Environment and Climate Officer

**Organizational Setting**:
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is an international financial institution and a specialized United Nations agency dedicated to eradicating rural poverty and hunger. It does so by investing in rural people. IFAD finances programmes and projects that increase agricultural productivity and raise rural incomes, and advocates at the local, national and international level for policies that contribute to rural transformation.

ECG takes the lead in mainstreaming cross-cutting themes of environment and climate, nutrition, gender, youth, and indigenous peoples into IFAD's portfolio, to strengthen the quality of IFAD’s operations and achieve improved impacts in these areas. It contributes to the generation of evidence and knowledge on these cross-cutting themes, and facilitates their use in IFAD projects and activities. ECG also provides guidance and support to ensure the inclusion of marginalized groups, particularly women, indigenous peoples and rural youth, into IFAD operations. In addition, IFAD competitively sources and manages environment and climate change global finance, which it uses to help mainstream environmental sustainability and climate change resilience into its regular agricultural development work. Some examples are the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Least Developed Country Fund (LDCF), the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF), the Adaptation Trust Fund and IFAD’s Adaptation For Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP).

The Environment and Climate Officer position is strategically located across all five IFAD regional divisions to provide an oversight function to the neighbouring countries and works under the overall strategic, policy and management advice, and supervision of the Division Director of ECG and the Regional Director of the Regional Divisions to which s/he is mapped. The Environment & Climate Officer may be requested to travel to neighboring countries to lend assistance with respect to the following provision.

The incumbent works under the direct supervision of the Lead Technical Specialist (Environment and Climate) of the Regional Division to which s/he is mapped, with dual reporting to the Country Director/Head of the IFAD Multi Country Offices.

**Job Role**:
The Environment and Climate Officer will be responsible for working with one of IFAD's Regional divisions to support delivery on a number of fronts:

- Strategic engagement of key partners at various levels for advancing IFAD's work in the region;
- integration of environment and climate dimensions into IFAD's projects and policy dialogue at various levels;
- support IFAD investment project designs and facilitate the integration, where possible, of environment and climate grant financing from Trust Funds such as the Global Environment Facility (GEF), Least Developed Country Fund (LDCF), Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF), and Adaptation Fund (AF), Green Climate Fund (GCF) or similar Trust Funds;
- successful implementation of Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP), and environment and climate Trust Fund resources;
- implementation and oversight of IFAD's Safeguards Policy; and
- support knowledge management and communications on environment and climate issues.

**Key Functions and Results**:

- TECHNICAL ADVICE: On the basis of proven technical knowledge on climate and environment, emerging development challenges and the state of rural poverty at the assigned program countries, the Environment and Climate Officer provides technical expertise and advice in delivering on IFAD’s mandate of building resilience of smallholder farmers and reducing rural poverty through IFAD’s investments. Accountabilities include:

- Providing high quality technical expertise in undertaking social, environment and climate risk and impact assessments consistent with Social, Environment and Climate Assessment Procedures (SECAP) to Country Strategic Opportunity papers (COSOPs) and investmetns funded through IFAD’s Programme of Loans and Grants (PoLG) and supplementary funds.
- Providing high quality technical expertise and advice on environment, natural resources management and climate aspects in operations during design to enusre quality at entry and during implementation by actively particiapting in missions and in monitoring and evaluation for quality assurance; and
- KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: The Environment and Climate Officer enhances the development of viable and sustainable policy and project development at the country-level and supports regional thematic input through high quality technical knowledge sharing for his/her area of specialization. S/He will ensure country-level access to the latest sources of knowledge and innovation, strengthen national technical capacity and establish new knowledge and advisory partnerships. Accountabilities include:

- Generating analytical knowledge built on government demand to advance policy;
- Conducting relevant knowledge