The IDH Sustainable Trade Initiative helps to accelerate and upscale sustainability within mainstream international commodity markets, driving sustainability from niche to norm. We build ambitious public private coalitions of companies, civil societyorganizations and governments and high-impact programs in order to benefit people, planet and profit. With a €130 million co-funding grant from the Dutch, Swiss and Danish Governments, IDH organizes scoping, development and implementation of public private partnerships in 18 sectors such as coffee, tea, cotton, electronics. IDH is a dynamic organization of about
45 staff members based in Utrecht, The Netherlands, with hubs in Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries. In the last year IDH has expanded its activities and now runs around 100 projects through 18 commodity programs in 50 countries, together with a wide range of private and public partners.
Starting operating in Vietnam in 2010, IDH has since established strong partnerships with businesses, government and NGOs working on coffee, tea, cocoa, spices/pepper and aquaculture.
The Central Highlands of Vietnam play a key role in the production of several agricultural commodities such as coffee, pepper and increasingly cocoa. The agricultural development in the Central Highlands contributed greatly to exports and economic growth in Vietnam. Thanks to economic liberalization, government leadership, and rises in the world coffee prices, Vietnam became the world’s second largest exporter of coffee and top producer of pepper globally.
Several local organizations and multinationals are looking at Vietnam as a top Asian producer for key commodities. However, the intensive agricultural development brought also considerable environmental challenges. Issues such as deforestation and groundwater depletion will need to be addressed at a landscape scale to sustain high production and trade into the future and to allow for future economic prosperity in the region. There seems to be a compelling business case for supply chains, Vietnamese government and local farmers to tackle these challenges collectively.
To that goal, IDH established the Sustainable Land and Water Program (SLWP) with focus on some key landscape globally, including the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The SLWP operated under the following fundamentals: An integrated and cross-sectoral perspective tailored to the local landscape and local needs; Engagement of all relevant stakeholders; Lead by a strong business driver and Long-term commitment towards prosperity.
IDH would like to strengthen its team with one: Manager for the Sustainable Landscape and Water Program for Central Highlands, Vietnam
Job Purpose
The Manager for the SLWP will lead the development and implementation of the SLWP in the Central Highlands, Vietnam. This includes convening local private and public sector partners as well as other stakeholders. The Manager will build on existing partnerships established in Vietnam with international and national players in:
- Coffee, within the Sustainable Coffee Program (www.idhsustainabletrade.com/coffee [1])
- Spices, within the Sustainable Spices Initiative (www.sustainablespicesinitiative.com [2])
- Cocoa (www.idhsustainabletrade.com/cocoa [3])
- Tea (www.idhsustainabletrade.com/news/unilever-idh--rainforest-alliance-launc... [4] develop-sustainable-tea-in-vietnam)
The candidate will report directly to IDH and collaborate closely with the Dutch embassy and Vietnamese authorities. It is envisioned that key issues to be addressed would include, among others, the management of water resources and deforestation in Central Highlands. Sectors of relevance include but are not limited to coffee, pepper, tea and cocoa.
The candidate will overlook the setting up of M&E, contracting implementers, program management and communication related to the SLWP in Vietnam. Finally, the SLWP Manager will ensure that effective and practical learning on best practices in added value generation through a PPP approach of local government and business engagement is generated and disseminated.
Key deliverables
- Establish a public private governance for the SLWP in Vietnam.
- Identify key sectors relevant to the Central Highlands landscape and how each of these should be leveraged on to address the key Central Highland landscape sustainability issues.
- Ensure that the implementation of the SLWP in Vietnam effectively contributes to the overarching SLWP and IDH as a whole.
- Establish partnerships with key private and public sector players influentialto the Central Highlands landscape.
- Enable the investment towards addressing Central Highland sustainability issues of at least €6M from the private sector to co-fund an investment byIDH of about €3M.
- Enable the investment of at least €10M of government and donor grant funds as PPP co-funding to the private sector investments.
Key responsibilities
- Program development: Identify new opportunities for collaboration; Play a specialist role in developing,preparing and coordinating the implementation of PPP interventions.
- Stakeholder management: Create awareness and drive the adoption of more sustainable practices in the particular industry and institutionalization of sector wide cooperation by convening key stakeholders (international and local).
- Technical assistance: Provide technical assistance based on seniors area of expertise.
- Fundraising: Keep abreast of current regional and/or local fundraising trends, so as to identify opportunities at an early stage, with the aim of securing funding for the programs.
- Monitoring & evaluation: Lead the monitoring and evaluation of project activities and finance in conjunction with the implementing partners and private sector players, as well as monitoring of implementers, organizations or any third party needed to deliver project objectives.
- Communication: Structuring and drafting of communication and other materials (e.g. proposals) adjusted to local context.
- Learning: Bring best practices to the project from previous sector experience; facilitate the dissemination of knowledge to the wider industry; identify and document the lessons learned based on local reality on the ground.
Requirements
- Based in BuonMe Thuot/Central Highlands (preferably) or Ho Chi Minh City with regular travel to the Central Highlands.
- Holding a university degree, preferably in business or agriculture.
- At least 10 years of working experience in program development and implementation in the area of sustainable agriculture management (preferably in coffee/tea/cocoa/pepper) and/or in natural resources management.
- Experience in developing joint agendas with different stakeholders (eg Vietnamese Government, Private Companies, NGOs,…) and in implementing multi-stakeholder programs
- Excellent convening and project development skills.
- Comfortable working in a team as well as independently developing new programs.
- Experience in supply chain sustainability issues, and small-holder engagement.
- Experience in fundraising.
- Operationalfocus - Able to complete the program (intervention) cycle, e.g. market research; writing and budgeting; donor relationship management and monitoring.
- Proactive, entrepreneurial, with a strong eye for detail.
- Willingness to travel extensively.
- Fluent spoken and written English and Vietnamese.
Terms and Conditions
This program is in its initial stages. Hence, we are initially looking for people that wish to work on one- year full-time basis, but with the possibility to develop into permanent positions. IDH offers a market conformed fee. For more information about IDH, please visit www.idhsustainabletrade.com [5].
For questions about this position, please contact Flavio Corsin at [email protected] [6]
Interested candidates should send their CV and application letter (in English) to Annemarie Woudstra, Human Resources Officer, [email protected] [7] and cc to [email protected] [8]. The deadline for the call for applications is 17.30 on 16th April 2014.