Program Officer - Climate Resilience

Organizational Context

UNICEF's mission is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, through its programs, advocacy, and operations. The equity strategy focuses on the most disadvantaged children and families, ensuring they have opportunities to survive, develop, and reach their full potential. In the Maldives, UNICEF's work prioritizes climate-resilient services and infrastructure, recognizing the significant threats posed by extreme climate events. The country office collaborates with government ministries and young people to build climate-resilient islands.

Job Purpose

This UN Volunteer position is integral to UNICEF Maldives' Climate Resilient Education initiative, supporting the Education Section. The role involves close collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Climate Change, Environment and Energy, and the National Disaster Management Centre. The primary objective is to manage the Climate-Resilient Education Portfolio, ensuring timely implementation of activities, and to support the development, monitoring, and reporting of project work plans and budgets. The position will also facilitate coordination among UNICEF, government bodies, and other stakeholders, ensuring project alignment with national climate strategies and education sector priorities.

Responsibilities

The Program Officer - Climate Resilience will manage the day-to-day coordination of the Climate-Resilient Education Portfolio, ensuring timely activity implementation and supporting project work plans, budgets, and results frameworks. Responsibilities include facilitating coordination between UNICEF, the Ministry of Education, and other relevant ministries and stakeholders, ensuring alignment with national climate strategies and education priorities. The role involves providing technical input on Disaster Risk Reduction/Management and climate-adaptive education policies. A key function is coordinating the development of Green Climate Fund (GCF) project proposals, overseeing consultants, managing budgets, and ensuring quality assurance and compliance with UNICEF and GCF requirements. This includes leading internal and external quality assurance of proposals, ensuring robustness of theories of change, log frames, and risk registers. The position will also lead in-country coordination and stakeholder engagement, including facilitating multi-stakeholder consultations and managing financial structuring and co-financing plans. Internal UNICEF coordination, knowledge management, and timely reporting are also crucial, including maintaining document repositories and developing post-approval readiness plans.

Work Experience

A minimum of 3 years of relevant professional experience is required, with 4 years being desirable. Experience in climate financing and working with UN agencies or international development organizations is essential. Experience supporting the development or quality assurance of climate finance proposals, particularly GCF-funded initiatives, is an asset. Experience in project design, management, or evaluation, and coordinating with government counterparts and multiple stakeholders, is also highly valued.

Skills

Core values include Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability. Key competencies encompass Accountability, Adaptability and flexibility, Creativity, Judgement and decision-making, Planning and organising, Professionalism, Self-management, and a Growth mindset. Expertise in climate change, environment, energy, and natural resource management is explicitly mentioned.

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