The Resilient Water Accelerator (RWA) is a new multi-stakeholder partnership that aims to boost climate finance to build the climate resilience of 50 million vulnerable people living in water-stressed areas by 2030. The Accelerator will enable climate vulnerable communities to secure clean and reliable water resources and services by helping design comprehensive climate-resilient water security programmes and unlock new sources of financing.

The Accelerator helps tackle three key barriers that low- and middle-income countries face in delivering on climate actions.

• Investment complexities: The Accelerator addresses the need for bespoke solutions towards building resilience that does not fit with the ‘large project’ mentality of many private and public financing institutions; and aims to develop and implement projects at the community level.
• ’Enabling environment’ challenges: The Accelerator recognizes that most in-need hotspots often lack the strong enabling environment (due to institutional weakness, risks, or high upfront costs) that investors require; and aims to strengthen the enabling environment for bringing in diverse sources of investment by strengthening the transparency and building up financial architecture to a level where public and private investors can feel confident their financial commitments will achieve climate resilience through multi-sectoral collaboration and enhanced sustainable water security.

Lack of collaboration: The Accelerator aims to facilitate innovative collaboration that brings together a wider range of stakeholders within countries and globally and creates multi-sectoral solutions for build climate resilience.

The Accelerator is currently being led by an interim Steering Committee including the African Development Bank, Arup, Global Water Partnership (GWP), Sustainable Markets Initiative, Government of the Netherlands, UK Government, WaterAid, and World Resources Institute (WRI). The Accelerator has set some ambitious goals to be achieved by COP27, including raising up to USD 20 million in programmatic funding and launching activities in 5 locations - Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, and Nigeria.

The Accelerator has already been successful in raising its required seed funding of USD 1-2 million and has been leading on many more donor conversations to help secure programmatic funding. Both sovereign and private donors have shown great interest in supporting the Accelerator, which is why we are now looking to hire the Accelerator’s Global Resource Mobilization Lead to help the Accelerator move ongoing discussions into real commitments by crafting best-in-class proposals, engaging and stewarding donor relationships, and leading on donor reporting as needed.

As the Global Resource Mobilization Lead, you will be setting the Accelerator’s resource mobilization strategy, engaging with key donors, and supporting Steering Committee members in their outreach to investors as needed. You will be working directly with the Director of the Resilient Water Accelerator as well as fundraising teams from across partner organizations, such as WaterAid, GWP and WRI, to drive the Accelerator towards achieving its goals. Key investors are likely to be a mix of sovereign donors and DFIs, as well as foundations and private organizations.  

The position will be hosted by WaterAid, which has been acting as the Accelerator’s interim host until an agreement with a long-term host has been finalized.

Primary responsibilities

The Global Resource Mobilization Lead will be responsible for:

• Develop the Accelerator’s resource mobilization strategy and related advocacy plan, with the aim of raising at least USD 20 million in programmatic funding:

o   Maintain and update overall strategy and engagement plan including setting the priorities and identifying the entry points and moments.

o   Develop budget required to deliver on the resource mobilization and advocacy strategy.

o   Keep the Secretariat, Steering Committee, and in-country partnerships focused on highest potential opportunities in support of the achievement of resource mobilization objectives. 

• Engage directly with donors as a primary representative of the Accelerator, especially governments and private sector organisations:

o   Build and manage donor relations. Lead coordination of inputs and meetings for senior stakeholders with donors including the Director of the Accelerator and Steering Committee members.

o   Work collaboratively with policy/programmes staff and other Secretariat colleagues to develop creative and feasible approaches to address funder questions.

• Develop cohesive donor pitch materials, develop donor pitch materials, support proposal development, and negotiate donor award T&C:

o   Lead development of pitch materials and advise on other documents and assets required for engagement with donors and other external stakeholders.

o   Support preparation of funding proposals and related documents for applications.

Essential Skills and Qualifications

• Experience developing, leading, and managing a resource mobilisation strategy and targets.
• Proven track record of securing significant funding opportunities (USD 5Mn+) in the water/climate space.
• Strong understanding of the donor landscape for the water and climate sectors, including networks within relevant key donor organisations.
• Proven track record in engaging directly with and building networks/ relations with senior representatives from donor and partner organisations.  
• Working knowledge of private sector finance opportunities.
• Ability to craft clear and compelling materials and pitches that synthesize complex policy language and multiple qualitative and quantitative inputs.
• Skilled in negotiating favourable outcomes in discussions with internal and external stakeholders.
• Fluent in spoken and written English.
• Passionate about climate adaptation and water security and driven to make a difference in the lives of vulnerable communities. 
• Strong team player. 

Desirable Skills and Qualifications

• Knowledge of climate finance sector/mechanisms.
• Fluency in French, Spanish, or German.
• Knowledge of project management tools or design software.

Budget responsibilities

The post-holder will not have budget accountability, although they may oversee a small amount of resource for events and assets (USD 100,000 – 150,000).

Travel

Potentially – this post holder might need to attend events in various places across the world, e.g., UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt.

Ways of Working

The post holder will be required to work collaboratively and build effective working relationships across key colleagues at WaterAid and within the Resilient Water Accelerator’s steering committee, in a matrix and hybrid environment.

The ideal candidate will need to be inclusive and embrace our values of Respect, Accountability, Courage, Collaboration, Integrity, and Innovation.