City Advisor, Accra (Inclusive Climate Action)

The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, now in its 15th year, connects 96 of the world’s greatest cities which have committed to tackling climate change. We bring mayors from around the world together to learn from each other in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating resilient, sustainable and low carbon cities. C40 cities represent more than 700 million urban citizens and their economies account for 25% of the global GDP. C40’s ‘Deadline 2020’ report sets out the critical role that the world’s major cities have to play in delivering the historic Paris Agreement to prevent catastrophic climate change.

C40’s team of 200+ staff is headquartered in New York, with offices in London, Rio de Janeiro, Copenhagen, Beijing and Paris, and individual staff based across 25+ different locations, with the Office of the Chair based in Los Angeles.

The strategic direction of the organization is determined by an elected Steering Committee of C40 mayors which is chaired by the Mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti. Three-term Mayor of New York City Michael R. Bloomberg serves as President of the C40 Board of Directors, which is responsible for operational oversight. An eight-person management team, led by Executive Director, Mark Watts, leads the day-to-day management of C40. C40’s three core strategic funders are Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) and Realdania.

At C40, we are committed to creating an inclusive working environment, where diversity is valued and there is equality of opportunity. We therefore encourage a diverse pool of applicants and welcome applications from all sections of the community and would like to request you to complete the recruitment and diversity questionnaire, to help us monitor our recruitment and selection procedures.  For how C40 handles your personal information, please review our Privacy Notice – Recruitment.

Inclusive Climate Action Programme

The Inclusive Climate Action (ICA) Programme was established at the behest of a group of C40 mayors for C40’s business plan 2017-2020. The programme focuses on supporting mayors and cities to ensure local climate policies and initiatives are designed in an inclusive way and have equitable impacts, as a way to make the case for bold climate action and maximize its benefits across urban populations. The programme aims at delivering leadership and advocacy support, technical and strategic assistance, training and peer-to-peer exchange on assessing and understanding the wider benefits of climate action; increasing capacity to engage inhabitants and stakeholders; and designing inclusive and just climate strategies.

About the C40 Cities Global Green New Deal (GGND) Initiative

Through a new initiative of the ICA Programme, C40 will be supporting targeted engagement in 20+ champion cities across 5 regions focusing on delivering inclusive climate action, a just transition and demonstrating what C40’s vision for a Global Green New Deal (GGND) – including a green and just recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic – looks like in practice in cities. The initiative will draw on C40’s expertise to advance aggressive climate mitigation targets, a just and equitable transition, and adaptive resilience in North America, Europe, Africa and Latin America. The aim is to ensure mayors and cities contribute as world leaders to reimagining societies and communities in a way that is low carbon, just and prosperous, and reduce the risk of further pandemic crises and avoid climate breakdown.

The initiative will:

1. Provide cities with informed guidance and assistance to accelerate the inclusive and equitable implementation of their climate action plans and declarations, including just transition pathways to a new green and inclusive economy
2. Support mayors in putting inclusive climate action at the heart of urban decision making, through targeted support and best practice examples of policies and programs that create equitable outcomes
3. Showcase the results in order to spread success to cities around the world and influence the global narrative on climate leadership and Covid-19 recovery, supporting mayors to provide political leadership to compel adoption of more ambitious and equitable climate action and to nurture cross-sectoral coalitions
4. Create a Global Green New Deal platform around which climate movements can align, led by mayors and bringing into the fold organized labor, youth activists and business networks

Position Description

The C40 Inclusive Climate Action (ICA) City Advisor will act as the focal point for the City of Accra for the delivery and implementation of support provided by the GGND pilot initiative, which puts inclusion and equity at the heart of ambitious climate action. Working closely with the City of Accra, C40’s ICA and Regions Teams and any other relevant C40 team (and key stakeholders, where relevant), the City Advisor will co-develop and co-define a programme of work, to support Accra in recovering from COVID-19 in a sustainable and equitable way, delivering key Paris-compatible climate actions that are responsive to the inclusion and equity principles of the Global Green New Deal.

S/he will oversee and deliver deep-dive technical and strategic support to relevant departments in the City Administration. More specifically, the post holder will support the implementation of strategic inclusive climate actions/policies/initiatives identified within the city’s Climate Action Plan that respond to the needs, capacities and resilience building priorities of vulnerable communities, informal workers and informal settlement dwellers.

S/he will be responsible for engaging internal and external stakeholders; facilitating knowledge transfer across the city and the wider C40 network; providing high-quality tailored scopes of work, procuring local consultancy support (in consultation with the city); providing guidance and revisions on city-based deliverables; and coordinating with relevant team members (including the ICA Technical Assistance Manager, the ICA Forum Manager and the Africa Regional Director) to ensure that the city’s needs and interests are met and addressed by the technical assistance support package, the ICA academies, communication and knowledge products and any other relevant output and support mechanism. The ICA City Advisor will also coordinate with the City’s Climate Action Planning Adviser to support coherent set-up and delivery of ICA’s technical assistance, engagement, diplomacy and coalition building activities relevant to the City of Accra.

On managing the political and strategic relationships with the city with regards to activities at national, regional and city-level, the ICA City Adviser will be managed by the Regions Team, in consultation with the designated officials in the city and with the Head of GGND pilot implementation.

On activities related to the developing and delivery of inclusivity and equity components and activities, the ICA City Adviser will be managed by the Head of Green New Deal Pilot Implementation, in consultation with the designated official in the city and with the Regional and Deputy Directors.

The ideal candidate for the city of Accra, Ghana will have a strong background in climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience and possibly solid waste management. This post holder will have an in-depth and thorough understanding and experience of inclusive stakeholder engagement and inclusive climate action planning, delivery and monitoring within cities. Additionally, the candidate will have a thorough understanding and experience in engaging with informal workers and within informal settlements, with informal groups and informal economies representatives and/or with local Community Based Organisations and NGOs. Furthermore, the candidate will have excellent project management and communication skills.

Responsibilities:

• Lead and support the development, identification and tracking of all ICA-relevant city-based work including setting impact goal(s), work plans (incl. typology of support needed), coalition building/stakeholder engagement efforts and benefits assessments
• Lead in the assessment of mayoral and city government powers (city resilience, economic growth, social justice) related to the key areas of work on inclusion and equity in climate action
• Support the identification of the city’s sister city(ies) that Accra will engage with (through ICA Academies and in-person and virtual convenings) on working with informal groups within key climate sectors
• Actively participate and, where relevant, support in the development and delivery of key ICA-related technical assistance; peer-to-peer learning; online resources, knowledge products and content production; study visits; diplomacy/advocacy strategy development; strategic communications through in-person and virtual events that will include:
  • A training of trainers for all ICA City Advisors
  • ICA Academies and Workshop/s with wider cohorts of cities
  • Peer-to-peer webinars;
  • City-based coalition building workshop/s
• Manage and support the identification, procurement and follow-up of local consultancies and their work with the aim to build city capacity to implement inclusive climate action with an emphasis on benefits assessments related to engaging informal groups in climate action within key sectors;
• Support the city in key stakeholder engagement and inclusion strategies related to specific climate action/s identified with the city on the basis of their Climate Action Plan
• Engage internal and external stakeholders to ensure their commitment to resource and implement ambitious and transformational action and facilitate better national and local integration of inclusive climate mitigation and adaptation activities;
• Facilitate the city’s engagement with the Inclusive Climate Action Forum

Person Specification:

• Demonstrable experience in government, business or NGO sectors with a focus on equity and inclusion, sustainability and/or climate change, and substantive experience working with or within municipal governments;
• Technical expertise in inclusive climate action planning, delivery and monitoring
• Expertise in stakeholder engagement, in particular with informal workers and with/within informal settlements and/or with local CBOs and NGOs
• Thorough understanding and familiarity with the city’s Climate Action Plan (CAP) will be an asset
• Excellent project-management, strategic thinking and analytical capabilities;
• Demonstrable problem-solving, budget and people management experience, including working with third party delivery teams, and ability to manage multiple parallel tasks;
• Strong interpersonal, relationship building and written and verbal communication skills, combined with English fluency; knowledge and understanding of local Ghanaian languages relevant to Accra are an asset
• Strong stakeholder engagement, convening and facilitation experience, as well as experience in developing or facilitating webinars and workshops;
• Capacity to work across different cultures, languages and time zones.

Other Requirements:

Applicants must already have the right to work in Ghana. Some travel may be required as part of the role.

Location: Accra, Ghana

Term: Fixed Term Contract - 1 year (with possibility of extension depending on funding)

Salary: GHC 220,633.00 gross per annum

Closing date for receipt of applications is Monday 21 September 2020.

To learn more about the work of C40 and our cities, please visit www.c40.org, follow us on Twitter @c40cities and like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/C40Cities.

C40 is an equal opportunities employer.