knowledge and databases. It combines their use with problem-oriented research at the field level and modelling at the national to regional level. DecLaRe’s ultimate goal is to construct a decision support system (DSS) that can be used for land use and land management as well as for policy development.
The chosen candidate will work with a multidisciplinary team of experts from different African and German institutions to produce and disseminate the results of the DecLaRe project to all stakeholders in West Africa.
The position is funded for 4 years and is based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The chosen candidate will be given an initial 1-year fixed-term contract, which is renewable for 3 additional (maximum) years pending successful performance and availability of funding. Regular travel will be necessary to oversee field work and conduct workshops and field work campaigns in the project region of northern Ghana and Benin, and to engage with collaborators and stakeholders.
Key responsibilities include, among other things:
Essential Duties:
- Responsible for all communication and dissemination efforts including the organization of field events, guest lectures, and workshops for policy makers as well as the production of relevant document such as policy briefs.
- Gather and provide access weather data from WASCAL’s transboundary automatic weather stations and basins.
- Work closely with other project partners to model and test improved land management practices for crop production by analyzing the trade-offs of alternative land use options.
- Work closely with other project partners to design household survey questionnaires and analyse its results.
- Work closely with other project partners to organize workshops and participatory exercises on mental models from households on sustainable land management practices.
- Contribute to the design of the project’s decision support system (DSS) and provide support for the installation of the final DSS as an addition to the existing WASCAL Data Infrastructure.
- Lead and contribute to high quality scientific publications related to the project in peer-reviewed journals.
- Write project reports.
General Duties:
- Provide support to the DecLaRe coordination team.
- Support WASCAL’s fundraising initiatives.
Qualifications and background needed:
- PhD in Agronomy, Animal Husbandry, Land Management, Environmental Management, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources, or a related field is required.
- Advanced knowledge of land management and governance.
- Familiarity with social science research methods and facilitation.
- Experience engaging with stakeholder groups and communities.
- Demonstrated capacity for independent, critical thinking, and intellectual leadership.
- Knowledge of geographic information systems, remote sensing, and basic computer programming is a plus.
- Ability to work a multi-disciplinary team of experts.
- Ability to handle both quantitative and qualitative data.
- Work experience in West-African countries (especially, Ghana, Benin, and/or Burkina Faso) is an advantage.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills (i.e., scientific publications, development of policy briefs, conference presentations, report writing, etc.) in French and English.
Application Procedure
Interested applicants should submit following documents to candidature@wascal.org by 15th August 2022: a cover letter (maximum 2 pages) outlining motivation, qualifications, and experience for the position (considering the background and desirable qualifications), a curriculum vitae, and the names and contact information of three references. Applicants must come from ECOWAS member countries. Only applications from candidates who meet the minimum qualifications will be considered.
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
For further information or questions, please contact us at Hackman.k@wascal.org.