The Rainforest Alliance (RA) is an international nonprofit organization that works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior. Based in New York City, with offices throughout the United States and worldwide, the Rainforest Alliance works with people whose livelihoods depend on the land, helping them transform the way they grow food, harvest wood and host travelers.
Under the auspices of the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN), an international coalition of leading conservation groups, the Rainforest Alliance's Sustainable Agriculture program works with farmers to ensure compliance with the SAN standards for protecting wildlife, wild lands, workers' rights and local communities. Farms that meet these rigorous environmental, ethical and economic standards are awarded the Rainforest Alliance Certified™ seal (RAC). The SAN standards are applied by producers of major commodity crops (including bananas, pineapple, coffee, cocoa, tea, citrus and flowers) that profoundly affect the economies, environments, cultures and politics of tropical countries. Today more than 60,000 farms in 26 countries are certified and Rainforest Alliance Certified products are widely available in mainstream markets.
Position Summary
The Coffee Coordinator will be responsible for overseeing the implementation of Rainforest Alliance's coffee strategy and projects in Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua with the objective of catalyzing certified coffee supplies to cover increasing demands on international markets. S/he will be responsible for the growth of the program according to very ambitious targets through awareness raising and capacity building activities in the local coffee communities, and s/he will facilitate market linkages by finding markets for producers and products for buyers. S/he will represent Rainforest Alliance at events in the region and establish and maintain good working relationships with Rainforest Alliance's partners, producers, exporters, coffee institutions and other stakeholders.
Responsibilities
- Oversee coffee strategy formulation and implementation for Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua;
- Plan and oversee implementation and progress of coffee projects in the three countries;
- Plan the growth of coffee supply according to market demand;
- Promote RAC with local producers and exporters and organize access to training in collaboration with Rainforest Alliance's partners in the Sustainable Agriculture Network;
- Develop relationships with coffee stakeholders, including representing Rainforest Alliance in events and conferences;
- Facilitate connection between supply and demand, attending specific demands from the market, organizing cupping events;
- Organize origin visits for coffee buyers and journalists;
- Ensure quarterly reporting on advances in project execution, according to agreed deliverables and milestones, including coordinating the reporting from all project countries;
- Assist with planning meetings and workshops for the supply-side project team, and facilitate coordination and networking between team members;
- Help develop and implement a demand-side sustainability strategy which will allow project results to continue after project funding ends; and
- Other tasks as assigned.
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree required;
- 5 - 7 years experience in project management, preferably in the coffee sector (particularly coffee farmers);
- Excellent understanding of the coffee sector and coffee markets, including comprehensive knowledge of the reality and challenges facing coffee farmers and the coffee value chain;
- Ability to communicate effortlessly and effectively with coffee farmers, exporters, donor representatives, and journalists, and convince them of the value and merits of Rainforest Alliance certification;
- Experience with donor-financed projects, including work planning, budgeting, impact monitoring and reporting;
- Good understanding of certification systems and issues; experience with RA certification a plus;
- Excellent organizational skills, ability to work independently as well as in a team environment, assess priorities and multi-task with strong attention to detail;
- Bilingual English/Spanish required; Portuguese language skills a plus; and
- Willingness and ability to travel up to 30% of the time.
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