Project Manager, Freshwater Practice - Tra Su Nature Based Solution

Position title: Tra Su Nature based Solution (NbS) Project Manager, Freshwater Practice, WWF – Vietnam
Direct reports to: Freshwater Leads, WWF – Vietnam
Technical reports to: Food Leads, WWF – Vietnam
Supervises: Project officers, consultants or interns as required
Location: Can Tho, Viet Nam
Date: 1st January 2023.

I. Background

WWF was one of the first International non-government organizations working in Viet Nam. In 1985, WWF began working on a national conservation strategy and since then has worked closely with the Vietnamese Government on a diverse range of environment issues and implemented field activities across the country. WWF-Viet Nam is part of WWF-Greater Mekong which operates in 5 countries: Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Viet Nam. Find out more at http://vietnam.panda.org/

In the Mekong Delta Landscape, Freshwater plays an important role in the locals’ lives. Thanks to water, the Delta has become an agriculturally and aquatically highly productive zone. However, the Delta is facing permanent water resource problems such as floods, saline intrusion, acid sulfate soils, water pollution and droughts. Such problems threaten the region’s agricultural production, livelihoods and mounting threats to species and habitat, these are expected to become worse due to climate change and upstream hydropower development. WWF Freshwater Practice works to ensure the hydrological integrity and water quality in the Mekong River system in the Mekong Delta, Viet Nam is maintained or restored.

Today, less than 5% of the natural wetlands of the Mekong Delta remain, of that Tra Su Wetland Reserve is a natural high biodiversity habitat that supports indigenous plant and animal species. There are 850ha of protected area and over 1100 of buffer zone, the site’s diverse habitats, including Melaleuca forests, swamps, and grasslands…

Together with regional and global threats like upstream hydropower dams, groundwater extraction, unsustainable sand mining, sea level rise and changing weather patterns, the high dyke systems to keep the water level in for fire prevention in the protect zone and cultivate 3 crops of rice in the buffer areas have turned the reserves into reservoir that constantly inundate and damage the tree and grassland species and lost seasonal flooding, which are made increasingly vulnerable to climate change, lost habitats and unsustainable development of communities.

The 3 years project of Mekong NBS: Showcasing Nature-Based Solutions that Restore Wetlands and the Natural Processes of the Mekong Delta, which the specific objectives:

• Restore degraded Melaleuca Forest and grassland in Tra Su Wetland Reserve through replanting native species and nurturing poor forest areas.
• Restore at least 205 Ha of flood plains in the proximity to Tra Su Wetland Reserve.
• Develop and implement water management strategies that meet the needs of different wetland habitats, to increase water exchanges, connectivity and avoid water permanently stocked in the Wetland Reserve at high levels.
• Develop a site-specific prospectus for NbS investment across the Upper Mekong Delta with communities, government, and the private sector.

The project aims to invest in nature-based solutions within the Upper Mekong Delta to try a significant contribution to improving climate resilience for people and nature, which restore nature and demonstrate a successful example that can be replicated across more provinces in the Upper Delta.
II. Major Functions:

The Project Manager will be responsible for overall project management, including planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring and reporting of project’ activities to ensure compliance with the Project Documents and WWF’s contractual obligations and ensure close collaboration between the project and program’s management as well as support on partnership building and proposal development under Freshwater, Food Practices, and relevant Practices.

III. Major Duties and Responsibilities:
Project implementation and management
• Take responsibility for the overall planning, management, implementation, and monitoring of activities within the Tra Su NbS project,
• Be responsible for the development and revision of the Project’s work plan, prepare six-monthly/end-year progress reports (TPR) as well as the update of WWF monitoring system in Project performance tracking (PPT) including monitor and update the project’s budget, advise/assist on the spending of the budgets and in the revision of project’s budget if any,
• Be responsible for building partnership with target corporates, businesses, and other related stakeholders.
• Manage staff under direct line management, providing relevant training, coaching and capacity building and ensuring they deliver on their performance objectives.
• Support in preparation, design and implementation of technical surveys and studies including TOR and bidding procedure if required.

Fundraising
• Support to identify funding opportunities for the Freshwater and Food Practices especially for NbS and/or bankable projects from different sources, including within the WWF Network, external PSP donors, corporates, partners etc.
• Support in development and maintenance of relationships with strategic donors relevant to the Freshwater and Food Practices to ensure WWF-Vietnam priorities represented in donor strategies and funding opportunities maximized.

Representation, Communication, Networking
• Provide support to the development of press release/conference on results of the project and to develop and maintain related sections on the WWF website/news.
• Represent Freshwater or/and Food Practices in relevant national and international meetings, conferences, and workshops as appropriate.

For Other Tasks
• Support on the relevant bankable proposed/ concepts
• Undertake other relevant works as assigned by line manager.
• Provide regular updates to the line manager on technical implementation, staffing and funding opportunities and shortfalls.