Regional Climate Resilience Advisor at Save the Children

ROLE PURPOSE:

• Children have done the least to cause climate change but are most affected by it.  Addressing the impact of the climate crisis on children is a major priority for Save the Children across our programming, advocacy, partnerships and operations.   We have a growing network of climate experts and a growing climate portfolio across the world.  East and Southern Africa is a priority region given the impacts of the climate crisis and our strong presence.   We are looking for an experienced expert in climate change impacts and adaptation, with a commitment to children’s rights, who can use their in-depth contextual understanding, technical expertise, and relationship building skills to define and deliver our strategic ambition for Climate Change in East & Southern Africa and ensure that all climate change programming in ESA is of excellent technical quality and contributes significantly to Save the Children’s strategic objectives. The role will: 
• Provide technical leadership and advice to, whilst building the capacity of, our Country Office teams on the design and implementation of child-focused climate change programming;
• Supports the generation of evidence to demonstrate impact, while promoting and supporting learning across our programmes, teams and partners. 
• Supports driving strategic partnerships for new business development, helping to position Save the Children as a leading Child Rights organization on climate resilience, whilst building ownership, agency and engagement of local organisations and child-led initiatives; 
• Undertake external representation, advocacy and influencing at national and regional level on priority issues, including engaging children in climate change initiatives, embedding climate resilience activities in health and education systems, among others.
• Collaborate with other thematic technical advisors in integrating a climate resilience lens into programming, as well as maintain close collaboration with other regional climate advisors, the global Head of Climate, and the global climate resilience and environmental sustainability technical working group to contribute to the development of our global approach to climate change.

SCOPE OF ROLE:

• Reports to: Regional Director of Program Development, Quality and Impact (PDQI), plus dotted line to SCI’s Global Head  for Climate
• Staff reporting to this post: No direct reports but expected to provide coaching and mentoring support to operational and other technical colleagues and local partners, especially to Child Poverty thematic leads in national offices

Budget Responsibilities: None

• Key stakeholders: Country Directors and PDQ Directors, Technical and Operations staff; Regional Technical Advisors, Regional Operations Advisors, Regional Advocacy and Campaigns Advisors and regional Fundraising staff. In addition, the role will foster relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders including Save the Children Members.
• Context: Humanitarian and Development

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY :

Strategy & Technical Leadership:

• Lead and collaborate with others to develop and support the operationalization of a regional technical steer/roadmap on child-focused climate resilience, with explicit linkages to other thematic and cross thematic sectors
• Support Country Offices in the design of their Country Strategic Plans and thematic strategies (program and advocacy), ensuring alignment to Save the Children’s global thematic priorities and technical steers 
• Stimulate innovative actions for climate resilience in the country office, introducing best practices from within and outside the organisation, and building on our existing portfolio, experience and comparative advantage.
• Provide coordination support at regional level for SC’s global initiatives on the Climate Crisis and contribute to the global SC work on climate change by sharing regional experiences, practices and results, as well as thematically guide and negotiate climate resilience inputs into strategic documentation, policies and guidance (including integration and mainstreaming into other sectors) 

Technical Capacity Building & Mentoring:

• Provide contextualized, hands-on, demand driven technical support for ESA Country Offices, and identify sources of technical support for COs and facilitate access where needed through Save the Children’s flexible Technical Expertise systems (e.g. Global Humanitarian Surge Platform; TE Request platform), and others for key regional technical needs;
• Support the recruitment, technical onboarding and ongoing professional development of CO climate-focused focal points and experts, including capacity building, mentoring; identify top talents, capacity gaps and facilitate opportunities for learning. 
• Facilitate cross-country learning between experts in the region, and participate in cross-country learning with other regions; identify creative ways to share learning, best practices and collectively address challenges, feeding learning with global technical staff  
• Support other regional technical experts to understand and contextualise climate resilience guidance for their thematic area 

Resource Mobilization & Program Design: 

• Work closely with New Business Development colleagues at the country offices, regional office and Members to serve as the technical lead on key strategic climate funding opportunities, including but not limited to scoping, capture planning, and positioning with key donors;
• Provide technical assistance to Country Offices on design to fashion high quality, competitive climate programs (development or humanitarian), and incorporating best practices, evidence-based solutions and innovation; and ensuring that a child rights based approach is reflected with a strong focus on meaningful and equitable child participation
• Promote a Systems Strengthening approach as the overarching framework, that supports working in collaboration and partnership with governments and local partners and working towards impact, scale and sustainability.
• Travel to the field to participate in design workshops, assessments, team writing assignments, and other proposal processes as needed/requested
• Participate in proposal after action reviews, ensuring that lessons learned are incorporated into subsequent efforts

Technical Assistance & Quality Assurance: 

• Provide technical guidance to the programme implementation teams to ensure that climate resilience programme components are technically sound, implementation methods are consistent with national strategies, acknowledged best practice and global evidence; and are likely to achieve scale, as well as equitable and sustainable results; 
• Support the design and operationalisation of Save the Children’s quality benchmarks and key performance indicators, and work with Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) teams to conduct quality monitoring against international standards;
• Undertake field visits to project sites; work with implementation teams to understand impacts, operational challenges, and continuously identify opportunities for learning and improvement.
• Support Humanitarian colleagues (as needed) to develop emergency preparedness plans, and conduct sectoral assessments (including gender analysis, using SC assessment processes and tools) and to design and deliver emergency response and recovery programmes.

Evidence & Learning:

• Contribute towards the creation of an organisational learning culture that promotes the use of data, evidence and analysis and understands its link to quality and accountable programming, ensuring that learning from our programmes is shared within and across Country Offices and our partners, as well as with colleagues in the wider regional and global community in Save the Children;
• Collaborate with regional MEAL team and Country Office counterparts to design and deliver a regional research, evidence & learning agenda for climate, including technical support to regional and/or multi-country research and evaluation studies, that contributes to a regional and global evidence base;
• Support dissemination and uptake of evidence-based programming by country offices working with government, donors and partners as part of building local and national systems, and to inform advocacy on public policies and programmes;
• Leverage and liaise with technical colleagues from across Save the Children, including technical working groups and centres of excellence, ensuring that learning from countries is shared with others and global lessons brought back. 

Networking & External Engagement:

• Undertake strategic positioning with donors, partners and government in-country and at regional level, and carve out a clear role and value addition for Save the Children in the climate resilience space. 
• Identify relevant local and civil society partners for Climate Resilience in Eastern and Southern Africa, with specifics for each country, cultivate contacts and links with relevant country and regional stakeholders for joint programming and other forms of joint action;
• Work closely with advocacy and child rights colleagues to engage children, adolescents and youth to mobilize and campaign around climate resilience and ensure that the voices of children are represented in our climate change work;
• Represent Save the Children in relevant global, national and regional climate-related meetings, platforms and networks and build up relationships with relevant experts and contacts

BEHAVIOURS (Values in Practice)

Accountability:

• holds self accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values
• holds colleagues and partners engaged in education programming in the region accountable to deliver on their responsibilities - giving them the freedom to deliver in accordance with the context,  providing the necessary professional development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved.

Ambition:

• sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and for climate programming in the region, takes responsibility for their own professional development and encourages Technical Experts in the region to do the same
• widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others
• future orientated, thinks strategically and on a global scale.

Collaboration:

• Builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, technical advisors and working groups, Members and external partners and supporters
• Values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength
• Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to

Creativity:

• develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
• Willing to take disciplined risks.

Integrity:

• honest, encourages openness and transparency; demonstrates highest levels of integrity
• The post holder must commit to work in an international agency that respects racial diversity and fights racism in all forms; and to model positive behaviours and respect to all colleagues, partners and communities. 

QUALIFICATIONS 

• Master’s degree in a Climate related field including Natural Resource management, Climate Change studies, development studies, Geography, Agricultural economics, Natural Resource Policy
• Experience in leading the creation and implementation of a climate resilience strategy, demonstrating the ability to identify and prioritise the necessary steps towards an ambitious goal.
• Excellent analytical skills especially on social aspects and impact of climate change on children
• Experience in designing and writing proposals, monitoring and evaluating development programmes that build resilience to climate shocks with a focus on children.
• Sound understanding of major issues in the Eastern and Southern Africa Region related to the climate emergency, nexus agenda between humanitarian and development - and a close focus on evidence based approaches, and action learning/adaptation of programming
• Significant experience in training, capacity building, and mentoring colleagues and staff with different backgrounds and expertise. 
• Experience of building networks, resulting in securing significant new partnership and funding opportunities for the organisation.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to motivate, influence and negotiate both internally and externally – including in English.

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

• At least 7 years’ experience of working internationally in climate resilience issues in humanitarian and development settings.
• Demonstrated program design, monitoring and evaluation skills, including designing pathways to sustainable impact at scale.   
• Able to generate and use climate and environmental data and projections and evidence to innovate, deliver, learn and share what works and what doesn’t work for children
• Experience of supporting humanitarian preparedness, response and recovery including knowledge about anticipatory action regarding natural disasters

Desirable

• Strong child rights programming and commitment to the rights based approach, environmental justice and sustainability, ecosystem-based approach, gender equality, inclusion, and community-based development.
• Experience of working within a complex and matrix organisation structure. 
• Skills in GIS and remote sensing application