Call for application Design and conduct a training course in Conservation Leadership

Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) seeks a consultant to design and deliver a training course in conservation leadership as part of the MENTOR-Conservator Master’s Degree Program on Protected Area Management at Gabon’s Forestry School (École Nationale des Eaux et Forêts – ENEF).

Position: Consultant

Project: Design and conduct a training course in Conservation Leadership

(in French, with translations made available in English)

Location: Gabon (Libreville and École Nationale des Eaux et Forêts -ENEF)

Duration: To be determined in close collaboration with WCS Gabon

Type of contract: Services agreement

Application deadline: January 29 2024

Reports to: WCS Gabon

Collaborators: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), École Nationale des Eaux et Forêts (ENEF), Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux (ANPN), key academic and conservation practitioners

Background

To better protect and enhance its natural resources, Gabon has taken very strong legal and institutional measures over the last decades. A network of 13 national parks was created in 2002 representing 11% of the country, and in 2017, 20 marine protected areas were established, representing 26% of Gabon’s Economic Exclusive Zone. The country has been committed to achieve the 30×30 target under the newly approved global biodiversity framework. Effectively managing Gabon’s growing system of protected areas is a key challenge for biodiversity conservation.

WCS has received a grant from US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for a project entitled “Enhancing the Professionalization of Gabon’s Parks Service through Systematic Training and Career Development of Ecoguards and Park Managers”. This project is implemented by WCS in partnership with Gabon Parks National Agency (Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux – ANPN) and École Nationale des Eaux et Forêts (ENEF). The project aims to strengthen ANPN’s capacity to support its commitment as a world class wildlife authority to secure and value Gabon’s national parks.

As part of this project, the capacity needs of Protected Area Managers were identified, and a training curriculum was developed in partnership with key academic practitioners and conservation stakeholders in Gabon. A Protected Area Manager plays a crucial role in achieving the management objectives of a protected area. In Gabon, Protected Area Managers come from different backgrounds including forestry, tourism, biology, or social sciences. Very few of them have key core competencies and skills expected of a Protected Area Manager to deal with a dynamic socio-professional environment with new threats and challenges to biodiversity and conservation. The project, therefore, focuses on building Protected Area Managers’ capacity in leadership and management in a fast-changing environment. The Master’s Program, designed for Protected Area Managers, is structured in 19 modules with innovative courses including Conservation Law Enforcement and Human Rights, Protected Areas Planning and Adaptive Management, and Conservation Leadership. The project is expected to develop training courses in 19 thematic areas and facilitate training of ten MENTOR-Conservateur Fellows.

MENTOR-Conservateur is the 8th program in the series of USFWS MENTOR Fellowship Programs. MENTOR Programs bring together teams of emerging conservation leaders for rigorous academic and field-based training, long-term mentoring, experiential learning, and project design and implementation to address major threats facing wildlife populations. These Fellowship Programs help strengthen capacity in-country – a fundamental objective of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Africa. MENTOR-Conservateur builds upon ENEF’ Master’s degree curriculum in biodiversity conservation that was developed through the USFWS MENTOR-FOREST Program (2010-2012).

See: www.fws.gov/program/mentor-fellowship

An evaluation of the series of MENTOR Programs in the journal, Oryx, concluded that all participating MENTOR Fellows had acquired new skills and knowledge, and that their professional development was positively affected by participation in the program (Abu-Bakarr et al. 2022). When compared to other conservation professionals who did not attend the program, the assessment found a large treatment effect on professional growth and professional outcomes for the MENTOR fellows. Regarding soft or people skills, Fellows rated themselves significantly better than the comparison group did, regardless of their age or gender. Fellows attributed changes in their capabilities, confidence, and professionalism to the overall program approach, and most believed they have had important impacts in conservation as a result. These achievements were related to the MENTOR Programs emphasis on conservation leadership, team building, and conflict management in addition to technical wildlife conservation training.

MENTOR-Conservateur will develop a transdisciplinary team of 10 Fellows focused on protected area management in Gabon. Among all core competencies, capacity development to enhance conservation leadership skills including conflict management and team building, and technical abilities for adapting to change are critical components for protected areas management effectiveness. To achieve this specific objective, a Master’s Program called “MENTOR-Conservateur” was developed. The MENTOR-Conservateur program on marine and continental protected areas management developed with ENEF aims to bring together transdisciplinary teams to solve challenging problems facing protected areas in Gabon and Central Africa. Strong leadership and effective protected area management underpinned by the best professional management expertise, experience, and tools available are needed in the 21st century. To this end, WCS is seeking a consultant to design and conduct a course in Conservation Leadership for the Master’s Program on Protected Area Management in line with ENEF relevant academic procedures.

Objective

The overall objective of this consultancy is to design a training course on Conservation Leadership and conduct two different training sessions: 1) one for two ENEF Trainers, and 2) one for ten Protected Area MENTOR-Conservateur Fellows within a Master program at ENEF. The training course on conservation leadership will be an important step towards enhancing the capacity of both Protected Area Managers and ENEF’s Trainers. This will ensure that ENEF’s Trainers will acquire the necessary skills to provide knowledge and hands-on skills to future Protected Area Managers. The materials, in French and English, will be made available to contribute to future MENTOR Programs.

The purpose of the Conservation Leadership training is to strengthen leadership and management skills of ANPN current Protected Area Managers, with a focus on conservation, organizational and community challenges. This training blends theoretical with practical experience in management and leadership through which Protected Area Managers will acquire skills to manage and lead teams in the field. Leadership is built on solid management skills and therefore the proposed training aims to provide essential knowledge for supporting and sustaining staff management qualities and performance. It should help MENTOR-Conservateur Fellows find a balance between realizing conservation outcomes and developing their teams to achieve successful protected area management.

Scope of the work

The Conservation Leadership training course will include both theoretical and practical exercises where the MENTOR-Conservateur Fellows will actively participate and share their experience and knowledge with each other. It will enable the 10 Fellows to feel empowered to become a Team who they can network with throughout their careers. The course will cover leadership fundamentals and issues faced by Protected Area Managers, how to develop personal leadership strengths, how to build a highly motivated & high-performance team, communication techniques, conflict management, how to interact with difficult employees and eliminate problem behaviors, how to manage time, priorities and projects.

The specific objectives are to:

1. Design an interactive and detailed training course and a syllabus on conservation leadership that can be replicated in the future in French and English
2. Deliver the training to two selected Trainers in order to internalize the training competencies within ENEF’s Lecturers (Training of Trainers ‐ TOT)
3. Develop a detailed evaluation of the modules for MENTOR-Conservateur Fellows with the aim to improve training materials according to the Fellows’ feedback.

Key activities

The key activities in this consultancy shall comprise:

Preparation phase:

• Comprehensive literature review
• Conduct an assessment of Protected Area Managers’ capacity needs, and those of ANPN senior managers and conservation non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Gabon prior to designing the conservation leadership training modules development.

Development phase:

• Following the preparation phase and based on the assessment results, the consultant will tailor and prepare training packages for the Conservation Leadership course (syllabus and training modules). During this phase, the consultant is expected to liaise with key stakeholders in conservation and protected area management including WCS, USFWS, ENEF, ANPN and other relevant actors to gather best practices and lessons learned in conservation leadership. The consultant will ensure that the materials developed are consistent with the capacity needs requirements highlighted in the capacity needs assessment report. Any supporting materials identified as necessary for the achievement of the training should be included in the course. The draft course will be reviewed by experts, WCS, USFWS and therefore, the consultant will incorporate and revise the modules based on their feedback and recommendations.

Training phase:

• Conduct one training session to two Trainers from ENEF (TOT). The TOT aims to equip ENEF’s Lecturers with the knowledge and skills to effectively train future MENTOR-Conservateur Fellows from the MENTOR Master’s Program on Conservation Leadership.
• Conduct one training session (3 credits representing 45 hours of course) for ten MENTOR-Conservateur Fellows at ENEF. The training should cover the entire course in Conservation Leadership including the conservation leadership approach and related techniques, planning and designing a needs-based training, implementing the training and monitoring the training delivery and evaluation of the training session. The following subtopics under Leadership should be addressed (but not be limited to):
• Defining leadership
• Transformational leadership / effective and successful leadership
• Leadership values: ethical/moral leadership
• Leadership skills
• Team building
• Network building, management and strengthening.
• Building trust and social capital, mobilizing communities and public participation
• Developing communities of learning / practice
• Organizational Management and Leadership touching on Human Resource Management and Financial Accountability in Leadership
• Ethics and Accountability in Leadership
• Introduction to Strategic Management
• Conflict Management and Negotiation
• Develop two evaluations: one for the Fellows and a second for academic purposes. The evaluation of the course by the MENTOR-Conservateur Fellows will help to improve training materials based on MENTOR-Conservateur Fellows’ feedback. The academic training evaluation of the MENTOR-Conservateur Fellows (immediately at the end of the training course) will be done according to ENEF standards. The consultant will work with the ENEF teaching team to develop evaluations according to their regulations.

Key deliverables

1. An inception report including a detailed work plan and timelines, detailed methodology, and a report format of the course to be submitted within 14 days from the commencement of the assignment.
2. A draft manual and training tools for the Conservation Leadership course. WCS and USFWS will provide comments on the draft and the consultant will finalize the training manual.
3. Final training materials (Hard and soft copies ‐ the soft copies should be submitted in both editable and PDF versions. The materials should be in French and English.)
4. Training report including PowerPoint Presentation, handouts, pre/post-tests, feedback/evaluation forms, etc., and a list of the training materials’ sources (all materials will become the property of WCS, ENEF, and USFWS, and will be applied for future uses).

Time Schedule

The assignment shall be expected to be completed within a reasonable timeline not to exceed 12 months from commencement. As part of their inception report, the consultant will provide a detailed time schedule for the assignment and delivery of the outputs. The schedule will be agreed upon by the two parties (consultant and WCS).

Skills and Experience Required

The consultant for this assignment should have the following profile, skills, and expertise:

• Minimum of a Master’s degree in natural resources economics, natural resource management, development, social sciences, business, management, or related discipline.

1. Prior experience (5 years minimum) in conducting training on Leadership and Governance in the non-profit sector.

• Demonstrated experience in undertaking similar tasks i.e., designing modules or working in a similar environment with evidence of similar products in their current/previous institution.
• Training skills, gained through individual, organizational and/or team training (Training of Trainers).
• Good experience in facilitating workshops, including participatory training approaches.
• Good judgement, pays attention to nuance and detail, takes initiative, high sense of responsibility, tact and discretion, with sensitivity to different cultures.
• Strong analytical skills, excellent organizational, communication and writing skills.
• Demonstrated understanding of issues related to conservation and protected areas management in Africa, communities, and stakeholder engagement.
• Desire to develop Teams of up-and-coming conservation leaders.
• Willingness to develop and provide replicable resources on Conservation Leadership that could be shared with future MENTOR programs, faculty at ENEF, and other conservation partners.
• Fluency in French and English.