2016 ILRI MSc Research Fellowship – Ethiopia

ILRI works with partners worldwide to enhance the roles that livestock play in food security and poverty alleviation, principally in Africa and Asia. The outcomes of these research partnerships help people in developing countries keep their farm animals alive and productive, increase and sustain their livestock and farm productivity, find profitable markets for their animal products and reduce the risk of livestock-related diseases. www.ilri.org

ILRI is a not-for-profit institution with a staff of about 700 and in 2015 an annual operating budget of USD 83 million. A member of the CGIAR Consortium working for a food-secure future, ILRI has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, a principal campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and offices in other countries in East, West and Southern Africa and in South, Southeast and East Asia. www.cgiar.org

Rangeland resources are numerous although ecosystems in pastoral areas require effective management strategies to achieve sustainable productivity.  ILRI’s research project Enhancing the value of ecosystem services in pastoral systems (EVESPS) works with local and national stakeholders to assess available land management practices, model their impacts on water and forage yields, and use potential tradeoffs among them to help identify challenges and opportunities in land management.  Incorporating such analyses into local and watershed-level decision-making could contribute to minimizing negative environmental impacts and enhancing flows of ecosystem services from rangelands.  Furthermore, these analyses will contribute substantially to the knowledge on the benefits supplied by pastoral ecosystems in Africa.

The EVESPS project includes a significant hydrological modeling component, expected to be conducted using existing parameterizations for the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) for Tana River basin in Kenya and the White Volta basin in Burkina Faso. ILRI is offering a research fellowship with the EVESPS project to support and contribute to the hydrological modeling efforts, with primary emphasis on the site in Burkina Faso.

The position: The fellow (MSc student or similar) is expected to contribute directly to the project, and to produce their MSc thesis based on information generated through the project. Specifically, the student selected will be responsible for several important steps in refining existing hydrological model configurations for the study basins. These activities will contribute directly to project analyses and indirectly to land planning processes at local and watershed scales.

Key responsibilities:

• Use existing hydrological model configurations to conduct initial simulations.
• With our partners (CGIAR, university, and NGO colleagues), assess and obtain available model initialization datasets likely to improve model performance, as well as available model evaluation datasets likely to improve model performance.
• Assess model fit in relation to evaluation datasets and initialization datasets.
• Use sensitivity analysis and other methods to strategically assess and adjust parameter settings.
• Alter model parameters to reflect changes in land management, specifically modifications to existing water flows and grazing management systems. The changes to management assessed are provided by local, regional, and national stakeholders, and model results will help inform planning processes at both local and watershed scales.
• Design and carry out a thesis project of the student’s interest that is complementary to the work outlined above.
• Prepare a report summarizing the outcomes of initialization improvements and evaluation efforts, and analyzing the response of water flows among the various scenarios describing change in land management.

​Requirements:

• Be a current student at MSc (or equivalent degree level) in hydrology, ecology, Earth sciences, natural resources or similar field;
• Able to use this assignment to complete an academic requirement of the MSc degree;
• Having completed course work requirements of an MSc programme in one of the above fields before starting work at ILRI is a plus;
• Demonstrated knowledge of SWAT or other hydrological models, or alternatively, under advisement of a professor or researcher experienced with SWAT or hydrological modeling;
• A team player with excellent interpersonal and communication skills;
• Ability to interact effectively in a multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary environment;
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.​

Desirable  qualifications

• Previous experience or knowledge on pastoral and agro-pastoral farming and herding in West and East Africa.
• Previous experience or knowledge on rangeland ecology, forage modeling, soil science, community-based management, and environmental policy analysis.
• Working or better knowledge of French and Swahili.

Terms of appointment and stipend:

The successful candidate will be supervised jointly by an ILRI scientist and the student’s university supervisor, and will have the opportunity to interact with scientists at other universities, CGIAR centres, and NGOs, to further develop her/his research programme.

ILRI will provide the fellow an allowance of US$1500/month to support personal expenses as well as an end-of-fellowship honorarium of US$2,000 upon timely completion of the fellowship tasks. Additionally, ILRI will meet the costs of research related travel, as well as insurance.

Duration: 5 months, starting between March and April 2016

Location: Ethiopia (Addis Ababa) or remotely from the student’s university (negotiable)

How to apply:

Interested applicants should submit the following documents;

• A Curriculum Vitae including three references with contact information.
• A cover letter describing the candidate’s interests in and qualifications for carrying out the research, referring to the candidate’s Curriculum Vitae as fitting, and highlighting any particularly relevant qualifications. The position title and reference number: HM/01/2016 should be clearly indicated in the subject line of the cover letter.

The above materials will be evaluated and a select number of candidates will be invited to interview and asked to submit letters of support from referees and academic transcripts.

All applications to be submitted online on our recruitment portal: http://ilri.simplicant.com screening of applications will start on 5th February 2016 until the position is filled.

We thank all applicants for their interest in working for ILRI. Due to the volume of applications, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

To find out more about ILRI, visit our websites at http://www.ilri.org/

To find out more about working at ILRI visit our website at http://www.ilri.org/ilricrowd/

ILRI is an equal opportunity employer. Suitably qualified women are particularly encouraged to apply.