The World Resources Institute is a global research non-profit organization that was established in 1982 with funding from the MacArthur Foundation under the leadership of James Gustave Speth. WRI is a global research organization that turns big ideas into action at the nexus of environment, economic opportunity and human well-being

Job Highlight:

• As the GGI Accelerator Associate, you will play a critical role in leading and coordinating Green-Gray Infrastructure Accelerator activities across the 11 selected cities in 7 countries. You will be an anchor coordinator for the GGI Accelerator, helping to plan, execute, and track activities associated with the GGI Accelerator to ensure high quality delivery of activities and timely reporting to donors and investors. You will help design and prepare city-specific funding/financing and policy landscape assessments, support content creation for a webinar and workshop series to increase awareness and buy-in for NBS projects in the region, and coordinate regional and city networking meetings with investors, donors, government officials, and other NBS champions. You will frequently be interfacing with WRI city leads, external investors and donors, government agencies, NGOs, and communities.
• You will report to the Resilience Africa Cities Lead.

What will you do:

Program Management and Research (85%):

• Plan and execute GGI Accelerator activities by coordinating with WRI staff and partners across the 11 selected cities
• Coordinate with ACCR colleagues to collect, create, and curate content for a webinar and workshop series that showcases lessons learned, policy and project successes, and gender, social equity, and inclusion processes to increase awareness for NBS project development. These webinars and workshops will be tailored to enable peer-to-peer learning opportunities between cities across the region
• Work with the Senior Environmental Finance Associate to design city-focused funding/financing and policy assessments to support tailored investment frameworks for NBS projects
• Orchestrate annual meetings with regional network of investors and donors and support city leads on coordinating local investor/funding working groups
• Support the Senior Environmental Finance Associate to coordinate with partners, including investors, donors, development and private sector banks, and funders
• Conduct outreach and communications including authoring or co-authoring reports and articles, and presenting at meetings and conferences
• Lead GGI Accelerator donor reporting requirements and contribute to WRI’s monitoring, evaluation, and learning frameworks
• Collaborate across WRI programs and ensure linkages with WRI Africa’s New Climate Economy /National Climate Action (NCE/NCA), AFR100, and African Cities Water Adaptation Fund (ACWA), among others
• Coordinate different WRI technical team’s inputs and liaise with WRI global Urban Water Resilience and Cities4Forest teams to problem solve and generate solutions to project implementation issues

Fundraising and Operations (15%):

• Collaborate with senior staff on the strategic development and management of the urban resilience and financing work in Africa
• Support new project opportunities and prospective donors, and contribute to and prepare funding proposals.

What will you need:

• Education: You have completed a bachelor’s degree in business administration, Finance, economics, urban planning, climate resilience, or natural resources management
• Experience: You have 5+ years of full-time relevant work experience in the field of climate, development finance or sustainable infrastructure
• Experience in coordinating and managing large grants across multiple locations
• Demonstrated stakeholder engagement and partnership management skills, particularly with cities and subnational governments
• Experience technical concepts to non-technical audiences
• Experience consulting with public sector institutions, financial institutions or private sector
• Willingness and ability to travel 15-30% of the time
• Languages: Written and verbal proficiency in English with knowledge of a second language desirable
• Requirements: Existing work authorization is required where this position is located. WRI is unable to authorize visa work authorization