Livestock specialist

Background

DAI works at the cutting edge of international development, combining technical excellence, professional project management, and exceptional customer service to solve our clients’ most complex problems. Since 1970, DAI has worked in 150 developing and transition countries, providing comprehensive development solutions in areas including crisis mitigation and stability operations, democratic governance and public sector management, agriculture and agribusiness, private sector development and financial services, economics and trade, HIV/AIDS, avian influenza control, water and natural resources management, and energy and climate change. Clients include international development agencies, international lending institutions, private corporations and philanthropies, and host-country governments. 

Job Description

DAI, a global development consulting firm headquartered in Washington, DC, USA seeks to fill a Livestock Specialist short-term technical assistance (STTA) consultancy position to support a five-year U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Climate Change Adaptation project on the Mekong River Basin, covering communities in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The project aims to strengthen human and institutional capacity to develop and implement climate change adaptation plans and strategies; strengthen policies, tools, methodologies, and practices for ecosystem services valuation and climate resiliency; demonstrate and scale-up model actions for integrated approaches to climate change adaptation, and sustain regional learning networks to share and replicate best practices. The position will be based in the Lower Mekong River Basin (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, Vietnam) with an anticipated start date in late November. US-Citizenship is required.

Responsibilities

Working with the Team Leader, the Livestock Specialist shall
- Guide Riparian specialists in identifying data needs for climate change assessments of agricultural and livestock systems
- Develop with the Agricultural modeller agro-ecological zones for the Lower Mekong Basin
- Develop livestock, land use and land degradation baselines for agro-ecological zones
- Analyze baseline trends for Mekong agricultural and livestock systems and agro-ecological zones
- Identify climate and non-climate drivers of change to Mekong agricultural and livestock systems
- Undertake climate change vulnerability assessment, prioritizing vulnerable zones in the region
- Develop adaptation options for vulnerable agricultural and livestock systems and agro-ecological zones

Basic Qualifications

- The Livestock Specialist will have at least 10years of experience in: agricultural systems; livestock project development; natural resource and land degradation management; climate change, and pasture law support with a relevant masters or doctoral degree in agricultural sciences, animal husbandry or similar. 
- The specialist should have extensive experience working in and assisting government institutions of Mekong countries (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam); be familiar with the institutional arrangements and agricultural sector in these countries; and demonstrated experience working in data poor and institutionally weak environments. 
- Also required is the ability to work effectively with riparian counterpart specialists and to report effectively in written reports. 
- The specialist should have excellent analytical and inter-personal skills and a team-oriented work style.