Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Closing date: 09 Jun 2017
The Rainforest Foundation UK
The mission of the Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK) is to support indigenous peoples and traditional populations of the world's rainforest to:
· Secure and control the natural resources necessary for their long-term wellbeing and managing these resources in ways which do not harm their environment, violate their culture or compromise their future.
· Develop means to protect their individual and collective rights and to obtain, shape and control basic services from the state.
Objectives of the research
This research aims to observe and document local social and institutional practices and processes relating to the establishment of community forests, and from this to capture learnings and propose best practices and effective methodologies and tools for use in RFUK’s community forests project in DRC.
The study will be based on community-level field research in a number of community forest pilot sites in Equateur province in DRC. It will focus on observing and documenting governance structures, lend tenure and power relations in forest communities, and how these inform and are impacted by the process of applying for and managing a Community Forest.
It will look specifically at the following themes:
· the inclusion of women and marginalised groups in decision-making;
· intra-community land disputes and conflicts related to community forest processes, and how / if these can be mitigated;
· whether there are any emerging weaknesses in DRC’s policy framework on community forestry in relation to the preceding themes.
The research will provide practical guidance to RFUK and our local civil society organisation (CSO) partners in DRC as well as to other practitioners on how to address these issues in community forestry projects. A summary of these learnings will be published for a wider audience of stakeholders interested in community forestry in the Congo Basin.
The first phase of research would be conducted over six months, but it is expected that a second phase would be conducted ideally by the same consultant to document changes at the community level as a result of RFUK’s project.
Please see full Terms of Reference for more detailed research questions: http://www.rainforestfoundationuk.org/who-we-are/jobs
How to apply:
Please apply including a CV and a covering letter outlining your suitability to undertake this research study, giving an overview of the research methods you would employ, and proposed costs. The deadline for submitting this is June 9th 2017.
For an informal discussion, or to apply, please contact Colin Robertson (ColinR@rainforestuk.org)