The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, now in its 11th year, connects more than 90 of the world’s greatest cities, representing over 650 million people and one quarter of the global economy. Created and led by cities, C40 is focused on tackling climate change and driving urban action that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks, while increasing resilience.
The Inclusive Climate Action (ICA), Senior Manager, Africa role is a remote position based in Nairobi, focused on advancing equitable urban climate action across the African region.
Key Responsibilities
Technical Responsibilities
- Support cities in the African Region (and potentially cities in South East Asia TBD) in their implementation of key priority adaptation actions from their Climate Action Plans (CAPs), e.g., by helping them to identify and establish critical partnerships for delivery and opportunities to embed equity and inclusivity in policies and city-led programmes.
- Support the design and delivery of tailored technical assistance projects that advance equitable, inclusive, and high-impact adaptation interventions prioritised in city CAPs.
- Collaborate with C40 teams and consultants to mainstream adaptation across financial strategies, private sector, civil-society engagement, and climate governance frameworks in cities.
- Provide technical support to cities in the African Region on climate risk assessments, vulnerability analyses, and adaptation planning, ensuring these outputs are used to inform evidence-based adaptation actions with a strong socio-economic component.
- Contribute to capacity building through workshops, training, and knowledge exchange to strengthen city officials’ skills in climate adaptation, equity integration, and finance mobilisation.
- Elicit learnings and best practice examples from activities and processes and provide input to ensure that this knowledge is exchanged and shared across all cities in the Resilient Urban Futures programme as well as shared across other relevant platforms for cross learning.
- Engage with and support the overall Inclusive Climate Action Programme to help cities address wider climate-related equity challenges, notably by providing specific technical expertise, peer learning, and knowledge sharing to C40 teams and other cities in the region as needed.
- Act as the lead and policy expert, serving as the main point of contact for City Resilient Advisors and programme staff on deliverable strategies and knowledge sources across key climate and inclusion issues (i.e., just transition, gender equity, informality, loss and damages, green jobs, disability, and more).
Coordination & Stakeholder Engagement
- As a subject matter expert on ICA, work closely with city officials, C40 staff, and consultants to coordinate C40-supported adaptation activities as well as specific equity and inclusivity consultancies, ensuring these are delivered on time, meet quality standards, and align with C40 approaches and processes at the global level.
- Lead and support the development, identification and tracking of all ICA-relevant city-based work (i.e., work plan, typology of support needed). Develop annual workplans, track progress against KPIs and identified impact goal(s), coalition building/stakeholder engagement efforts and where relevant/possible benefits assessment, and contribute evidence to demonstrate impact to donors and partners.
- Broker strategic partnerships between cities, local governments, civil society, and the private sector to promote collaboration and amplify adaptation efforts.
- Lead in the assessment of mayoral and city government powers related to the collective objective of driving the Just Transition agenda from the city perspectives and to influence integration of adaptation priorities into city governance structures, including budgets, planning regulations and pilot initiatives with a strong equity lens.
- Actively participate in relevant C40 knowledge networks and forums (e.g., ICA Forum) to scale good practices and strengthen regional collaboration on climate adaptation. Additionally, build links with other C40 workstreams and projects to inform programme delivery and disseminate key lessons learned.
- Lead in uplifting lessons on ICA from the Resilient Urban Futures programme to inform C40's wider approach and work on ICA.
- Based on city readiness, identify pilot projects to strengthen city governance for adaptation collaboration with local communities.
- Support the ICA Deputy Director and the ICA Programme Director in liaising and reporting to the programme management team and funders and in exploring new partnerships.
- Undertake other related tasks as required to advance C40’s mission on equitable urban climate action, ensuring that the work contributes towards the C40 Business Plan, Leadership Standards and KPIs.
Person Specification and Requirements
- Experience: Proven experience and engagement of working with or for municipal administrations in Africa on programmes or projects, especially relating to climate action plans or climate adaptation policies.
- Understanding: Demonstrated understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with working with senior city officials and city leaders.
- Stakeholder Management: Ability to convene and influence diverse stakeholders, including city leaders, community organisations, and private sector actors.
- Qualifications: Relevant qualifications or equivalent professional experience (BA/BSc/HND) in climate change adaptation, resilience planning, disaster risk reduction, urban resilience, development, community engagement, gender equity or related fields.
- Technical Expertise: Demonstrated experience in translating technical climate data into policy or investment decisions, e.g. through risk assessments, vulnerability assessments, infrastructure resilience, nature-based solutions, adaptation finance, and resource mobilisation will be a key consideration in this role.
- Project Management: Strong project management skills with excellent organisational abilities and proven capacity to meet deadlines.
- Partnerships: Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively and effectively with major global partners, including NGOs, corporate sectors, funders, and multilateral development banks.
- Communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience facilitating workshops, webinars, and virtual or in-person meetings.
- Analytical Skills: Strong problem-solving, strategic thinking, and analytical skills, exceptional attention to detail.
- Work Ethic: Proactive self-starter, able to work independently as well as part of a team.
- Cultural Competence: Experience or interest in working across diverse cultures, languages, and time zones.
- Language Fluency: Fluency in English and the local language required.
