Manager, Blended Finance

Job Description

Project Overview

Rare is a fast-growing international conservation organization making strides towards promoting widespread sustainable fishing practices in multiple countries. One of the countries is Indonesia with the goal of improving near shore fisheries. Most of the small-scale fisheries in Indonesia are inherently local: fishers from coastal communities’ fish their near-shore waters and sell their catch in the local market. These fisheries are anchors to the local economy – a key part of the social and cultural fabric of the archipelago and essential to the nation’s food security. To ensure sustainable coastal fisheries, effective management must focus at the same level as the activity: locally. But, devolution of fisheries management authority from the Indonesian national government to the district level and the subsequent re-absorption to the provincial level has left critical gaps in effective fisheries governance across coastal communities. Since 2014, Rare in Indonesia has used behavior-centered design to build a community’s agency and capacity to address coastal fishing challenges and adopt more responsible fishing behaviors.

Under the Blended Finance Initiative, Rare is developing a pathway to finance community-led conservation at scale by blending philanthropy, public funding, bilateral/multilateral finance and private capital. This position will be a key addition to a growing team. S/he will help provide the financial analysis, models and research to help design and scale blended finance solutions in Indonesia.

The ideal candidate is dynamic, resourceful, detail-oriented and high-energy, with the ability to produce high quality outputs and problem solve under high pressure environments. S/he is creative, analytical and well organized, a strong communicator and has experience in government relations.

Position Overview

The position will support the design of a Blended Finance Structure for Sustainable Fisheries and Marine Conservation in Indonesia (BFS for SFMC). This position will support a joint project undertaken by the Government of Indonesia through the Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas) and Rare. The main responsibility of the Manager is to coordinate activities between stakeholders in the development of a Blended Finance structure to ensure continued and effective collaboration between Rare and the government’s team at Bappenas. The position will require the ability to liaise with high-level of government officials, convening, organizing and ensuring the delivery of planned tasks and reports. It will require an ability to work with cross functional teams, producing analysis and reports on relevant policies, regulations and financial procedures. A requirement for this position is the ability to manage projects under tight deadlines and report of progress on the deliverables.

Essential Functions

The Blended Finance Manager must be an effective manager, able to deliver results on a tight timeline and working with high level government officials tracking deliverables on a complex financial product to ensure that the project is completed according to the key specifications by the set deadline.

Support and manage the project plan for establishment of Blended Finance structure reporting to the Director of Blended Finance in Arlington.

In collaboration with the counter part from Bappenas the manager will

• Report of the progress of the project plan for establishing the Marine Financing Authority (MFA)
• Organize data collection at both the provincial and national level
• Convene high-level Working Group meetings between government and Rare
• Analyze legal & policy frameworks and draft summary reports
• Hire and manage technical consultants as needed
• Support the writing of proposals, reports, documents and publication materials
• Coordinate financial analysis work with the Blended Finance Director and Financial Analyst
• Participate in weekly meetings with the Blended Finance Team
• Coordinate meetings with counterparts in Bappenas
• Serve as liaison between Rare Blended Finance team and Bappenas
• Lead the feasibility and landscape analysis
• Work to expand relationships with stakeholders necessary to the delivery of the MFA
• Work with local governments on capacity building in financial management

Assist internal management of BF

• Liaise and support communication internally between Rare teams based in Indonesia, Philippines and the USA
• Manage resources including time, funds, and staff and ensure that the Blended Finance workplans and activities are integrated in the broader work of Rare in Indonesia
• Communicate the progress of the MFA development in Indonesia to Rare wide organization through periodic reporting
• Ensure alignment of the MFA design with Rare’s organization goals
• Report periodically on Blended Finance activities to the VP of Indonesia
  

Required Experience and Education

• A minimum of 5 years of experience in finance, especially working on innovative financing mechanisms
• Understanding of Indonesian legal systems, policies and regulations relevant to investment and finance
• Excellent organizational capacity in managing tasks, people and government relationships
• Excellent ability to work as part of a multi-disciplinary team with proven success in being able to thrive in a fast paced, high expectation, project environment
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field required such as economics, finance, banking, law, Master’s degree highly preferred;
• Experience in solving problems and ability to apply conflict resolution and negotiation techniques to achieve results;
• Solution oriented, having a strong understanding of diversity and other cultures;
• Ability to self-manage and to adjust to competing priorities and allocate time as necessary to get the job done.
• Basic understanding of marine and fishery issues and work with relevant government agencies preferred
• Proficient in English and Bahasa Indonesia language skills – both written and oral;
• Experience in using MS Office suite, databases, graphics;

Rare is an equal opportunity employer M/F/D/V

About the Organization

Rare inspires change so people and nature thrive.

Rare believes that conservation is about people. True, most environmental problems stem from human activity, but people also wield the solutions. Rare concentrates on finding and replicating proven solutions to many of the world’s biggest environmental challenges. Rare’s mantra is to find what works and then repeat.

Core to that approach is Rare’s insight that individuals and communities are motivated as much by emotion as by reason. Thus conservationists must become as skilled in social science as biological science. This is the rationale behind Rare’s signature Pride campaigns.

Rare trains local leaders to run Pride campaigns that employ proven social science methods typically reserved for the marketing and advertising industries to inspire change people to adopt conservation solutions and empower them to make those solutions their own. By appealing to both hearts and minds, Rare’s prove approach accelerates the adoption and increases the sustainability of the solutions. Rare and its partners have conducted over 250 Pride campaigns in more than 50 countries, empowering local communities to become natural asset managers across Latin America, Asia and Africa.