Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal Vacancy for Legal Officer
Federation of Community Forestry Users, Nepal
Vacancy Announcement
Published Date: 4th Feb, 2025
Background and context:
Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal (FECOFUN), a formal network of Forest Users Groups (FUGs) from all over Nepal was established in June, 1995 with the goal of promoting and protecting the forest users’ rights through capacity strengthening, economic empowerment, sustainable natural resource management, technical support, policy advocacy, good governance and learning sharing of best practices. FECOFUN emerged from the idea that forest users from all parts of the country should be linked in order to strengthen the role of users in policy making processes. Since its inception, FECOFUN has grown into a social movement organization with about 16 million forest users. As of now, 23,026 community forestry user groups (CFUGs) covering 3.2 million households have been federated into FECOFUN, and are protecting more than 2.4 million hectares of forests.
The Local Government Operation Act 2017 enacted under the new Constitution of Nepal-2015 has brought the management of community forests under the jurisdiction of local governments. This paved the way for local governments to formulate laws, policies, and guidelines, modify regulations and provide financial support to community forestry locally. The new Federal Forest Act- 2019, Forest Policy 2019, and Federal Forest Regulation 2022 are some of the key legal frameworks to run community forestry in Nepal.
With this context, Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal (FECOFUN, Green Foundation Nepal (GFN) and Center for Indigenous Peoples’ Research and Development (CIPRED) has been implementing the Securing community forest right project since July, 2020 with the support of The Tenure Facility (TF), Sweden. The overall objective of the project is to facilitate local governments for local forest act and implementation guidelines enactment, forest communities, and IPs to secure community forest rights for better forest governance, livelihoods, and community-based forest enterprises through sustainable management of forests. So, to secure the IP and LCs rights through the endorsement of policy and sustainable management of forest effectively, we announced following positions:
Position: Legal Officer
No of Positions: 1
Location: The Legal Officer is a position based at Federation of Community Forest User Nepal (FECOFUN) in Bhaktapur and works as one of the key members of the securing community forest right project supported by the Tenure Facility.
Reporting Line: The Legal Officer will report immediately to the National Project Coordinators/Executive director of FECOFUN.
Technical Focus:
The main task of Legal Officer is to extend legal support in the process of enactment of local forest laws by the local, provincial and federal government. Legal Officer also provides legal advice while elaborating any provision of existing legal and regulatory framework pertaining to natural resource governance (forests, land and water). Delivering legal awareness amongst Project partners, stakeholders and facilitating trainings are other areas of involvement of Legal officer.
Tasks and Responsibilities:
The Legal Officer will be responsible for the following tasks during the implementation of the securing CF right project in Nepal.
Provide legal input and advice on natural resource management (land, water, forest).
UpToDate on Constitution of Nepal, forest act, national and international laws, rules and regulation on Forest, climate change and environment.
Provide legal advice to the securing CF right project staff and local government while formulating local forest laws and implementation guideline at municipality level.
Facilitate training session on legal aspect of natural resource governance so as to develop legal capacity of project stakeholders and clarify who owns what resources for how long under what terms and conditions.
Develop step by step guide to develop forest laws so that local government can follow the process properly while enacting local forest laws and implementation guideline.
Review and analyse the content of existing local forest laws and suggest necessary changes if they are not forward looking and if anything is missing in terms of strengthening CF rights.
Establish coordination with Divisional Forest Office, federal, provincial and local governments, and other stakeholders while implementing activities related to legal theme across the selected CFUG in the selected project sites.
Perform any additional tasks of the project as assigned by National Project Coordinator/Executive director of FECOFUN.
Qualification and Experience Requirements:
At least Bachelor Degree's in Laws most including the knowledge of Natural resource management, community forest and IPLCs right over forest resources.
At least one years of proven experience in the relevant field, policy advocacy, conducting training and workshops in policy, sustainable natural resource management, along with international laws, rules and regulation on Forest, climate change and environment.
Excellent leadership and interpersonal communication skills
Fluency in written and spoken Nepali and English
Excellent computer skills in Microsoft Office and activity as well as program report preparation
Excellent facilitation and coordination skills to engage and encourage government officials, development workers, CFUGs, IPs, and other experts and involve them in IPs and LCs rights and issues
Willing to travel in the field and remote area.
Application Submission Deadline (10th Feb, 2025)
Eligible and interested candidates are requested to submit the following documents to demonstrate their relevant qualifications and experience (in single PDF file):
1. Updated Curriculum Vitae
2. Motivation letter mentioning the expected salary.
3. Bachelor's Degree Certificate or above
The application should be sent to the FECOFUN official email: vacancy@fecofun.org.np by 10th Feb, 2025.
Note: Women, Dalits, Indigenous People (IPs) and marginalized people will be given high priority.
FECOFUN reserves all rights to qualify/disqualify application with or without providing any reasons.