RECOFTC is an international nonprofit organization working towards a future where resilient communities with respected rights thrive in forest landscapes that they manage sustainably and equitably.

We operate in the Asia-Pacific region, with country offices in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and Viet Nam.

In Thailand, RECOFTC works closely with government agencies, communities and partners to advance biodiversity conservation and sustainable forest landscape management, including through the Integrated Forest Landscape Management for Strengthening the North-eastern and Eastern Forest Corridors (IFLMS-NE&E) project.

The project focuses on four forest complexes along Thailand’s eastern border: Phu Phan, Phanom Dongrak–Pha Tam, Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai and the eastern forest, which together span 6.5 million hectares of globally significant wildlife habitat, home to species such as the Asian elephant, the Indo-Chinese tiger and the Great Hornbill.

The project’s primary goal is to strengthen biodiversity conservation across these four complexes by improving forest landscape management.

RECOFTC is currently seeking a Socio-economic and Gender Officer for the IFLMS-NE&E project based at the RECOFTC Thailand Office in Bangkok.

The selected candidate will be offered a 24-month contract with the possibility of extension, contingent on funding availability and satisfactory performance.

Any offer of employment resulting from this vacancy is contingent upon confirmation of project funding.

Job responsibilities

The Socio-economic and Gender Officer will be a member of the Project Management Unit (PMU) within the RECOFTC Thailand Office, reporting directly to the Project Technical Adviser, and working closely with other staff across the RECOFTC Thailand Office and Main Office.

The officer is responsible for the project’s socio-economic and gender equality and social inclusion work, contributing technical expertise to partner organizations and service providers on socio-economic and gender assessment and analysis, including support for community mobilization and institutional development across the four forest complexes.

• Conduct socio-economic and gender analysis of the project context and stakeholders, and lead the implementation of related project activities, including socio-economic assessments, social impact assessments and analysis of socio-economic change.
• Work with the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer to conduct baseline socio-economic and environmental surveys, and support ongoing socio-economic data collection and analysis to monitor trends and changes over the project’s duration.
• Lead the planning and implementation of environmental and social safeguards (ESS), including oversight of the environmental and social management plan (ESMP) and coordinate with project partners and stakeholders to raise awareness and understanding of ESS and ESMP.
• Provide technical support to ensure socio-economic dimensions are incorporated into the project’s biodiversity conservation, including community mobilization and institutional development.
• Work with the project team and partners to plan and implement community-based incentive mechanisms that support project outcomes.
• Design and implement gender-sensitive and inclusive interventions and activities.
• Provide technical guidance and capacity building on gender issues to the project team and partners, ensuring gender responsiveness and mainstreaming are integrated into the activities of project partners and service providers.
• Ensure the project’s gender action plan (GAP) is incorporated into all policies and activities implemented by partners and service providers.
• Monitor and evaluate the gender outcomes and impacts of project activities and interventions, ensuring gender and inclusivity are reflected in output, outcome and impact-level indicators.
• Identify and recommend effective methods to include men, women, boys and girls and people with disabilities from diverse ethnic groups in project activities through regular engagement with partner organizations, local government and participating communities.
• Support the Communication, Knowledge Management and Learning Officer in developing knowledge-based products and briefing papers including socio-economic and gender case studies, best practices and lessons learned.

Job requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in social sciences, environmental sciences, development studies or a related field.
• At least five years of experience in socio-economic impact assessment and/or gender mainstreaming approaches.
• Proven understanding of and experience delivering environmental and social safeguards and the environmental and social management plans.
• Demonstrated knowledge and application of gender equality and social inclusion approaches and mainstreaming.
• Experience preparing socio-economic baseline reports and impact or effects assessments, including technical analysis and writing.
• Proven ability to facilitate technical workshops with governmental organizations and develop community mobilization strategies.
• Strong knowledge of biodiversity mainstreaming and community incentive mechanisms.
• Strong interpersonal skills, with fluency in written and spoken Thai and English.
• Willingness and ability to travel frequently to target forest complexes.
• Thai nationality.
• Experience applying participatory approaches to stakeholder accountability and organizational learning.
• Experience in, and ability to facilitate, capacity-building and training at different levels.
• Familiarity with IT applications to support monitoring, evaluation and learning and information management.
• All staff, consultants and contractors engaged by RECOFTC are required to comply with RECOFTC’s policies and procedures while performing their roles with RECOFTC.