Natural Resource Crime Specialist At Basel Institute on Governance

Job title: Natural Resource Crime Specialist, Green Corruption programme

Place of work: Worldwide, with Basel, Switzerland, programme countries (Uganda, Peru, Kenya, Indonesia or Malawi) preferred

Start date: April 1, 2022 or as negotiated

Contract type: 1-year contract with possibility for extension

Reporting to: Team Leader, Green Corruption programme

Basel Institute on Governance **

The Basel Institute on Governance is an international and independent not-for-profit organisation working worldwide with the public and private sector to counter corruption and other financial crimes and to improve the quality of governance. As a Swiss foundation with headquarters in Basel, the Basel Institute maintains field operations in Africa, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America. The Basel Institute is an Associated Institute of the University of Basel.

Green Corruption programme

The Basel Institute’s Green Corruption programme focuses on applying our in-house expertise and experience in relation to the prevention of corruption and the enforcement of anti-corruption and anti-money laundering standards to the environmental sector. The programme covers corruption and financial crime related to the illegal trade in wildlife, fisheries and mining, and is interested in waste trafficking. We are a fast-evolving team that is committed to contributing to the reduction of environmental degradation caused or facilitated by financial crime, by conscientiously exploring the intersection of corruption and environmental degradation, both on the enforcement and prevention side.

Job description

Our growing team seeks to increase our in-house natural resource crime expertise to complement our existing knowledge on financial investigations, asset recovery, intelligence, and corruption prevention. We are looking for a candidate who pairs cutting-edge expertise on at least one natural resource crime topics (wildlife, IUU fishing, waste trafficking and mining) with a keen desire to learn from and collaborate closely with the rest of the team. Intellectual curiosity, excellent collaboration skills and flexibility are key traits of the successful applicant.

Key responsibilities **

Research

· Participate in or lead research activities on the intersection of crime, anti-corruption/governance and natural resource conservation.

· Conduct field work, process data, draft reports and present their findings to mixed audiences, including those with little expertise of the topic.

Advise

· Work with natural resource and law enforcement agencies to strengthen their efforts to fight against environmental crime.

· Advise team members on the natural resource/environmental element of the investigations they are supporting.

· Serve as a conduit for continued in-house education on environmental crime trends to both other team members and the Institute more widely.

Partner

· Foster the Institute’s already solid network of partnerships with additional relationships, especially at the local level.

· Identify opportunities to support partners with our existing in-house expertise on corruption and financial crime.

Advocate

· Write, present and convince especially non-experts of the importance of cross-sectoral programming.

· Promote programmatic achievements.

· Participate in advocacy networks seeking to improve the rules of the game.

Manage and administer

· Together with the rest of the team, ensure that donors have access to high-quality reporting on programmatic developments.

· Implement all activities in line with donor requirements.

Qualifications and skills

· Cutting-edge expertise in at least one (preferably more) fields of environmental crime (wildlife, IUU fishing, waste, mining) required, including:

• Species- or resource-specific illicit trade trends.
• Criminal network structures and modes of operation.
• Geographic and geopolitical developments.
• Enforcement efforts, techniques, their strengths and limitations.

· Strong network among conservationists in both government and civil society.

· Excellent knowledge of global natural resource and conservation efforts, including regulatory approaches and their governance structures.

· Solid understanding of governance and anti-corruption efforts preferable.

· Awareness (required) or experience (preferred) with financial investigations.

· Experience working in countries with limited infrastructure and donor-funded programming.

· Experience in one or more of our priority countries (Peru, Bolivia, Indonesia, Uganda, Malawi and Kenya) strongly preferred.

· Excellent writing and presentation skills in English.

· Spanish and/or Bahasa Indonesia language skills an advantage.

· Required: flexibility, intellectual curiosity, excellent collaborative skills.

What we offer

· Competitive salary with insurance and social benefits in accordance with the Basel Institute’s regulations (note that this position does not include expat benefits).

· Intellectually demanding work at the forefront of an emerging field.

· The chance to work with and receive support from a dynamic team and a growing program.

· An enabling environment to publicly advocate for the issues that you feel passionate about.