20-014 I Global Lead – Climate Finance

Position: Global Lead – Climate Finance

Location: Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Term: Initial one-year contract with possibility of extension

Intensity: Full-time

ABOUT GCA

The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) is an international organization that works as a solutions broker to catalyse action and support for adaptation solutions, from the international to the local, in partnership with the public and private sector, to ensure shared learning and collaboration for a climate resilient future. Adapting to the impacts of climate change provides a “win-win” for health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth.

GCA is a rapidly growing organization with offices in Abidjan, Beijing, Dhaka, Groningen, and Rotterdam. The work of the GCA elevates the visibility and political importance of climate adaptation and facilitates solutions, such as smarter investments, new technologies and better planning to become more resilient to climate-related threats.

GCA operates through three strategic pillars: I. Global Programs, II. Advocacy and Agenda Setting, and III. Research for Impact. There are six Global Programs, which are managed out of the Headquarters in Rotterdam. These include: 1) Food security, 2) Infrastructure and Nature Based Solutions (NBS), 3) Urban Resilience and Water, 4) Youth and Jobs; 5) Climate Finance, and 6) Locally Led Action. The Global Programs support a range of projects that ultimately aim to ensure that large-scale investments reflect and integrate adaptation solutions.

CLIMATE FINANCE PROGRAM

The Climate Finance Program aims to build the capacity of countries to drive adaptation at a much greater scale by planning differently and accessing the key sources of adaptation finance. In addition, this Program supports the design of innovative public and private financial instruments, ranging from resilience bonds and debt-for-resilience swaps to aggregation mechanisms for adaptation investment assets and monetization of adaptation benefits.

The key themes of the GCA’s current Climate Finance work include:

• Supporting governments and central banks in mainstreaming climate risks into policies and planning.
• Scaling up adaptation finance through new and innovative instruments.
• Driving resilient investment flows, including through enhanced uptake of disclosure of physical climate risks by financial institutions.

ABOUT THE ROLE

Overview

GCA seeks an experienced, ambitious, and dynamic Program Lead to help deliver the ambitious objective of mainstreaming of adaptation and resilience into financial decision making across the public and private sectors, and significantly increasing the level of finance flowing towards adaptation. This role will involve leading GCA’s work on Climate Finance globally in driving strategic direction, active external engagement, cross-theme coordination, and project implementation.

In addition, the GCA is looking to scale up its support for countries through country offices, and collaboration with multilateral organizations, including MDBs and the GCF. The role will involve an increasing emphasis on Climate Finance as a cross-cutting agenda, supporting the work of the GCA’s thematic and sectoral teams. Our partners in this work include national governments, multilateral organizations, international public sector platforms, development finance institutions, private finance institutions, institutional investors, central banks, and international non-governmental organizations.

Areas of responsibility

The Program Lead will be responsible for:

• Taking a leadership role in positioning the GCA as a key solutions broker on climate finance, with a focus on climate adaptation.
• Providing leadership for the GCA’s program on Climate Finance, including making strategic decisions related to GCA’s directions, facilitating the implementation of GCA’s business plan and supervising staff in the program.
• Developing initiatives and projects to position the GCA with key stakeholders in the climate finance community, including maintaining active relationships with key interlocutors, including MDBs, within these stakeholders.
• Monitoring, evaluating, and reporting on projects and using this to continuously steer and improve the program.
• Performing budget management so that the program’s results are achieved within the planned and forecasted financial resources.
• Overseeing related research, projects, and collaborations, including holding responsibility for a detailed work plan and budget, flexibly adapting activities where necessary to respond to changing contexts.
• Ensuring the successful development and delivery of the portfolio of international multi-stakeholder projects within the work program to time and maintaining effective value for money.
• Coordinating with GCA thematic and regional leads to ensure a holistic approach to cross-cutting finance-related activities and objectives.
• Expanding GCA’s international network of MDB and other relevant experts and policymakers to support the delivery of the program.
• Ensuring the effective communication of GCA’s work to promote visibility and engagement, including through a proactive use of virtual platforms.
• Building and managing a strong and diverse team, able to achieve the planned results and to adapt to the high level of growth and dynamics of GCA.