Chief Climate Finance Officer at African Development Bank - AfDB

Reference: ADB/17/216
Location: Côte d’Ivoire
Grade: PL-3
Position N°: 50001228

The Complex
The Vice Presidency for ‘Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth’ is a Sector Complex focusing on the Bank’s Ten Years Strategy, High 5s priority of “Light up and Power Africa”. The complex’s objectives are:

• To develop policy and strategy;
• To provide deep sector technical expertise to the Regions by gathering pool of experienced individuals who can be consulted for their expertise on complicated transactions;
• To develop new financing instruments;
• To act as spokesperson to represent the Bank with external stakeholders on all aspects of “Light Up and Power Africa”. The Complex will focus on areas of Power systems, policy and regulation, renewable energy; and, Climate and Green Growth.

The Department
The the Climate Change and Green Growth Department has broad objectives of:

• Mainstreaming climate change and green growth into Bank’s High 5s’ operations;
• Implementing the Bank’s climate change interventions through the Bank’s Climate Change Action Plan and the Bank’s Green Growth Framework;
• Managing access to the growing number of sources of Green and Climate Finance for all Operational Vice Presidencies within the Bank;
• Driving towards achieving universal energy access through the greenest solutions possible; and
• Leading all efforts within the Bank focused on minimizing and reversing the effects of Climate Change on the continent. The Department consists of two divisions, the Climate and Green Growth Division, and the Climate Finance Division.

The Hiring Division

• The Climate and Environment Finance is responsible for ensuring that all of the Bank’s operational Vice Presidencies have efficient and predictable access to multiple sources of climate and environment finance and the Bank’s commitments to mobilize climate finance and support Regional Member Counties to do so, are met.

The Position

• The responsibility of the Chief Climate Finance officer will be to ensure efficient and predictable access to green and climate finance to enable the Bank to channel funds to achieve the High 5s and achieve its climate finance target of USD 5 billion per annum by 2020.
• The job specifically provides overall coordination and technical leadership on the climate finance, including the internal and external trust funds, in close collaboration with the Climate Finance Officers, and the Climate Change and Green Growth Officers working with project teams.
• The incumbent contributes to achieve the objectives of the Bank’s Climate Change Action Plan. The incumbent will also support the Manager in ensuring that Bank’s commitments to mobilize climate finance and to support Regional Member Countries are achieved.

Duties and Responsibilities
Under the overall supervision and general guidance of the Division Manager, Climate and Environment Finance,  the Chief Climate Officer will perform the following:

• Provide overall coordination of internal and external source(s) of green and climate finance by meeting accreditation and reporting requirements and following appropriate modalities and procedures;
• Create opportunities to co-finance projects and leverage new and additional funding sources to achieve the Bank’s climate finance targets by liaising with other Divisions within the Bank, Donors and Development Partners;
• Actively communicate with the Trust Funds Committee(s) or Executive Boards to advance the Bank’s interests, secure project approvals and support the funding sources, by representing the Bank at Trust Fund Committee meetings and other events;
• Advise all Operational Vice Presidencies on accessing green and climate finance from internal and external trust funds by building strong links with project teams within the Bank and communicating regularly;
• Ensure that the Bank fulfils internal and external quality control and reporting obligations to the trust funds, by ensuring that reports are prepared in a timely and accurate manner;
• Contribute actively to the development, management and administration of funds by responding to calls for input, attending meetings and conference calls and making innovative proposals to scale up finance;
• Provide technical leadership and expertise to the regions in applying green and climate finance to projects;
• Coordinate annual reporting on climate finance, the Trust Funds and Bank’s efforts to achieve the goal of raising USD 5 billion per year by 2020 and beyond, and supporting African countries to benefit from the global commitments to raise USD 100 billion per year for climate finance;
• Provide technical leadership and advice on climate and environment finance, in close coordination with existing climate finance structures under the United Nations Fund for Climate Change, the Multilateral Development Banks and other relevant institutions, with the view to advocate for enhanced Africa’s access to climate and green finance;
• Provide technical leadership for Bank’s agenda to increase adaptation finance as well as finance for the Bank’s green growth activities;
• Coordinate and facilitate the provision of training to both Bank staff and Regional Member Counties on accessing climate and green finance;
• Perform any other duty assigned by the Division manager or Director.

Selection Criteria
Including Desirable Skills, Knowledge and Experience:

• Hold at least a Master’s degree in in international development, environmental management, finance, economics or a related field.
• Have a  minimum of seven (7) years’ experience in climate or green finance; trust fund management; multilateral development bank procedures, and a combination of experience on inter linkages between energy and other relevant sectors;
• Understanding of climate and green finance issues, challenges and practices relating to Africa.
• Understanding of critical issues in sustainable development, international climate change policy, and climate finance;
• Knowledge and experience on climate finance, and on multilateral climate governance framework and global climate finance architecture.
• Experience in the provision of climate finance resources for lending and non-lending operations
• Experience in the area of climate change adaptation and mitigation, with a particular emphasis on scaling up climate finance for Africa.
• Knowledge and experience in policy dialogue and cross-institutional collaboration at the highest level, including with representatives of government and non-government partners.
• Analytical and scientific/technical interpretation capacity of key climate and green finance challenges and opportunities;
• Project development and management.
• Innovation and creativity
• Client orientation
• Ability to listen and communicate effectively with counterparts
• Team player
• Interpersonal skills
• Knowledge of financial structuring;
• Experience on resource mobilization and development partnership;
• Knowledge of “Blended” finance;
• Monitoring, evaluation and reporting;
• Innovative problem solving abilities.
• Ability to develop business
• Ability to communicate orally and in writing effectively in French or English, with a good working knowledge of the other language.
• Competence in the use of standard Microsoft Office applications (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint).