Climate Finance and Investment Specialist

Position overview

The Climate Finance and Investment Specialist will lead ICIMOD’s investment work.  This role will require strong management and leadership skills and will contribute to the management of the broader global advocacy action area.  The aim of the work area is to leverage and attract climate-resilient and green investment into the HKH. The role will require engagement with international funders, including the global climate and environment funds, development partners, regional and global finance institutions, and multiple public and private-sector partners, including other knowledge partners. The Climate Finance and Investment Specialist will explore beyond traditional sources of finance towards private investment, whether through innovative public-private mechanisms, capacity building or other approaches.

This role will require collaborative working across ICIMOD and with partners outside the organisation. This will require strong leadership and management skills.  Part of this work is funded by the UK FCDO’s Himalayan Resilience Enabling Action Programme (HIREAP), funded under the high-profile Climate Action for a Resilient Asia (CARA) programme.  This requires cross-working with UNDP, the World Bank, and the ADB, and other CARA partners.  This role could develop further in 2027, when ICIMOD’s next four-year strategic planning phase begins.  The post holder will need to be flexible and respond to any shifts in the work required.

Responsibilities

The Climate Finance and Investment Specialistwill be responsible for delivering results in line with our Strategy 2030: Moving Mountains and our Medium-Term Action Plan V (2023–2026): Embracing Change and Accelerating Impact and the currently evolving MTAP VI. The incumbent will lead all elements of the work area and play a significant role in the management and steering of climate finance work in the ICIMOD Action Area: Global, including line managing staff in the work area.

Manage and provide leadership for the work area

1.       Lead the work area, setting direction and driving delivery.  Manage the staff in the work area, providing clear objectives, guidance, feedback and support, and ensuring the team works together for maximum impact.

2.       Ensure work on investment across ICIMOD is joined up, mutually supportive, and not duplicative.  Actively pursue cross-office engagement to ensure this.

3.       Hold accountability for this work, including the quality and timeliness of delivery against results stated in the 2026–30 Results Framework as well as the requirements of any other bilateral projects, such as HIREAP/CARA.

4.       Be responsible for planning, budgeting and reporting of all activities within the work area including to any bilateral donors.

5.       Be responsible for partner management and coordination, including identifying strategic partnerships, developing new relationships and tracking and maintaining partner relationships.

6.       Overseeing the delivery of consultancies or contractual relationships related to the intervention in accordance with ICIMOD standard operating procedures.

7.       Ensure inclusivity when designing activities to integrate gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) issues.

8.       Ensure that the work area is correctly staffed, has effective support from other relevant staff in ICIMOD, and that strategic links across ICIMOD and externally are encouraged.

9.       Respond flexibly and effectively to future changes to the work area, potentially including to its structure and content, and to the functions of this role.

Build on and develop our investment work including through the Mountains of Opportunity Investment Framework initiative

1.       Lead strategic discussions to design methods and activities for ICIMOD’s investment work, accounting for the needs of HKH region partners and linking the work to that of ICIMOD’s Strategic Groups and Action Areas.

2.       Work with other Strategic Groups in ICIMOD to propose potential solutions to the challenges facing the HKH.  Present these to our core stakeholders, partners and investors to facilitate and enable future investments.

3.       Identify, conceptualise, formulate, and implement a bankable climate-finance relevant project portfolio.  This includes developing proposals in collaboration with others in ICIMOD, ICIMOD partners, and Regional Member Countries, for the global climate and environment funds, and exploring new innovative finance opportunities, such as blended finance.

4.       Alongside a small number of partner organisations and focusing on leveraging ICIMOD’s knowledge and network capabilities, co-lead the creation, from concept development to delivery, of investment opportunities for the region (likely two per year), to facilitate the leveraging of investment into the region.

5.       Lead in further developing and deploying a multistakeholder platform, the Investment Working Group, formed in 2025, to promote strategic thinking, collaboration, and identifying and defining how, through the right partnerships, ICIMOD can support investment into the region.

6.       Lead in developing our work to scale up support to entrepreneurs in the HKH.

7.       Develop and foster partnerships and networks across the HKH with key knowledge and finance partners.

8.       Lead our work to build the knowledge base and knowledge products for HKH on investment.

9.       Lead the team to deliver a programme of events and content in support of the platform.

Leverage climate finance for the HKH countries

1.       Provide thought leadership in ICIMOD on the topic of investment, especially in the context of the multiple new opportunities emerging globally, including innovative finance instruments, blended finance, challenge funds, philanthropic finance and similar.  This includes developing conceptual thinking on an investment platform or uniting investment support structure.

2.       Lead or support as relevant any processes of accreditation to other global funds, building on ICIMOD’s accreditation of the Adaptation Fund, and capitalise further on these opportunities.

3.       Lead ICIMOD’s work to harness investment expertise and build solutions to close the gap between knowledge organisations such as ICIMOD and investors who are seeking bankable business cases.

4. Build global advocacy for additional investment into the HKH.