Blue Carbon Intern

About West Africa Blue

West Africa contains 14% of the world’s remaining mangroves, vital coastal ecosystems that provide exceptional carbon sequestration benefits while protecting communities from erosion, storms, and flooding and supporting globally important biodiversity, including endangered species listed on the IUCN Red List. Yet these ecosystems face increasing pressures from climate change and human activities. Nature-based solutions, including high-integrity blue carbon projects, offer an opportunity to conserve and restore these critical landscapes while creating sustainable economic opportunities for coastal communities.

West Africa Blue (“Blue”) partners with communities and governments to pioneer and launch urgently needed high-integrity, financially sustainable, nature-based solutions. We seek to mitigate climate change, boost community resilience, and protect biodiversity. Our partnership builds income diversification opportunities, sustainable strategies, critical skills development, and enhanced financial inclusion, especially for women, in rural areas of Africa.

Our team is diverse, innovative, entrepreneurial and committed, with a deep, longstanding connection to West Africa. We are seeking compatible, mission-driven individuals to join our team!

The Role

We are looking for an entry level or early career professional who is eager to learn about, and contribute to, nature-based solutions and their ability to address the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, and the improvement of livelihoods in remote African communities. The role would involve supporting Blue’s team members with a wide range of
needs, which may include assisting with fundraising and stakeholder engagement, communications and social media, technical work, impact monitoring, measurement and reporting, internal operations and administration, and the analysis, design and implementation of projects. This would involve working closely with teams based in Sierra Leone, Guinea and across West Africa as well as with senior leadership. It would involve direct exposure to leaders in the nature-based solutions arena, across all aspects of this exciting and quickly evolving ecosystem.

You would be joining a team that is passionate, without ego, collaborative and fun – we share a sense of adventure and are united by the challenge of helping overcome one of the world’s biggest challenges.

The role will be remote, with potential travel within the U.S. or to Africa. This is a full-time internship offering a modest stipend, designed to provide valuable hands-on experience in a dynamic, fast-growing company doing cutting edge work in a field that is critical for us all.

Responsibilities*:

*Please note that specific responsibilities will be driven by organizational priorities and the candidate’s background and areas of interest

• Preparation of funding applications and proposals, reporting materials and deliverables, project documents, marketing materials such as newsletters and website updates, and other written content as required to support project development.
• Collaborating with in-house teams, as well as funders, local and international NGOs, academic institutions, project developers, and other partners to fulfil each project’s objectives.
• Project management, including the tracking of project plans, KPIs, budgets and other
  areas, working closely with in-house resources.
• Supporting the development of pre-feasibility and feasibility assessments, as well as other technical documentation, in collaboration with the Technical Team to advance projects through the validation and verification process.
• Contributing to research initiatives and the development of thought leadership, best
  practices and innovation in carbon project development.
• Some potential international travel to meet with team members, partners and to conduct field visits in different project locations.

Qualifications and Experience:

• Experience with one or more components of carbon project development, based on your areas of experience and interest, potentially including stakeholder engagement, fundraising, communications, project management, financial analysis, community development, conservation, and carbon accounting.
• University-level degree in environmental science, environmental policy, marine science, communications, finance, international development, forestry, sustainability or a related field.
• Superlative written and verbal communication skills; English required, French a plus.
• Familiarity with operating in developing countries, ideally in Africa.
• Ability and willingness to work in a fast-paced, young, mission-driven organization where change is constant and all team members are expected to gladly pitch in wherever they are needed on short notice.

Personal Attributes:

• Passion for nature-based solutions.
• Independent self-starter, comfortable solving problems in a dynamic environment.
• Excellent judgment.
• Ability to juggle many tasks and responsibilities simultaneously.
• Attention to detail.
• Energetic, generous and proactive engagement with colleagues, even when
  working remotely.
• Empathetic and patient in interactions with people of different backgrounds.
• Down to earth, humble and authentic.
  
  

If you are passionate about communities and the environment, we encourage you to apply for this exciting opportunity.