E T Consultant - Readiness Support

At the World Bank, a member of the World Bank Group (WBG), you’ll join a diverse, global community working across cultures, disciplines, and borders to address the world’s most pressing development challenges. With 1.2 billion young people reaching working age in the decade ahead, the challenge of job creation has never been greater. Through partnerships across 145 countries and more than 182 offices worldwide, we work with governments, private sector, development partners and other stakeholders to invest in people, strengthen markets, and deliver scalable, data-driven solutions that generate more and better jobs and improve lives. For more information, visit International Bank for Reconstruction and Development Climate change will greatly affect the poorest people in the world, who are often hardest hit by weather catastrophes, desertification, and rising sea levels and least able to respond. In some parts of the world, climate change has already contributed to worsening food security, reduced the predictable availability of fresh water, and exacerbated the spread of disease and other threats to human health. Helping the most vulnerable countries and communities adapt to increasing challenges of climate change is an imperative for the international community, requiring significant resources to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The Adaptation Fund is an innovative financing mechanism set up by the Conference of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), with the purpose of financing concrete climate change adaptation projects and programs in developing country Parties. At the request of the COP, the GEF is providing secretariat services to the Adaptation Fund Board (the Board) on an interim basis, through a dedicated team. Since becoming fully operational in 2010, the Board has approved over 190 projects and programs worth more than USD 1.2 billion in over 100 countries. Launched under the Kyoto Protocol of the UNFCCC, the Adaptation Fund has been formally serving the Paris Agreement since 2019. The Adaptation Fund is implementing its second medium term strategy (2023-2027) that rests on the three pillars of adaptation action, innovation and learning/knowledge management. The Adaptation Fund supports country-driven projects and programs, innovation, and global learning for effective adaptation. All of the Adaptation Fund’s activities are designed to build national and local adaptive capacities while reaching and engaging the most vulnerable groups, and to integrate gender consideration to provide equal opportunity to access and benefit from the Fund’s resources. They are also aimed at enhancing synergies with other sources of climate finance, while creating models that can be replicated or scaled up. The AF has been actively providing readiness and capacity-building support to developing countries since accreditation of the Fund’s first implementing entities and approval of its first projects by the Board in 2010. The Fund’s Readiness Programme for Climate Finance (Readiness Programme in short) sits within the Countries and Partnerships Unit (CPU), and aims to increase the capacity of developing country Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Paris Agreement, to directly access climate adaptation finance and their overall capacity to develop and initiate implementation of concrete projects and programmes that increase the resilience of vulnerable communities to the impacts of climate change. The Readiness Programme employs a variety of instruments and tools such as grants, seminars, workshops and country exchanges to deliver support to accredited implementing entities and developing countries seeking to access funds from the Fund. It is intricately linked to knowledge management activities within the Fund, and the Fund’s knowledge management and action plan deliberately links knowledge generation, capture and dissemination to the Fund’s Readiness activities. The Readiness Programme is implemented in complementarity and coherence with the readiness and capacity building activities of other actors in the international climate change cooperation landscape, including other providers of climate finance. The Adaptation Fund is seeking an Extended Term Consultant (ETC) – Readiness based in Washington, DC. S/he will report to the Senior Programme Officer, Lead of the Countries and Partnership Unit and be with the Programme Officer (Readiness Programme Coordinator) providing oversight of the ETC’s daily tasks. The ETC will provide technical support to the Readiness Programme Coordinator to strengthen evidence-based programme implementation, focusing on results-based portfolio management, readiness and capacity-building events, grant launches and reviews, and knowledge generation and dissemination of knowledge, lessons learned, and good practices to inform programme delivery and continuous improvement. The ETC will collaborate with the rest of the CPU and Secretariat team as required and appropriate. Duties and Accountabilities: The ETC will will be expected to carry out the following duties and responsibilities: Support for implementation and continuous improvement of the Readiness Programme: • Support the implementation of the Fund's Readiness Strategy and the Readiness-related components of the Medium-term Strategy implementation plan. This will include supporting the preparation of implementation and operational plans, technical assessments, analytical products, and other materials necessary to support evidence-based programme delivery, adaptive management, and the evolving priorities of the Readiness Programme. Support for Readiness Events: • Support the preparation of webinar and workshop materials, and development of draft agenda, and general workshop planning for the annual NIE seminar, re gional workshops and country exchanges • Capture event proceedings, prepare and disseminate reports • Administer evaluation surveys and the subsequent consolidation and analysis of feedback • Assist in preparation of meetings other readiness events as necessary • Support the implementation of readiness events through active attendance, as necessary, as well as posting relevant material and updating the Fund website readiness pages and other online platforms. Support the launch, review and approval of readiness grants: • Prepare materials such as calls for proposals, website blurbs etc., for the annual launch, review and approval of Readiness Package Grants, Technical Assistance Grants, and other Readiness grants • Upload readiness project related documents onto the Fund website • Support the preparation of readiness project review and decision documents Supporting Results Based Management function under the readiness portfolio: • Monitor readiness project reports, notifications to implementing entities, and providing information for the readiness component of the Financial Intermediary Funds (FIF) platform • File readiness project monitoring and completion reports and raise any issues that arise for actioning • Coordinate the desktop database of national and regional implementing entities, and update as and when informed by the implementing entity • Administer the Fund’s SurveyMonkey account including administering and analyzing surveys through the account • Undertake research, analysis and synthesis of data from the Readiness Programme portfolio to feed information into the Fund’s Annual Performance Report • Generate and synthesize data and information as necessary related to the tracking of output and outcome indicators to inform strategy and operations of the Readiness Programme in line with the programme Results Framework Support for the Knowledge Management component of readiness activities: • Support the capturing and sharing of lessons from readiness activities internally and externally to the Fund • Support the preparation of readiness deliverables outlined in the Fund’s Knowledge Management Action Plan in contribution to implementation of the Fund’s Knowledge Management Strategy • Support the Community of Practice for Direct Access Entities (CPDAE) and advance the community capacity-building objectives related to the Fund • Support online technical support for the hosting of webinars for implementing entities Facilitate the translation of relevant guidance documents that support implementing entity readiness and capacity-building.