WRI India Careers

Description

Who we are and what we do?

About your role: 

WRI India is looking for a Senior Program Associate to join the Climate Resilience Practice (CRP) team in India. You will support the vision of CRP to help different tiers of the government, civil society, and other relevant partners to mainstream climate change into development planning and policies for the state of Tamil Nadu.

WRI’s CRP team engages in a diverse body of work. The current projects build on a foundation of almost 10 years of work on climate change adaptation, much of which was conducted by a prior incarnation known as the Vulnerability & Adaptation Initiative. CRP has developed path-setting knowledge products to assess national institutional capacity and support civil society to enhance resilience efforts at the scale required.

You will be a unique opportunity for those wishing to be the forefront of cutting-edge research and implementation in the field of climate change planning, institutional capacity building and mobilizing finance for climate action. You will join a team at CRP and work with main government partners in the state to train and build institutional capacity to mainstream climate change (adaptation and mitigation) into the state’s overall development planning. You will be housed in the department of environment (DoE) with the TN government, and participate in daily coordination to support the state government in planning of their climate change agenda.

How your day will unfold:

Your main responsibilities will include the following:

Research & Knowledge

• Develop frameworks for integrating climate adaptation and resilience actions with district and city plans and budgets, specifically in Madhya Pradesh and other states
• Support mainstreaming of adaptation actions with development plans at the districts, holding consultations with line departments for co-developing actions
• Support research on climate finance and mobilizing resources for adaptation activities at the district and state level
• Carrying out field visits, grassroot level consultations with community members in select villages/panchayats of Madhya Pradesh for climate smart village development and feasibility reports
• Help pilot test frameworks and tools that help states prioritise climate actions to mainstream with development budgets
• Be the on-ground contact for the project in Madhya Pradesh to partner with state/district governments and private sector
• Have reasonable understanding of vulnerabilities of MSMEs and resilience building for such enterprises
• Holding consultations, qualitative and quantitative data that help understand vulnerability of MSMEs and labour
• Undertake field visits to the relevant priority districts/blocks/villages and private enterprises for gathering information and feedback from diverse partners
• Collect and analyze qualitative and quantitative data
• Contribute to knowledge products and working papers

Administrative 

• Partner with governmental and non-governmental partners and other important identified partners
• Plan and implement state level training programmes for partners.
• Organize internal and external meetings, workshops, conferences and other sharing activities.
• Be a contact ponit for the project, with state government and private enterprises for daily activities and report back to the team

Qualifications and requirements we seek:

Required Qualifications:

• Master’s Degree in Economics, Environment, Natural Resource Economics, Climate Change, Development Studies or related discipline.
• Between 5-7 years of relevant fulltime research work experience in related domains
• Experience of international, national and sub-national climate change policy landscape (SAPCC, NAPCC, NDC, NAP, city climate action plans), MSMEs
• An understanding of the government budget planning process and public finance management
• Prior work experience at the sub-national level and liasoning with state governments
• Prior work experience in the states of India, and Madhya Pradesh
• Undertake quantitative and qualitative analysis of large data sets
• Travel for work and conduct field visits and on short notice
• An analytical and creative mind who can come up with innovative solutions to tackle complex problems
• Fluency in English and Hindi required

Preferred Qualifications:

• Prior experience in writing reports and publishing papers on climate change policy
• Strong, proven track record on climate resilience research, finance, in particular a firm grasp on public budgetary processes across different sectors at national and sub-national levels, working with the private sector and MSMEs
• Prior work experience with research organizations, field level experience
• Prior experience in engaging and working with governmental agencies and sectors, and networking with other partners from the environmental and developmental space.

• Cover Letter
•  Resume

People-centric to the core: