GIS Specialist

Organizational Setting

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is implementing the Project entitled “Building Resilience to Cope with Climate Change in Jordan (BRCCJ)”, The goal of the seven-year project is increased climate resilient sustainable development in the country. Towards this aim, the project combines infrastructure development and natural resources management with principles of local capital formation at the community level. The project will have three interrelated components, which will work synergistically to address key barriers and enhance the impact of project investments. The components are designed to deal with the lack of infrastructure, limited capacity of rural farming households and weak institutional capacity. They include (i) Component 1: Climate Resilient Water Systems; (ii) Component 2: Climate Change resilience for Enhanced Livelihoods and Food Security; and (iii) Component 3: Scaling-up climate adaptation. Coherently with identified lesson learned in Jordan as well as with the GCF Gender guidelines, the project builds on the idea of inclusion of women as change agents for climate adaptation.

The project will be executed jointly by FAO, UNDP, Ministry of Environment (MoE), Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MWI) indicating the strong collaborative and partnership approach which will be adopted during the implementation of the project. The project will capitalise on the strong experience and convening power that both FAO and UNDP have established in the country.

For the implementation of the Project, a project management unit (“PMU”) will be formed. The PMU will be responsible for day-to-day project management, providing human resources management, financial and procurement services, coordinate the Project activities, generate work plans and prepare reports.

The GIS Specialist will work under the direct (technical) supervision of the M&E Specialist and the CTA and in close collaboration with the PMU Specialists. The GIS Expert must have advanced skills in Remote Sensing and techniques of geospatial analysis as well as ArcGIS software, including programming/modelling and publishing interactive maps online.

Reporting Lines

The GIS Specialist will be under the supervision and will report directly to the M&E Specialist copied to CTA and PM

Technical Focus

Geographic information systems, data management, data validation and analysis, interpretation and visualization and remote sensing

Tasks and responsibilities

• Build a geospatial database and data designs. Manage BRCCJ spatial data, including maintenance and update of relevant database layers from other sources where available.
• Prepare professional and high-quality maps for BRCCJ activities and sub-activities.
• Provide systems requirements and other IT specifications for the GIS applications including systems security and data security.
• Geo-reference the AWPB and report clearly the coordinates related to planned interventions.
• Support M&E Unit in populating BRCCJ database and developing thematic project’s maps.
• Oversee the design, implementation and monitoring of Activity 2.1.1.5 (Scaling-up FAO mobile geo-referenced monitoring application of adoption rates). Ensure that records will store baseline information and changes in adoption rates, water use, climate resilience indicators such as productivity per unit of water and land as well as impact of precipitation and temperature changes on yields.
• Produce reports using Geo-Referencing of all activities using FAO’s Remote sensing application “Earth Map”.
• Produce Geospatial analysis through thematic maps starting from the first quarter of the Project Year 2 and thereafter annually.
• Manage the workflow of mapping requests submitted by PMU Specialists.
• Develop and manage a Web GIS.
• Design the GIS architecture (e.g., administrators, users).
• Conduct training sessions on GIS use and data interpretation targeting PMU team and government counterparts (MWI, MOA, and MOE).
• Contribute to annual and final BRCCJ reports through providing cross-referencing to required maps and database.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• M.Sc. degree in GIS or closely related field
• Minimum (7) years of relevant work experience in geo-localized statistics, geographic information systems, remote sensing and project information gathering and analysis
• Working knowledge (level C) of English and Arabic.
• National or resident of Jordan

FAO Core Competencies

• Results Focus
• Teamwork
• Communication
• Building Effective Relationships
• Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

• GIS systems and tools such as ArcGIS, QGIS
• Satellite Imageries processing and mosaic
• Data Analysis, simulation software