Inter Aide
Forest Landscape Restoration Partnership Manager
WHO WE ARE:
Inter Aide is an association specialized in the implementation of rural development programs. In 2025, Inter Aide is running 50 programs in seven countries (Ethiopia, Guinea, Haiti, Malawi, Madagascar, Mozambique and Sierra Leone). In Malawi, Inter Aide has been working with particularly poor rural communities since 1992 The association is present in 12 of the country’s 28 districts in the Central and Southern regions, with interventions around Health, Water points Maintenance and Agricultural development.
Since 2016, Inter Aide has been supporting families in central and southern Malawi in the production of wood fuel by planting trees in hedgerows on family farms. Since the beginning of 2025, these actions on degraded areas through agroforestry have taken on a more global dimension of landscape restoration and natural forest preservation as part of the project ‘Reconciling ecosystem preservation and wood autonomy”.
This 5-year initiative will contribute to the protection of biodiversity while meeting the energy and economic needs of rural populations, promoting the planting of native species and involving communities in forest management. To achieve this, the project is structured around three areas:
- Meeting families’ wood needs through agroforestry, with productive species adapted to their village territories, supplemented by the regeneration and planting of native species.
- Mobilizing all local stakeholders to jointly develop and implement appropriate methods for the sustainable and integrated management of agricultural and forest landscapes.
- Defining the conditions for replicating and scaling up solutions and capitalizing on cross-cutting lessons learned through ongoing reflection, cross-evaluation, and practical exchanges between local stakeholders and academics.
THE MISSION:
The position is based in the Lilongwe capital city with frequent trips to Lilongwe rural and Phalombe. The main responsibilities will be to:
- Define and implement an action plan to initiate and ensure the institutional anchoring of the project and collaboration with the Forestry Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Climate Change, as well as the Department of Land Resources Conservation of the Ministry of Agriculture.
- Support the Inter-Aide Agricultural Sector Manager in the technical supervision of the teams responsible for project implementation, in order to ensure the strategic and methodological consistency of the various actions on the project within the different intervention areas, including the monitoring and evaluation system.
- Develop and monitor local partnerships with NGOs and private entrepreneurs aimed at integrating synergies with improved stove sales channels.
- Support the Agriculture Sector Manager in coordinating technical collaboration with local partners.
- Provide supervision to international and local interns on the project and actively participate in co- supervising, with our local partners two Master’s theses at MUST University in Malawi.
- Clarify the legal framework and propose marketing strategies for wood products derived from sustainable pruning of individual agroforestry plantations. Depending on opportunities, develop and monitor a pilot test phase in Lilongwe District.
- Support the Agriculture Sector Manager in reviewing and harmonizing the technical documents used by the teams to produce summary documents and capitalize on the technical and institutional lessons and experiences gained during the implementation of the project.
- Present the project and its achievements on an ad hoc basis to the main stakeholders likely to be involved in ensuring the project’s sustainability.
- Identify areas of synergy with potential new partners and ensure follow-up.
- With the support of the project teams, coordinate the production and updating of cartographic presentations of the project and the monitoring of reference plots using aerial photographs taken by drones.
REQUIRED PROFILE
- A minimum of a Master degree in agricultural, forestry, or environmental management or equivalent, with practical field experience in agroforestry.
- The position is also suitable for PhD holders.
- At least 4 years of professional field experience in a similar context
- Experience in institutional project coordination and a keen interest in transferring technical solutions to public institutions
- Experience in the monitoring and evaluation of agroforestry programs
- Strong inclination towards fieldwork and community outreach.
- Good knowledge of mapping tools (Q-GIS, Google Earth, etc.)
- Genuine motivation for the association’s objectives
- Good interpersonal skills, initiative, ability to meet deadlines
- Fluent in spoken and written English. Although not compulsory, French is an added advantage
HOW TO APPLY
Eligible candidates should send their CV and cover letter with names of three traceable references by 17th September 2025, with the position title in the subject line by email to recruitment.pm.mwi@interaide.org