Socio-economic and Gender Officer, RECOFTC Thailand
Summary
Oversee socio-economic and gender equality initiatives for a forest conservation project in Thailand, conducting assessments, community mobilization, and safeguard compliance across four forest complexes.
RECOFTC is an international nonprofit organization working towards a future where resilient communities with respected rights thrive in forest landscapes that they manage sustainably and equitably. We take a long-term, landscape-based and inclusive approach in supporting local communities to secure their land and resource rights, stop deforestation, find alternative livelihoods and foster gender equality. We have almost 40 years of experience working with people and forests and have built trusting relationships with partners at all levels. As a trusted, honest broker, we occupy a distinct position as an international organization that supports, informs and brings together governments, communities, businesses, academia and civil society organizations. Our innovations, knowledge and initiatives enable countries to foster good forest governance, mitigate and adapt to climate change and achieve the UN Global Goals.
We operate in the Asia-Pacific region, with country offices in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and Viet Nam.
In Thailand, RECOFTC works closely with government agencies, communities and partners to advance biodiversity conservation and sustainable forest landscape management, including through the Integrated Forest Landscape Management for Strengthening the North-eastern and Eastern Forest Corridors (IFLMS-NE&E) project. The project is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) serving as the GEF implementing agency. RECOFTC holds overall executing and technical responsibility for the project as the operational partner, with FAO providing oversight and technical support, and the Royal Forest Department (RFD) serving as the lead government partner agency.
The project focuses on four forest complexes along Thailand's eastern border: Phu Phan, Phanom Dongrak–Pha Tam, Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai and the eastern forest, which together span 6.5 million hectares of globally significant wildlife habitat, home to species such as the Asian elephant, the Indo-Chinese tiger and the Great Hornbill. These landscapes are under growing threat from forest degradation, land-use change and habitat encroachment and fragmentation, which increasingly expose wildlife to human activity. The Government of Thailand has recognized that protecting these habitats requires a landscape approach, since the effectiveness of protected areas depends heavily on what happens in the surrounding lands and waters, shaped by the actions of communities, private landowners and government agencies.
The project’s primary goal is to strengthen biodiversity conservation across these four complexes by improving forest landscape management. This involves strengthening government policy, institutional arrangements and capacities for conservation within and between protected areas, mainstreaming biodiversity objectives into the management of forests, agricultural land and plantations, and reducing human-wildlife conflict. The project also contributes to broader national policies and laws on land degradation, gender equity, rural development and climate change.
Delivery of the project draws on a wide network of partners at the national, provincial and local levels, including government departments, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and academic institutions. More than 30 stakeholder groups are engaged across the four target forest complexes, including provincial government departments, local authorities, local administrative organizations, forest plantation owners, community forest users, local communities and academic institutions.
- Conduct socio-economic and gender analysis of the project context and stakeholders, and lead the implementation of related project activities, including socio-economic assessments, social impact assessments and analysis of socio-economic change
- Work with the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer to conduct baseline socio-economic and environmental surveys, and support ongoing socio-economic data collection and analysis to monitor trends and changes over the project's duration
- Lead the planning and implementation of environmental and social safeguards (ESS), including oversight of the environmental and social management plan (ESMP) and coordinate with project partners and stakeholders to raise awareness and understanding of ESS and ESMP
- Provide technical support to ensure socio-economic dimensions are incorporated into the project’s biodiversity conservation, including community mobilization and institutional development
- Work with the project team and partners to plan and implement community-based incentive mechanisms that support project outcomes
- Design and implement gender-sensitive and inclusive interventions and activities
- Provide technical guidance and capacity building on gender issues to the project team and partners, ensuring gender responsiveness and mainstreaming are integrated into the activities of project partners and service providers
- Ensure the project’s gender action plan (GAP) is incorporated into all policies and activities implemented by partners and service providers
- Monitor and evaluate the gender outcomes and impacts of project activities and interventions, ensuring gender and inclusivity are reflected in output, outcome and impact-level indicators
- Identify and recommend effective methods to include men, women, boys and girls and people with disabilities from diverse ethnic groups in project activities through regular engagement with partner organizations, local government and participating communities
- Support the Communication, Knowledge Management and Learning Officer in developing knowledge-based products and briefing papers including socio-economic and gender case studies, best practices and lessons learned
- Bachelor’s degree or higher in social sciences, environmental sciences, development studies or a related field
- At least five years of experience in socio-economic impact assessment and/or gender mainstreaming approaches
- Proven understanding of and experience delivering environmental and social safeguards and the environmental and social management plans
- Demonstrated knowledge and application of gender equality and social inclusion approaches and mainstreaming
- Experience preparing socio-economic baseline reports and impact or effects assessments, including technical analysis and writing
- Proven ability to facilitate technical workshops with governmental organizations and develop community mobilization strategies
- Strong knowledge of biodiversity mainstreaming and community incentive mechanisms
- Strong interpersonal skills, with fluency in written and spoken Thai and English
- Willingness and ability to travel frequently to target forest complexes
- Thai nationality
- Ability to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines
- Demonstrated openness to change and ability to manage complexity, including responding constructively to critical feedback and differing points of view
- Experience applying participatory approaches to stakeholder accountability and organizational learning
- Experience in, and ability to facilitate, capacity-building and training at different levels
- Familiarity with IT applications to support monitoring, evaluation and learning and information management
- Embrace innovation
- Adapt to and learn from challenges
- Nurture commitment, responsibility and ownership
- Collaborate with partners and stakeholders
- Commit to sustainability
- Cultivate participation, gender equality and social inclusion
- Prioritize well-being
- At RECOFTC, we uphold the highest standards of integrity, transparency and responsibility in all our operations. Our policies and guidelines are designed to ensure a safe, inclusive, sustainable and ethical environment for our staff, partners, consultants and the communities we serve.
- All staff, consultants and contractors engaged by RECOFTC are required to comply with RECOFTC’s policies and procedures while performing their roles with RECOFTC.