Job advertisement: August 17, 2026
Date of cancellation of publication: 31/Aug/2026, 23:59:00
Organizational Unit : RLC – Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (Santiago)
Job typeTemporary work
Type of Requisition : Consultants / PSA (Personal Services Agreement Subscribers)
Grade Level : N/A
Main locationHome -Based
Duration : 2 months
Position Number : N/A
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The FAO strives to ensure gender, geographical, and linguistic diversity among its staff and international consultants in order to best serve the Organization’s Member States in all regions.
• FAO is committed to achieving diversity in its workforce with regard to gender, nationality, origin, and culture.
• Women, nationals of underrepresented or underserved Member States, and persons with disabilities who possess the necessary qualifications are encouraged to apply.
• All persons working for FAO must adhere to the highest standards of integrity and professional conduct and uphold FAO’s values.
• As a specialized agency of the United Nations, FAO has a zero-tolerance policy toward conduct inconsistent with its status, objectives, and mandate, in particular sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of power, and discrimination.
• All selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks.
• All applications will be treated with the strictest confidentiality.
Organizational framework
Latin America and the Caribbean hold approximately 31 percent of the planet’s renewable water resources, a natural base that offers enormous potential for strengthening effective water management at the basin level. As a result of an internal assessment, an opportunity has been identified to more systematically incorporate the groundwater component into the region’s water planning and investment instruments, leveraging the technical expertise already accumulated in some of these projects as a starting point for scaling up best practices.
As part of this regional commitment, the development of a regional methodological guide for the preparation of water balances in basins of Latin America and the Caribbean is sought, which integrates the estimation of the surface and groundwater balance, and which establishes guidelines for the use and adaptation of FAO global tools at the national and basin levels.
In this context, the consultancy will seek to capitalize on methodological experiences already developed in the region by different countries as a reference, optimizing the use of already available technical knowledge and favoring the adaptation of validated methodologies to the context of the region.
Hierarchical dependency
The specialist will be under the general supervision of the Senior Land and Water Officer (RLC) and the direct supervision of the Principal Technical Consultant (RLC).
Field of specialization
The specialist works at a technical level in the implementation of water and hydrogeological resource management projects, specifically in groundwater. The position contributes to ensuring quality standards and coherence across priority programmatic areas of agri-food systems that mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.
Tasks and responsibilities
• Review and systematize, from a hydrological and hydrogeological perspective, existing methodologies for preparing water balances in basins of Latin America and the Caribbean, with an emphasis on approaches that integrate surface and groundwater.
• Contribute to the differentiated analysis by subregion (Mesoamerica, Caribbean, and South America) led by the Principal Technical Consultant, identifying relevant hydrogeological characteristics of each subregion.
• Consult with technical teams in country offices regarding prioritized experiences in applying defined hydrological methodologies.
• Develop the specific groundwater module of the regional methodological guide for water balances, using prioritized experiences as a methodological basis and adapting their hydrogeological approaches to the context of the countries in the region.
• Ensure that the module is consistent with the overall structure of the guide led by the Principal Technical Consultant and that it is coherently integrated with FAO tools regarding the characterization of aquifers and water tables.
• Propose practical guidelines for the application of the module by national technical teams in the countries of the region, taking into account the varying availability of hydrogeological data.
• Participate in progress meetings with the project’s Technical Coordinator to ensure technical consistency between the overall systematization of the water balance and the specific groundwater module.
• Report to the project’s Technical Coordinator on the status of consultations with the prioritized technical teams, as required.
CANDIDATES WILL BE EVALUATED ACCORDING TO THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA:
Minimum requirements
• For Consultants:
Advanced university degree from an institution recognized by the UNESCO International Association of Universities in Hydrogeology, Geology, Hydraulic Engineering, Civil Engineering with a specialization in water resources, Earth Sciences, or a related discipline. Candidates with only an advanced university degree must have two years of relevant work experience.
For PSAs:
Technical degree or university degree from an institution recognized by the UNESCO International Association of Universities in Hydrogeology, Geology, Hydraulic Engineering, Civil Engineering with a specialization in water resources, Earth Sciences, or a related discipline.
• Minimum 5 years of professional experience in hydrogeology, hydrology, and/or groundwater resource assessment.
• Working knowledge of Spanish.
FAO’s core competencies
• Results-based approach
• Teamwork
• Communication
• Building effective relationships
• Knowledge sharing and continuous improvement
Technical/functional skills
• Solid command of surface and groundwater balance estimation methodologies.
• Ability to analyze and systematize complex technical methodologies into documents that are practical and accessible to national technical teams at various levels of specialization.
• Knowledge of hydrogeological modeling and characterization tools.
• Desirable: knowledge of climate scenarios (IPCC AR6/CMIP6) applied to groundwater availability projections.
Selection criteria
• Demonstrable experience in preparing water balances at the basin scale, including the integration of surface and groundwater components.
• Work experience in at least one of the following contexts: international technical cooperation projects, basin organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean, or climate change adaptation initiatives with a water component.
• Desirable: familiarity with FAO technical platforms (AQUASTAT, WaPOR, SOLAW) and/or prior experience coordinating with regional technical teams.
It is noted that all candidates should adhere to the Organization’s values of commitment to FAO, respect for all, and integrity and transparency.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
• FAO does not charge fees at any stage of the recruitment process (application, interview, processing).
• Applications received after the application deadline will not be accepted.
• Please note that FAO will only consider academic degrees or credentials obtained from an educational institution listed in the World Database on Higher Education, a list maintained by the International Association of Universities (IAU)/UNESCO. The list can be found at: www.whed.net/ • For information on other job opportunities ,
please visit the FAO employment website: http://www.fao.org/employment/home/en/
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APPLICATION SUBMISSION
To apply, please go to the FAO recruitment website ( Jobs at FAO ) and complete your online profile. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Only applications received through the recruitment portal will be considered.
We advise candidates to submit their application well in advance of the deadline.
These qualifications must be aligned with the standards of the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) .
If you need help or have questions, please create a one-time record with the FAO Customer Service team for further assistance: https://fao.service-now.com/csp
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