Director, Multilateral Finance Unit

The Director, Multilateral Finance Unit provides strategic leadership and oversees globally the development, management and quality of IUCN GEF and GCF portfolio. The position builds IUCN overall capacity to implement and execute GEF and GCF projects, drives compliance with policies and processes, and ensures accurate and timely monitoring and reporting. The Director, Multilateral Finance Unit supervises a team of 4 and has functional oversight (matrix reporting line) on the portfolio leads in the regions and centres. The position reports to IUCN Chief Operations Officer.

Strategic leadership

• Leads IUCN’s overall relationship with the Funds, ensuring open and efficient communication, and a constructive collaboration that drives the success of IUCN GEF-GCF portfolio;
• Leads the design of the strategy for engagement with the Funds, including programme and financial objectives;
• Leads high level strategic partnerships with key technical partners and donors that can be rolled out at programme and project level;
• Responsible for leading technical and corporate discussions with the Funds’ Secretariat relevant representatives;
• Leads the design of processes for GEF/ GCF engagement and proposal development, consult regularly with IUCN Secretariat Senior Management to identify opportunities to leverage these instruments;
• Identify and share perspectives on relevant baselines and co-financing opportunities for new and innovative initiatives in consultation with relevant programmes in IUCN Secretariat, Commissions and Members;
• Responsible for project approval along the IUCN project cycle, including the coordination of projects reviews;
• Provide strategic advices and information to IUCN Senior management on current portfolio status and opportunities for engagement with the Funds.

Quality assurance and control

• • Lead the development of relevant policies and processes needed to develop and manage high quality portfolio of projects funded by the Funds, in partnership with relevant corporate, Regional and Centers Programmes;
• • Responsible for overall portfolio monitoring and quality control;
• • Responsible for ensuring IUCN’s accreditation to the Funds is up to date, and that key criteria are regularly reviewed to ensure IUCN’s credibility and compliance as a partner agency or an accredited entity to these Funds;
• • Ensures all IUCN and Funds policies and processes, including fiduciary, environmental and social and safeguards system, are applied to all projects in the portfolio.

Programme Management

• Develop and implement global and regional roadmaps and strategies to build programme teams’ capacity to implement GEF and GCF projects;
• Plan, manage and distribute the agency fees generated by the portfolio of IUCN projects;
• Oversee the development of the necessary quality and project management tools to successfully implement GEF-GCF project and ensures project managers are trained on the use of these tools and on compliance with donor regulations;
• Plan the human and financial resources required for the management of the programme, in coordination with Regional, Centres and Corporate Directors involved in the programme funded by GEF and GCF;
• Leads the communication of relevant and strategic information from the Funds to IUCN Secretariat, Members and Commissions;
• Represents the Programme at Senior Management level within and outside IUCN.

People Management

• Oversees the recruitment, management and development of the Multilateral Finance Team, including performance planning and assessment and career and skills development;
• Provides functional and direct reports with ongoing feedback, clear expectations, and support to deliver against their work objectives and annual performance plan;
• Maintains a positive work environment for direct and functional reports, free from harassment, that facilitates collaboration and information sharing and is conducive to attracting, retaining, and motivating diverse talents.

The above job description contains the main duties and responsibilities for this position. However, in a small organisation such as IUCN, staff members are expected to show flexibility in their approach to work and be willing to undertake other tasks that are reasonably allocated to them but which are not part of their regular job description. Where any task becomes a regular part of a staff member’s responsibilities, the job description will be changed in consultation with the manager, the staff member and the Human Resources Management Group. Anyone of the three may initiate the consultation.

REQUIREMENTS

• Master’s degree in a field relevant to environment and development, including natural resources management, environment science, environmental economics, or equivalent;
• At least 10 years of international experience in the management of large, complex natural resource management programmes, especially those focusing on forest conservation, sustainable management and restoration, water and marine resources management, land and ecosystems management;
• Demonstrated knowledge and experience in successfully engaging with GEF and GCF, in terms of programme development and management;
• Demonstrated technical understanding and expertise across range of themes and issues relevant to global programmes including environmental economics, sustainable forest management, restoration, land management, water resources management, climate change, natural resource governance, and biodiversity conservation;
• Demonstrated ability to interact with and mobilize private sector partners in IUCN related activities;
• Demonstrated experience in results-based management, including fiduciary matters and environmental and social safeguards;
• Strong network of relevant professional relationships, including those with donors and technical partners;
• Ability to retain an unimpeachable integrity in all circumstances, including in handling ambiguous or complex situations;
• Exceptional written, oral, interpersonal, and presentation skills and the ability to effectively engage at a high level;
• Extensive knowledge and experience in management and leadership abilities with a deep sense of self-awareness;
• Ability and experience in conflict management and mediation, skilled negotiator;
• Proficiency in written and spoken English. Other IUCN languages (French, Spanish) an asset;

Source: https://hrms.iucn.org/iresy/index.cfm?event=vac.show&vacId=10862&lang=en