Global Climate and Environmental Mainstreaming Advisor

Are you passionate about supporting people and communities affected by displacement to build resilience to climate change, environmental degradation and conflict? Do you have demonstrated knowledge of mainstreaming of climate and environmental considerations into operations, programming, and sectors to support affected populations to adapt to climate and environmental impacts and to ensure that the work of DRC does not have a negative climate and environmental impact?

Who are we?

Climate change increasingly interacts with the drivers of displacement, including conflict, and disproportionally affects developing countries hosting the majority of the world's refugees and displaced persons. Therefore, in its Strategy 2025, DRC commits to respond to the global climate crisis and environmental degradation by increasing the adaptive capacities of people affected by conflict and displacement and to ensuring that our own conduct is nature-positive.

The Programme Division develops programmatic concepts and strategies relevant to DRC’s international operations and delivers support to operations within these areas. The Programme Division hosts various global specialist lead functions including for DRC’s five core sectors: Protection, Shelter & Settlements, Humanitarian Disarmament & Peacebuilding, Camp Coordination & Camp management, and Economic Recovery. The Division is furthermore overall responsible for continuously developing and implementing DRC’s programme handbook and the DRC Response Framework, which articulates how DRC seeks to save lives, promote durable solutions and address root causes of displacement, - capturing DRC’s engagement with persons of concern from the beginning to the end of their displacement.

About the job

 The overall responsibility of the Global Climate and Environmental Mainstreaming Advisor is to lead the roll-out of DRC’s Go Green OP under its Strategy 2025 in the regions, leading a systematic approach on adaptation in programmatic responses and building resilience to climate change of people affected by displacement through the integration of a green lens throughout programming.  

 DRC aims at addressing climate change and environmental degradation systematically through mainstreaming of climate and environmental considerations into the DRC operations, programming, and sectors to support affected populations to adapt to climate and environmental impacts and to ensure that our work does not have a negative climate and environmental impact. 

The Global Climate and Environmental Mainstreaming Advisor will develop, consolidate and support facilitating the implementation of the environment and climate change considerations into our operations, sectors and programming through a combination of specific screening and assessment tools (such as the NEAT+ and environmental impact assessments) as well as the integration of climate and environmental concerns into already existing tools and guidelines in the DRC core sectors.

The Global Climate and Environmental Mainstreaming Advisor reports to Head of Programme Innovation and Business Engagement, whereas technical reference is to the Global Lead on Climate and Environment (HQ). The Global Climate and Environmental Mainstreaming Advisor works in close collaboration with DRCs Global Sector Leads, Platform leads, and establishes strong working relationships with regional & country heads of programme. The Global Climate and Environmental Mainstreaming Advisor will form part of a core team of global green advisors and is a key member of DRC’s ‘go green’ community of practice.

The Global Climate and Environmental Mainstreaming Advisor will have special focus on standards for climate and environmental screenings and assessments in programming in accordance with global good practice, providing programme quality control & monitoring. This includes supporting (cross)regional programme design, fundraising and global partnership building. In addition, the Global Climate and Environmental Mainstreaming Advisor will lead on internal staff capacity development as well as special collaboration is expected with- and contributing to work under the Strategic programme initiative on Conflict and Climate Resilience setting, focusing on improved community resilience. 

Strategy and policy

• Strengthening and setting standards for DRC programming and operations through systematic mainstreaming of climate and environmental considerations across core sectors, platforms and operational principles in accordance with good international practise.   
• Lead organizational change on climate and environmental mainstreaming in DRC. 
• Develop and maintain global partnerships for evidence-building and learning on environmental screenings and assessments. 
• Ensure existing and future donor compliance and support external communication for donor influencing and shared learning. 
• Strengthen DRC’s relationships with academic institutions focused on research and learning on screening and assessment practices.  

Technical advise and support 

• Develop, consolidate, test and mainstream climate and environmental screening and assessment tools relevant for DRC operations and programming. 
• Build DRC capacity, knowledge and evidence of how to program for building resilience to climate risks by using environmental and climate screening and assessments tools. 
• Lead the development of concepts that will significantly strengthen mainstreaming of environmental considerations into programme response, and work with relevant colleagues in fundraising, innovative finance, and beyond, to turn these concepts into partnerships and fundraising opportunities. This includes keeping abreast of trends, standards and guidelines in the donor field and in international fora of relevance to DRC.  
• Provide technical support for Regional and country Heads of programme and project managers in the design, quality control and monitoring of community-led systems-based programming using the consolidated Mainstreaming toolbox.  
• Deliver relevant policy, standards, resources, guidance and tools to country and regional operations.  
• Contribute to DRC’s learning and evidence-building, including by collecting and sharing good practice, and with a view to ensuring cross-country consistency in programming.  

Resources, training and learning  

• Build DRC staff capacity on programming for climate and environmental screenings and assessments, incorporating also a disaster risk reduction focus. 
• Develop learning material and disseminate on DRC’s intranet InSite. This will include development and roll-out of a global manual and training package and working towards the establishment of a Global Learning Hub.  
• Oversee technical capacity building of field teams through in-person, site-based trainings and demonstrations. 
• Ensure institutional knowledge management on screenings and assessments, including maintaining and updating Intranet site and Collaborative Space/SharePoint folder. 
• Collect and disseminate internal learning on climate and environmental screenings and assessments in programming and work with the Global resilience advisor on strategies for organizational change in support of regenerative resilience and nature-positive solutions. 

About you

To be successful in this role we expect you to have minimum 6 years’ experience working in the climate change adaptation area with organizational change, community development or similar fields with a specification in climate change adaption.

All employees should master DRC's core competencies: Communicating, Taking the lead, Collaborating, Striving for excellence and Demonstrating integrity.

Moreover, we also expect the following:

Required

• Minimum five years’ experience in development and demonstrated use of climate and environmental mainstreaming tools.  
• Minimum five years’ experience in designing and managing complex multisector climate and/or environmental sustainability initiatives. 
• Excellent and up-to-date knowledge of systems-based approaches to programming and demonstrated experience using participatory methods with vulnerable and displaced communities. 
• Demonstrated experience in working with organizational change. 
• Demonstrated experience in training design and facilitation, on environmental screening and assessments.   
• Highly motivated and hard-working, with strong attention to detail.   
• Strong computer skills (MS Word, Excel, Outlook and Power Point)  
• Able and willing to travel for up to 45 days per year.  

Desirable 

• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including concise writing and engaging presenting and facilitation.   
• Demonstrated ability to work independently as part of a small team, and to form close working relationships with a diverse range of multi-cultural colleagues.   
• Experience working in complex institutional environments and a strong ability to establish close collaborative working relationships across dispersed geographical locations. 
• Experience designing and implementing community disaster risk reduction programming   

We offer

Contract length: Two years with possibility of extension.  

The duty station for this position is flexible, the successful candidate is to be located in one of the DRC country operations. Therefore, if you are interested in- and qualified for this position, please indicate your preferred DRC duty station in your cover letter.

Employment band: F

Salary and conditions for the position will be on DRC terms.

Application process
All applicants must send a cover letter and an updated CV in English. Apply online on our page Current Vacancies at www.drc.ngo.

Closing date for applications: December 16, 2022. We expect to conduct interviews early next year

Further information

For questions regarding the vacancy please contact lillah.soerensen@drc.ngo, Global Lead on Climate and Environment.

For further information about the Danish Refugee Council, please consult our website drc.ngo.