Climate Change Adaptation Coordinator

Perennia Food and Agriculture Corporation is Nova Scotia’s technical development agency focusing on the food sector. Our mission is supporting growth, transformation and economic development in Nova Scotia’s agriculture, seafood, cannabis, and food and beverage sectors.

Our highly skilled and collaborative team’s mandate is to create value for the industry and the agency through the development and implementation of programs and consulting services. To assist in this effort, we are seeking a Climate Change Adaptation Coordinator based in Truro to join our growing team of employees.

This is a 4-year term with Perennia. As the Climate Change Adaptation Coordinator you will be responsible for coordinating the development of 3 agricultural commodity value-chain Climate Change Adaptation Strategies, and supporting initial implementation of these strategies to enhance agricultural sector readiness for climate change.

This position is based in Truro but will require travel across the province. You will also work with and be supported by adaptation specialists at the Nova Scotia Department of Environment and Climate Change (CCD), who will be supporting the development and implementation of these and other sector strategies across Nova Scotia. You will play an important role in multiple teams including as a staff member at Perennia, as the coordinator of sector strategy development teams and as a member of the multi-sectoral and multi-departmental community of practitioners working to prepare organizations for climate change. As such, you will spend a lot of time working with people across a range of organizations and play an important role in a broader climate change adaptation community of practice.

While you will have a structured process and tools to draw from, you will be required to customize the process and materials to suit the needs and context of the agricultural sectors you are working with.

**Principal Responsibilities**:

- Project management and team leadership
- Supporting the selection of three agricultural commodity value chains for strategy development
- Forming inclusive climate change adaptation strategy development teams to represent all segments of the sectors in the assessment and strategy development process
- Adapting the existing CCD participatory process for assessing climate change risks, capacity, and priorities to each of the three sectors
- Leading all strategy development teams through the strategy development process implementing, monitoring, evaluating, and sustaining the sectors’ climate adaption strategies
- Meeting regularly with both CCD and Perennia staff, as well as participating in a community of practice with other sector coordinators
- Providing progress updates to a governance team representing strategy investors; and
- General support for other sector strategy implementation and to support Perennia’s mandate, as required.
- Completing climate adaptation training developed by the Department of Environment and Climate Change
- Developing materials and correspondence to recruit team members for the strategy development and then implementation teams
- Designing and facilitating interactive and engaging meetings and workshops
- Actively engaging with all partners to build and maintain strong sustainable multi-stakeholder teams
- Participating in regularly scheduled peer learning and reflection meetings and events
- Researching sector specific adaptation best practices and processes
- Developing team workplans and workplan performance targets
- Tracking data to support monitoring and issuing quarterly evaluation reports
- Designing and delivering presentations to investors and sector players
- Researching funding and writing grant proposals

**In order to excel at this position, the successful applicant will have**:

- Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture or Environmental Science
- 5 years of related work experience or an equivalent combination of training and experience. Your experience must clearly demonstrate your skills in team building, project management, coordination of multiple partner activities in complex project environments, group facilitation, and written and verbal communication.
- Demonstrated knowledge of and interest in climate change and agriculture, climate adaptation is required (and experience preferred)
- Able to use data, theory, and best practice to identify creative, practical and defensible approaches to overcoming challenges and be able to recognize and articulate appropriate approaches to policy issues.
- Excellent listening and negotiation skills
- Excellent verbal and written communication
- A proven track record of working both independently and collaboratively with a team as well as experience building, empowering and leading multi-disciplinary groups
- The ability to consider different viewpoints and manage competing perspectives diplomatically is essential as you will be expected to forge strong relationships of trust and collabora