DAI
Position Title: Climate Finance Speicalist Consultant
Period of Performance: Date of Approval – on/about July 31, 2023
Place of Performance: Lilongwe, Malawai; travel anticipated throughout Malawi
Maximum Level of Effort: 40 days over 2 month period of performance
Project Description
In partnership with Prosper Africa, Feed the Future, and other initiatives, the USAID Africa Bureau, Africa Regional Missions, and the Middle East Bureau have established the Africa Trade and Investment (ATI) Program, managed by DAI. The purpose of this Program is to mobilize enterprise-driven solutions that increase trade and investment in Africa, including North and Sub-Saharan Africa. It aims to strengthen Africa’s markets by developing new trade and investment relationships, particularly between the U.S. and Africa, and achieve development outcomes across all sectors in line with USAID’s Private Sector Engagement Policy and the USG Prosper Africa initiative.
Driven by market demand, the Program will embrace innovative approaches to achieve its goals. The Program is envisioned as a small, core set of centrally coordinated technical and institutional support activities, and a large, flexible performance-based subcontracting and grants under contract facility designed to support the needs and opportunities that missions and the private sector identify. The Program aims to mobilize private sector resources and expertise, in conjunction with other USG interagency partners, resulting in the increased capacity, competitiveness and availability of businesses, investors and intermediaries that will drive future trade and investment.
Overview of Job Description
The Climate Finance Specialist (Consultant) will be responsible for designing and implementing climate finance activities that advance the USAID Malawi Mission achievement of its Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) goals for investment (specifically including climate focused structures). The climate finance work will need to be aligned with the overall Mission’s private sector engagement and trade, bilateral and regional goals and programming. The Climate Finance Specialist will provide expertise in identifying and supporting high-priority companies as targets for driving climate finance solutions. The Specialist will also provide advice to the Government of Malawi (GOM) and the Mission related to enabling climate finance policies and programming. In addition, the Specialist will carry out short assessments and capacity building for companies and Mission staff. Overall, the consultant will generate key recommendations for private sector climate finance programming and how the Mission can advance a green growth agenda working with the private sector.
The Climate Finance Specialist will contribute to and/or lead co-creation discussions with USAID and other stakeholders, and support ATI efforts to, and for working to significantly increase and mobilize innovative private sector led climate financing through new partnerships and consortiums. These innovative approaches can help address land, watershed and forest restoration, and conserve Malawi’s natural capital and key biodiversity resources through payment for ecosystem services, green value chains, climate positive business investments, and trade and Blue Carbon approach for Lake Malawi. The ATI Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Plan (ATI AMELP) to be developed for USAID/Malawi buy-in should encompass financial and economic outcomes, including the innovative climate finance/blended finance structure, capital raised and deployed, and jobs created, among others.
This role is crucial to set up groundwork that will build into the implementation of the technical capacity building and climate finance strategy support in close coordination with the ATI Activity Teams and Technical Leadership.
Responsibilities
Technical Support
- To provide strategic advice, support, and facilitation designed to mobilize private sector investment in supply chains that are climate resilient and sustainable (local, regional, international, U.S. companies).
- Provide recommendations for the next set of actions the Mission must take to develop climate financing programming.
- Identify and establish opportunities for climate finance-related initiatives to leverage on new and additional funding sources to achieve the Missions Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) goals.
Capacity Building
- To facilitate Public-Private Partnerships that build capacity and create long-term, inclusive shared value in climate-smart food systems.
- Build the capacity of the USAID Mission’s climate finance capacity (including the Embassy Deal Team) including the EDT support to submit requests to the ATI Deal Concierge Support Services.
Climate Finance Strategies
- Identify and map potential climate finance investment deals relevant to the Mission’s Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) goals.
- Review and Assess climate finance opportunities and facilitate innovative access to finance models including blended finance, climate finance, and pay for results and/or environmental services structures.
- Develop frameworks for identifying and developing climate finance deal pipeline
Anticipated Outputs/Deliverables
- Mapping and profiling of pipeline opportunities for carbon/climate finance and ecosystem services (climate finance pipeline in the country)
- Networking/relationship building with at least 30 companies
- Demonstrated evidence of technical/strategic advice provided to GOM and to Mission
- Pipeline and analysis of climate finance opportunities conducted
- Evidence of Private sector partnerships engagement with USAID supported through the first year of development.
- Capacity building training for at least five firms and GOM staff
- Private sector finance accessed and leveraged/linked to banks and or investment
- Conduct assessment carried out on trade, investment, and/or climate finance ecosystem (e.g. trade mandate assessment planned jointly with the Millennium Challenge Corporation)
- Design climate-related fund programming to leverage other sources of public and private finance.
Qualifications
- Postgraduate degree in international development/relations in international development studies, climate change, climate finance, environmental management, finance, and economics.
- At least seven years of demonstrated experience supporting experience in climate or green finance; trust fund management; multilateral development bank procedures, and a combination of project development and management experience; private sector experience.
- Knowledge and experience in Climate finance and blended finance on multilateral climate governance framework and global climate finance architecture,
- Understanding of climate and green finance issues, challenges, and practices relating to Africa in the provision of climate finance resources for lending and non-lending operations.
- Experience in the area of climate change adaptation and mitigation, with an emphasis on scaling up climate finance for Africa.
- Knowledge and experience in developing and implementing innovative climate finance instruments for policy dialogue and cross-institutional collaboration at the highest level, including with representatives of Mission, government and Private Sector partners.
- Understanding of critical issues in sustainable development indicators, international climate change policy, and climate finance.
- Further experience in financial accounting and reporting, green and inclusive growth accounting and reporting (triple bottom line), risk management, and portfolio management preferred.
Reporting
The Climate Finance Specialist reports to the ATI Senior Technical Director- Africa, with day-to-day oversight from an ATI Activity Manager.