Position: Project Assistant

Reports to: Upper Zambezi Landscape Manager and Barotse Program Officer

Location: Mongu, Western Province

Background

The World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is the world’s leading independent conservation organisation with a global network in over 100 countries. Our mission is to stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to build a future in which people live in harmony with nature. We have been working in Zambia since 1962 organising our efforts across Freshwater, Wildlife, Forests and People.

WWF Zambia seeks to recruit a young Zambian with an interest and passion in Conservation and Administration, willing to take up the position of Project Assistant to perform various Conservation and Administrative tasks and support the Barotse Field Office processes and daily activities for a period of 12 months.

The Role

The Project Assistant role includes conducting administrative work, communication support, conservation support and basic knowledge management. The Project Assistant will be responsible for driving the knowledge management strategy focusing on the critical valuable facts of operational information, best practices and conservation lessons that will be created both within and outside the Barotse Floodplains and Greater Liuwa Ecosystem.

Specific duties and tasks

Under the supervision of the Upper Zambezi Landscape Manager, the Project Assistant shall amongst other tasks provide:

• Liaise with the finance department and procurement on the various relevant aspects of the Barotse Field Office.
• Work closely with the Upper Zambezi Grant Accountant in record keeping of finance and procurement documents for the field office; Assist in the purchase and supply of goods and materials in the field office;
• Ensuring that there is a proper filing system for incoming and outgoing mails and other documents for the core management;
• Liaise and coordinate with the WWF Zambia Communications Officer on Landscape awareness activities around biodiversity conservation, management and sustainable development aspects.
• Support the documentation of field activities through reporting photography and videography in the cloud-based database.
• Assist in regular populating and maintenance of a monitoring and evaluation framework for conservation initiatives in the Greater Liuwa Ecosystem and Barotse Floodplain;
• Assist in organising online meetings (e.g. webinars), stakeholder meetings and curating content for knowledge-sharing platforms;
• Work closely with the Barotse Program Officer in outreach and engagement with local communities, traditional leaders, district and provincial offices and relevant government departments to ensure synergy and support for site activities.
• Perform any other project-related activities/duties as the supervisor requires and directs.

Required Qualifications, Skills and Competencies 

• A minimum of a BSc. in Environmental Economics, Wildlife Management, Ecology and Biodiversity Management, Environmental Science, Fisheries Science, Forestry Science or similar field.
• A minimum of two-year work experience in field-based research or a similar field based conservation role is a plus
• High interest in data science with a familiarity with SPSS, R, and Stata for data analysis
• Added advantage of basic Knowledge of GIS (Arc or Quantum), Google
• Earth Pro, and SMART for monitoring implementation and progress of field activities.
• Experience with MS Office (Excel, Word, Access)
• Basic understanding of Knowledge Management (KM) and Project Management (PM) cycle
• Basic knowledge of Zambian laws in natural resources management (Acts, Regulations, Policies, etc).
• Excellent oral and written communications skills in English;
• A good command of spoken and written Silozi is an added advantage
• Ability to work in a culturally and professionally diverse team;

Working Relationships

Internal: Interacts regularly with other WWF ZCO staff.

External: Interacts with various partners in government, private sector, CSOs, traditional authorities and community members.

This job description covers the main tasks and conveys the spirit of sort of tasks that are anticipated proactively from staff. Other tasks may be assigned as necessary according to organisational needs for effective programme implementation.