Associate Professional, Project Finance

Associate Professional, Project Finance

The International Renewable Energy Agency is an inter-governmental organisation headquartered in Abu Dhabi, mandated to promote the widespread and increased adoption and sustainable use of all forms of renewable energy in the pursuit of sustainable development, energy access, energy security and low-carbon economic growth and prosperity. IRENA’s mission is to play a leading role in the ongoing transformation of the global energy systems as a centre of excellence for knowledge and innovation, a global voice of renewable energy, a network hub for all stakeholders and a source of advice and support for countries.  At present, IRENA has 170 Members (169 States and the European Union) that acceded to its Statute, and 14 additional States in the process of accession and actively engaged.

The Agency set up the Project Facilitation and Support (PFS) division to support Member Countries in transitioning to renewables and meeting their National Determined Contributions (NDC) and renewable energy (RE) targets. PFS’s mandate is to facilitate and support renewable energy project development at scale through technical assistance, capacity-building interventions, and matching projects to financial products and de-risking solutions.

Within the PFS division is the Project Financing Unit that hosts the Energy Transition Accelerator Financing (ETAF) Platform. ETAF is an inclusive, multi-stakeholder climate finance platform. ETAF pursues facilitating capital mobilisation to scale up the development of renewable energy projects to advance the energy transition across developing markets. ETAF has mobilised more than USD 4 billion from Partners to finance projects in IRENA Member countries with an ambition of reaching at least 5GW in renewable energy capacity.

Objective

The ETAF Secretariat’s mission is to mobilise and present to its funding partners projects that meet the established project eligibility criteria and score highly in terms of investment and financing readiness.

The Associate Professional (AP) will contribute to these efforts by coordinating ETAF’s partner engagements and supporting the mobilisation, assessments, and presentation of energy transition projects from IRENA member countries to its partners for financing considerations.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the guidance of the Programme Officer – Project Financing, the AP will contribute to delivering the following:

1. Stakeholder Coordination

• Supports coordination of the ETAF partners, including maintaining active dialogue, correspondence, timely response to partner requests, and distribution of documentation (meeting minutes, etc.).
• Supports onboarding new partners of the Project Financing Unit of PFS through drafting, follow-up, and filing documentation related to new partners, such as partnership agreements, assessment reports, minutes of meetings, etc.
• Coordinate the collection of inputs for ETAF documentation, including strategies, reports, communication materials, website updates, and surveys.
• Supports drafting of various communication materials related to project financing activities.
• Contributes to marketing efforts; manages ETAF’s social media channels and report back to the team on the various social media engagements and support marketing initiatives to make the project facilitation work of IRENA more visible and better understood.

1. Projects’ Portfolio Administration and Reporting

• Supports pre-filtering and assessing submitted project documents on the ETAF portal per the established criteria, drafting of project summaries (project memos), for eligible projects and their presentation to ETAF partners.
• Contributes to the Team’s activities aimed at sourcing of projects and related activities through outreach to developers at selected member countries, as well as ETAF Partners in Africa and SIDS.
• Undertakes periodic ETAF portfolio analyses and contributes to reports generation for various internal and external reporting requirements, by carrying out data collection, structured data entry and database management related to projects, countries and their financing needs for relevant projects.

1. IRENA-ADFD Facility’s related activities

• Setting up periodic follow-up calls between ADFD and the project implementation units of selected priority countries.
• Contribute to reporting the progress of the project implementation through minutes of meetings, brochures, factsheets, press releases, videos and social media communication materials.
• Undertakes research on projects, countries, partnerships, and other aspects of ETAF’s work as assigned by the supervisor.

1. Events and operational support

• Supports the ETAF Team in the logistics and preparation for events such as the IRENA General Assembly, Councils and Climate Change Conferences, Forum of Partners Meetings, Investment Forums, and consultation workshops.
• Supports the planning and execution of capacity-building interventions in selected target countries/regions and projects that are of strategic importance for the ETAF Platform deliverables.

1. Other tasks as required, such as monitoring the renewable energy investment landscape, including other initiatives that are comparable or relevant to the work of PFS.

Competencies

Professionalism: Knowledge of the renewable energy sector and its technologies, projects and structured financing. Ability to monitor and evaluate projects’ technical and financial documentation; proven ability to produce reports and papers on technical issues and convey these results to a variety of stakeholders; ability to review and edit the work of others.

Communication: Speaks and writes clearly and effectively; listens to others, correctly interprets messages from others and responds appropriately; asks questions to clarify and exhibits interest in having two-way communication; tailors language, tone, style and format to match audience; demonstrates openness in sharing information and keeping people informed.

Teamwork: Works collaboratively with IRENA’s team to achieve organisational goals; solicits input by genuinely valuing others’ ideas and expertise; learns from others; places team agenda before personal agenda; builds consensus for task purpose and direction with team members; shares credit for team accomplishments and accepts joint responsibility for team shortcomings.

Accountability: Takes ownership for responsibilities and honours commitments; delivers outputs for which one has responsibility within prescribed time, cost and quality standards; operates in compliance with organisational regulations and rules; provides oversight and takes ownership of delegated responsibilities; takes personal responsibility for his/her shortcomings, where applicable; operates in compliance with organisational regulations and rules.

Client Orientation: Considers all those to whom services are provided to be “clients” and seeks to see things from clients’ point of view; establishes and maintains productive partnerships with clients by gaining their trust and respect; identifies clients’ needs and matches them to appropriate solutions; monitors ongoing developments inside and outside the clients’ environment to keep informed and anticipate problems; keeps clients informed of progress or setbacks in projects; meets timeline for delivery of products or services to client.

Eligibility

Applicants should be no more than 32 years of age at the time of submitting their applications.

Qualifications

Education: Undergraduate university degree (bachelor’s degree or equivalent) in finance, energy, project management, public administration or a related field with an understanding of renewable energy, climate finance and project management. A master’s/advanced degree would be an added advantage.

Experience: Two years of relevant work experience, or advanced university degree.

Languages: Excellent command of written and spoken English is required for this position. Knowledge of other languages is desirable including Arabic, French and Spanish.