Organizational Context

Job Purpose

Under the joint supervision of the coordinator-Disaster Risk Management, IFRC Country Cluster Delegation in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and the Coordinator- DRR, Climate Change and Community Resilience, IFRC Americas Regional Office. The Climate-smart Livelihoods Officer will provide support for overall technical, guidance and coordination to the relevant parts; ensure the quality, coherence, and timely implementation of the Livelihood strategies, providing programmatic guidance when required, and monitoring of results, as well as advance climate-smart livelihoods in programmes and operations. Will focus on contribute to the integrated and participatory processes for ensuring appropriate and dignified habitats for the most vulnerable communities affected by crises, from emergency to recovery and resilience, as well as supporting IFRC Regional Office and Country Cluster Delegation to integrate climate-smart livelihoods initiatives into National Society programming as part of their operations and programmes.

The Climate-smart Livelihoods Officer will oversee the advances in the Americas of the Global Climate Resilience Programme, supporting the National Societies engaging in Climate Action Pathways, with a special focus on climate-smart programmes and operations, and contributes to capacity building and the development of approaches and tools to support the translation of global policy and standards into practice at the national and local level. The Global Climate Resilience Programme focuses on supporting National Societies to work with communities to reduce their vulnerability and exposure to the impacts of climate change by scaling up climate-smart DRR and climate change adaptation activities. Communities and National Societies will be better prepared to manage forecasted weather events and new climate extremes through effective community early warning systems and anticipatory action. The Officer will support National Societies from the Americas with the implementation of nature-based solutions to increase the resilience of communities before, during and after disasters, building longer-term resilience.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

Ensure quality and accountability in IFRC humanitarian operations and long-term programmes

• Provide support to the IFRC Americas Regional Office, the IFRC Country Cluster Delegation in Dominican Republic and, when required, to the National Society, for overall technical, guidance and coordination to the relevant parts with the implementation/adaptation of climate smart-livelihoods programs, with a focus on strengthening climate-smart programming across interventions (to be prioritized accordingly).
• Provide technical support to the Senior Officer, Global Climate – Smart Livelihoods
• Technically support regional and country-level activities on climate-smart livelihoods programming.
• Promote uptake of climate-smart livelihoods programming within country.
• Lead and coordinate the development of operational procedures, training materials, tools and standards to mainstream climate-smart livelihoods programming in close coordination with the LRC and CCC.
• Lead and coordinate the development of information and communications materials to help disseminate climate-smart livelihoods programming concepts and practices to National Societies.
• Ensure timely and high-quality climate-smart livelihoods programming-related technical advice for Emergency Appeals and to disaster operational teams.
• Conduct briefings and awareness activities to ensure mainstreaming of climate-smart livelihoods programming in IFRCs disaster responses and programming.
• Closely coordinate and collaborate with other IFRC components, sectors and teams (migration, health, WASH, Community Resilience, disaster preparedness, PER, climate, anticipation, etc.) to seek synergies and collaborations between climate-smart livelihoods and other IFRCs sectors.
• Coordinate operational reviews and case studies with a particular focus on identifying good climate-smart livelihoods programming practices for the development of guidance materials and the dissemination of knowledge.
• Propose innovative pilots and feasibility studies that can promote climate-smart livelihoods programming and/or access new funding streams.

Extended capacity to support the Livelihoods technical area of the project, with an emphasis on the Dominican Republic.

• Monitoring of administrative management for the Dominican Republic. Support for South-South cooperation between the Dominican Republic and Colombia, and identification of lessons learned from the project in the Livelihoods area.

Extended support for Regionally Climate-Smart Livelihoods.

• Ensure that knowledge transfer between programmes and within the IFRC and NS is achieved, by fostering the exchange of lessons learned/ best practices on Livelihoods; supporting the participation of key Livelihood focal points or representation of NS in regional/ global technical forums; dissemination of key findings/ case studies on Livelihoods (minimum one), with an emphasis on scaling up climate smart programming.
• Participate in IFRC ARO planning and monitoring exercises for year 2024 report; mid-year review of Regional and Sub-regional Plans 2024, Regional and Sub-regional Planning of 2024-2025 to address the Livelihoods sectors; including, but not limited to oversighting and supporting sub-regional discussions, inputs and budget integration; develop clear, costed, time-bound and resourced plans of action; develop clear monitoring information (qualitative and quantitative) to track progress and impact of subsequent regional programme activities; ensure regular monitoring of regional activities, identifying and addressing delays in implementation where necessary.

Job Duties and Responsibilities (continued)

Extended support for Programs in the Santo Domingo Delegation.

• Facilitate training sessions face to face or remote, for NS’s employees or volunteers on livelihoods climate-smart programming and how to adapt methodologies, approaches, and tools, to be prioritized accordingly.
• Provide oversight of quality assurance to DREF and Emergency Appeals on the Livelihoods sector (at least four initiatives supported per month – to be prioritized accordingly).
• Identify partnership/ synergy opportunities with key local and international partners. Provide programmatic guidance and technical inputs to integrate Livelihoods in ongoing and new interventions, with an emphasis on scaling up climate smart programming, and basic need requirements/ considerations in proposal and concept notes to scale-up sectoral actions and sustainability of the regional strategy.

Contribute to an effective, high quality IFRC team.

• Develop regular progress reports on results against objectives and risk analyses as required.
• Accommodate flexible working practices including working as part of time-limited, task-oriented teams to enable the IFRC to respond to new scenarios, operational needs or requests from Governance or the wider Membership.
• Contribute to a client-oriented approach that values proactivity, continuous improvement, innovation, high performance and cost effectiveness.
• Foster a collaborative working environment with colleagues in the Secretariat, Regions, National Societies and external partners.
• Be available to deploy to Country Offices, or Operations to provide support as necessary.

Education

REQUIRED:

• Bachelor’s and master’s degrees or equivalent professional qualifications in relevant subject: Humanitarian assistance/development studies with focus on food security and nutrition, agriculture or agronomy, agricultural economics or equivalent experience required.
• Technical training in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery
• Technical training, or equivalent experience in livelihoods

PREFERRED:

• Technical training in environment, climate change, sustainability or related topic

Experience

REQUIRED:

• 2-3 years’ Livelihoods and basic needs technical support, project management and/ or implementation experience (may include private sector).
• 2-3 years’ experience in working for a humanitarian aid organization in an upper middle-income and developing countries
• 2-3 years’ experience working in the Americas Region.
• Experience with the development of Livelihoods and basic needs tools and guidelines within the region
• Direct experience promoting the theme of environmental sustainability in the humanitarian sector
• Able to work and coordinate with different levels of stakeholders in countries and across the region. Representation experience with government, UN and non-government agencies/representatives preferred
• Experience with preparedness and emergency response preferred.
• Experience in strategy development, developing tools and guidance, providing technical assistance
• Experience in drafting project proposals, preparing budgets and drafting narrative and financial reports working with institutional and high-profile donors.

PREFERRED:

• Experience working within the RC/RC Movement
• Experience of the IFRC humanitarian operations system, surge, assessment process, funding tools etc.

Knowledge, Skills and Languages

REQUIRED:

• Excellent communication and inter-personal skills with the ability to represent the International Federation and to negotiate and influence people’s opinions.
• Knowledge of technical aspects of disaster preparedness, response and recovery, and of key donor and partner organisations.
• Flexible and adaptable to work effectively in a multicultural environment and ability to travel at short notice.
• Computer knowledge as a user: self-supporting in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
• Fluent spoken and written in Spanish and English

PREFERRED:

• Knowledge of emerging standards and best practices in the area of greener humanitarian response (environment in humanitarian action)
• Knowledge of cross-cutting environmental topics for the humanitarian sector, such as waste management, household energy, nature-based solutions etc
• Knowledge of minimum standards for disaster response, and performance and accountability frameworks.
• Good command of another IFRC official language (i.e. French or Portuguese)

Competencies, Values and Comments

Values: Respect for diversity; Integrity; Professionalism; Accountability

Core competencies: Communication; Collaboration and teamwork; Judgement and decision making; National society and customer relations; Creativity and innovation; Building