Principal Water Resources Adviser, Africa Borderlands at UNDP

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the Team leader of the Africa Borderlands Centre, the Senior Water Resources Adviser is responsible for the formulation of a cohesive corporate climate-resilient water normative framework and signature interventions for Africa borderlands programmatic to promote resilience.

S/he will be responsible to:

• Provide thought leadership, strategic guidance and advice to the Regional Director for Africa and the ABC on climate-resilient and sustainable water management in Africa’s borderlands;
• Provide technical leadership for the formulation of an effective, best-in-class climate-resilient water normative framework, which serves to guide sustainable water governance in Africa borderlands;
• Provide overall leadership for the development of a new programme pipeline on climate-resilient and sustainable water management, with a specific focus on innovative and blended finance, and in close coordination with bilateral and multilateral institutions;
• In line with the ABC 4-pillar approach, develop specific programmatic interventions on climate-resilient and sustainable water resource management for the borderlands in a manner that accelerates the achievement of the SDGs and Agenda 2063 in the borderlands
• Oversee the entire project cycle of governance, innovation, concept design, development, implementation, supervision and sustainability of flagship climate-resilient water and resilience interventions in the Borderlands areas;
• Build, expand and cultivate relationships with leadership partners (development banks, international financing institutions, foundations, private sector) in support of partnerships and resource mobilization objectives of the ABC;
• Direct the preparation of the annual work plans and budgets for the climate-resilient water programme, fundraising and partnerships; planning and management of human, financial, and material resources with a view to ensuring their optimum utilization;
• Represent UNDP at key public and private sector international meetings and conferences as requested.

Strategic leadership

• Develop and set the strategic direction for climate-resilient water in the UNDP Africa Borderlands Centre and Regional Resilient Hub and its integration into UNDP country offices, regional and global corporate planning, programming and operations;
• Thought leadership in developing the governance structure and investment case for UNDP and the required support and resources in the area of climate-resilient water in the Africa Borderlands and Resilience Hubs network on the basis of assessments of the risks/threats
• Establish new partnerships for the Africa Borderlands Centre, in the area of climate-resilient water
• Represents UNDP at senior representational levels in interagency forums for policy and decision making in the area of climate-resilient water,
• Provide on-demand technical regional and global thought leadership and be the focal for UNDPs engagement in the multi trust fund Climate-resilient water Investment Programme for Africa

Research, produce data, and design programme and implementation

• Lead teams across multiple borderlands sites in a number of countries in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa to design programmes (undertake pre-feasibility, feasibility) for mobilizing development finance;
• Lead the introduction of innovative pipelines of bankable sustainable climate-resilient water investments in borderlands to maximize development finance,
• Develop transformative governance partnerships, approaches, funding and financing resources to assess and produce climate-resilient water projects in the Borderlands,
• Ensures organizational compliance with all United Nations Environmental and Social Safeguarding policies, procedures and regulations;
• Establish technology innovation partnerships with global and regional climate-resilient water academic and private sector organizations to undertake human-based design and operational research.
• Inform innovative evidence-based policy changes that impact communities in the borderlands areas in regards to climate-resilient water.

Management supervision

• Provides oversight of climate-resilient water interventions in the ABC;
• Build UNDP climate-resilient water project preparation and implementation capacity in coordination with relevant functional units in UNDP;
• Facilitate and directs the planning, management, operations and activities of UNDP climate-resilient water for consistently high levels of performance, efficiency and engagement;
• Oversees and administers allocation and utilization of funding for climate-resilient water in the UNDP Africa Resilient Hub – Borderlands Programme;
• Advocates the implementation of corporate and best-practice approaches to ensure effective procurements and service (human, financial and administrative) resources provision aligned with results.

Innovation and Knowledge management

• Encourage technological and financial innovation models to crowd in private sector partners to provide sustainable climate-resilient water services,
• Collate, document and disseminate with counterparts and partners the best practices and lead knowledge events,
• Provides inputs to the development of systems to capture and codify knowledge in the climate-resilient water practice for the enhancement of staff training, learning and awareness concerning security issues.