Senior Associate, Quality of Implementation (Côte d’Ivoire)

Position summary:

The Rainforest Alliance is looking for a proactive and strategic Senior Associate, Quality of Implementation (QoI), West Africa to coordinate with and report to the Manager, QoI West and Central Africa to work on the assurance and quality challenges in West Africa and other countries as required in the region to address risk issues.

Working in close collaboration with the Senior Manager QoI Africa, the Regional Director West & Central Africa, the Country Directors, country teams, Customer Success, Assurance staff and other relevant stakeholders, the Senior Associate QoI will work to improve specific issues related to the implementation and auditing of the Rainforest Alliance 2020 Certification Program by Certificate Holders (CHs) and Certificate Bodies (CBs).

The Senior Associate QoI will lead on and implement the operational activities of the Assurance department for West Africa, helping to ensure the credibility and functioning of all Assurance system activities. The Senior Associate QoI will lead in the license review process, training of CBs and regional staff and Associated Trainer Networks (ATNs) on the 2020 RA Standard and conducts country risk assessments on the main production and auditing contexts. Support will also be provided to Côte d’Ivoire in peak periods. In addition, the Senior Associate QoI will be responsible to ensure the successful rollout of other assurance components related to the Rainforest Alliance global programs.

Responsibilities: 

The Rainforest Alliance’s Core Values are Impact, Change, Collaboration, Openness and Trust and as such they form the basis of the behaviors we demonstrate.

• Proactively supports, answers question, gives information and advice - via e-mail, phone and other – to the Leadership Team, department heads, RA colleagues, CBs and CHs on the RA Standards and implementation of the Certification Rules.
• Implements a monitoring program on RA certification which includes license reviews, interpreting audit results, leading on credibility cases and compliance, solves problems and/or makes recommendations if necessary to the relevant management.
• Initiate and organize the development and implementation of the annual plan together with the Manager QoI West & Central Africa, for the assigned countries and coordinate the annual plan with the broader regional/country plans to capture synergies.
• Accountable for the implementation and execution of the Assurance West Africa annual plan and activities, including observing audits and working alongside other programs with an assurance component.
• Contribute to country risk assessments and use this information to design and implement Quality of Implementation activities for the region. Handle reputational risks in coordination with QoI senior and regional management.
• Maintain an analysis for QoI management of the regional activities, including audits, non-conformities, quality of a sample of audit reports and licenses to evaluate the interpretations for the Standard and Certification & Auditing Rules, information about selling/purchasing certified volumes along supply chain and makes recommendations for improvements.
• Build and maintain networks with colleagues in countries of oversight, providing input and contributions to country-specific projects where Assurance is a component to prevent re-occurrence of credibility issues in the region.
• Organizes, develops and provides workshops, trainings and/or webinars based on training needs assessments and other inputs to CBs, Assurance Providers and other stakeholders (internal and external) as needed.
• Develops, updates, distributes and implements certification processes/procedures, and relevant tools/materials for the region, target group and/or crop; and
• Works together with member monitoring, Certification Partner Support and field teams to identify the need for standard contextualization, policy, and guidance. Identifies assurance risks and passes this onto the Assurance Providers management or oversight.

 
Qualifications: 

• Education: Master’s Degree in agronomy/rural development/sociology/environmental science/forestry or associated field.
• Work experience: Demonstrated ability (5 years’) in sustainable agriculture certification and cocoa supply chains or equivalent. Other commodities such as coffee and fruits are preferred.
• Foreign language skills: Fluency verbal and written communication skills in French, good level of English.
• Computer skills: Proficient in Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook.
• Outstanding interpersonal and communication skills, both written and verbal to interact culturally with diverse internal and external