Project Officer, Stakeholder Engagement

The Maldives hosts globally significant marine and coastal ecosystems, including coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass meadows, and associated island ecosystems that underpin the national economy, food security, livelihoods, and climate resilience. However, these ecosystems are increasingly vulnerable to multiple and cumulative pressures, including climate change, overexploitation of marine resources, coastal development, and pollution.

In response, conservation and management approaches are evolving beyond a sole focus on threat reduction towards strengthening ecosystem resilience by supporting natural processes that enhance resistance, recovery, and adaptive capacity under changing climatic conditions. This shift underscores the need for effective, science-based, and locally informed conservation actions.

Within this context, Maldives Country Programme implements a portfolio of initiatives supporting marine conservation, biodiversity management, waste management, pollution reduction, and inclusive environmental governance. These initiatives involve multiple stakeholders, including government institutions, local councils, civil society organisations, private sector actors, and community groups.

Effective stakeholder engagement is critical to ensuring sustained collaboration, shared ownership of programme outcomes, and inclusive participation across all levels. To strengthen coordination, partnership-building, capacity development, and communication with key stakeholders, IUCN Maldives seeks a dedicated Stakeholder Engagement Officer to support implementation of engagement strategies and activities.

RESPONSIBILITIES AND DUTIES

The Project Officer, Stakeholder Engagement will support the planning, coordination, and implementation of stakeholder engagement processes, enhance collaboration with government agencies, communities, and partners, and facilitate communication, capacity-building, and awareness-raising initiatives. The Officer will also document programme activities, outcomes, and lessons learned through multimedia output. The position will contribute to Improved Biodiversity Management to support a Blue Economy in the Maldives Project funded by the European Union.

A. Stakeholder Engagement and Coordination

• Support the development and implementation of crosscutting stakeholder engagement plans within the Maldives Country Programme.
• Facilitate coordination and dialogue among government agencies, local councils, community representatives, CSOs, and private sector stakeholders.
• Support thematic staff in multi-stakeholder consultations, workshops, forums, and field engagements to strengthen collaboration and shared ownership of programme outcomes.
• Maintain stakeholder mapping databases and engagement records, ensuring systematic documentation and follow-up of agreed actions.
• Support integration of stakeholder feedback into programme planning and adaptive management processes.

B. Capacity Building and Awareness

• Collaborate with thematic staff in the design and dissemination of capacity-building initiatives, training sessions, and awareness activities tailored to different stakeholder groups.
• Support preparation of training materials, presentations, briefing notes, and outreach content related to marine conservation, waste management, pollution reduction, and environmental governance themes.
• Contribute to strengthening stakeholder understanding of programme objectives, safeguards, gender-responsive approaches, and sustainable development priorities.

C. Documentation and communication

• Document programme activities, engagement processes, and field missions through multimedia formats, including photography, short videos, blogs, and social media content.
• Capture and develop success stories, case studies, and lessons learned to support knowledge sharing and donor visibility.
• Support the use of IUCN institutional platforms, including networks, websites and social media channels, in coordination with regional and global communications needs.
• Ensure that project outputs are aligned with IUCN corporate standards and donor visibility requirements.
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D. Internal Coordination and Institutional Learning

• Support internal coordination among project teams to ensure consistent messaging and coherent stakeholder engagement approaches.
• Contribute to internal knowledge-sharing initiatives and documentation of good practices across the Maldives portfolio.
• Provide logistical and administrative support for stakeholder-related activities and events.
• Undertake any other tasks that may be assigned and mutually agreed upon with the line manager.