Climate change is a central element of IFRC’s Strategy 2030 and Plan & Budget 2021-2025, which stresses the urgency to massively scale-up climate action in view of increasing disasters and climate-related impacts on vulnerable people. Ione of the IFRC’s targets under the Climate and Environment Charter for Humanitarian Organizations, is to support 250 million people in addressing rising climate risks and make all our programmes and operations climate-smart by 2025.

The IFRC’s Global Climate Resilience Programme outlines a holistic, multi-year programmatic approach that will support communities to adapt to climate change and reduce their climate-related risks, particularly in the least supported and most vulnerable and marginalized communities. One of the thematic priorities is to reduce the public health impacts of climate change. The Global Programme is supported by funding from the IFRC’s Global Climate Resilience Platform.

The IFRC Network and its 191 Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies provide key health services, from basic health promotion to clinical care, and comprise thousands of facilities owned and operated by the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. These include small, local primary health care posts as well as major regional hospitals, as well as thousands of ambulances and patient transport vehicles.

National Societies are uniquely placed to support people and communities with their extensive network of local branches and volunteers, their role as auxiliaries to the public authorities in the humanitarian field and their disaster management capacities in  almost every country in the world.

The IFRC network contributes to community resilience, multi-hazard preparedness, readiness, anticipatory and early action, response and recovery efforts at the local, national and global levels.

As of November 2023, the results of professional health services mapping show close to 100 National Red Cross or Red Crescent Societies, out of the 191, own or manage over 3600 clinical health facilities, or provide such services within facilities operated by the government or private actors.

Additionally, National Societies employ over 34,000 medical and health professionals (including General Practitioners, nurses, and midwives) and boast an estimated 203,600 Community Health Workers and Red Cross and Red Crescent Volunteers, who provide crucial health promotion and protection services. Consequently, the IFRC has an extensive network through which to develop and implement innovative climate health adaptation activities and measures.

To enable health infrastructure and communities to become resilient to climate risks, IFRC outlines three key pillars to support National Societies as auxiliaries to be proposed to GCF PSAA:

1. Climate-resilient health and water systems

• Establish water, sanitation, hygiene & healthcare waste management:
• Utilize renewable energy:
• Develop and implement low-carbon infrastructure, technologies & products:

2. Climate-smart health workforce

A trained, equipped and competent health workforce can anticipate and respond to climate-related health risks.

3. Community for Climate

Strengthen health and water systems to predict, detect, and prepare communities to respond to climate risks and disasters, including climate-informed surveillance and early-warning systems.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

The GCF requires a rigorous project design process, identification of a solid climate rationale and a comprehensive package of analyses and documents to accompany the submission of a PSAA questionnaire and “pitch deck” as the first stage of a potential project pipeline. IFRC technical colleagues will work with the consultant/sto collect information to fulfil key requirements for this Funding Proposal package.

Key Deliverables Include:

Desk review, including but not limited to draft concept note developed by IFRC; climate and health risk assessments by IFRC; key documents and strategies from the climate and health community (including. for COP 27 and 28); GCF health proposal by Save the Children Australia.

Develop a health and climate resilience pitch deck, including:

Develop a climate rationale and link to health impacts for proposed project countries

Develop a set of proposed outputs/activities on health and climate resilience for the pitch deck

Facilitate a process to prioritise these outputs/activities

Carry out interviews, as needed, with IFRC global, regional and delegation teams, as well as National Societies and partners, working on health and/or on climate.

Support the review and integration of feedback received to the proposal from the GCF Secretariat.

To ensure representativity and to optimize the success of this initiative, the IFRC is selecting a group of diverse National Societies, based on the volume and type of their health facilities network. These include members with extensive clinical care capacity, as well as strong relationship with public authorities and other partners.

Potential National Societies include:

Colombian Red Cross Society, Egyptian Red Crescent Society, Honduras Red Cross Society, Indonesian Red Cross Society, Jordanian Red Crescent Society, Kenya Red Cross Society, Lebanese Red Cross Society, Mexican Red Cross Society, Philippines Red Cross Society, Kyrgyzstan Red Crescent Society, Chad Red Cross Society, Somali Red Crescent Society, Togolese Red Cross Society, Zimbabwe Red Cross Society, Nigerian Red Cross

Management of consultancy

The consultant will be managed by the Lead, Health, Climate and Risk Communication.

Notes

The consultant will be contracted by the IFRC and the standard contractual terms will apply.

Agreed travel expenses will be reimbursed at cost in accordance with in the IFRC’s relevant regulations.

Education

Required

University Degree in public health, climate and/or environment.

Preferred

Graduate-level education is preferred.

Experience

Required

• Minimum of 5-7 years experience working on climate change adaptation.
• Experience preparing proposals in climate for large donors, specifically for Green Climate Fund is required.

Preferred

• Experience in disaster preparedness, disaster risk reduction, health and/or WASH sector work is a strong added value.
• Knowledge and experience working with international organisations and the Red Cross Red Crescent system.

Knowledge, Skills and Languages

Required

• Fluently spoken and written English.
• Organized, results-oriented, entrepreneurial and hands-on.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Track record in producing high-quality work with an ability to prioritize time-sensitive assignments.
• Track record in proposal development and multi-stakeholder collaboration.
• Extensive knowledge of climate change and health issues, interventions and advocacy.
• Ability to work within a multi-cultural, multilingual, multidisciplinary environment.
• Fluency in Microsoft Office tools.

Preferred

• Good command of another IFRC official language (French, Spanish or Arabic) is preferred.