Research Triangle Institute (RTI) has over 30 years’ experience assisting governments, communities, and the private sector. As a not-for-profit, independent research institute based in North Carolina, USA, RTI has roughly 6,000 employees with global experience implementing international development projects. RTI’s Sustainable Growth & Resilience (SG&R) technical unit within the International Development Group brings together RTI experts and capabilities across food security, agriculture, energy, environment, water, governance, and economic opportunity. SG&R will leverage RTI’s experience designing and delivering multisectoral programming and technical solutions to respond to climate change, build resilience, and promote economic growth around the world.SG&R’s Energy Division is working to develop and implement low emission energy technology alternatives, raise private financing for energy infrastructure, bring efficiency to utilities, work with governments on legal and regulatory reforms to alleviate bottlenecks in energy generation and consumption, and increase access to green energy to sustain economic growth and reduce poverty. We serve as a chosen partner for USAID’s Power Africa program in sub-Sahara Africa and have an established international energy portfolio of over $300 million across Africa, Asia, Pacific Islands, and Latin America and the Caribbean.Project DescriptionThe purpose of the Empower West Africa (EWA) activity is to increase the availability of and access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and clean energy in West Africa in order to reach measurable economic growth, development outcomes, such as reducing poverty, improving livelihoods and increasing inclusive access to electricity-enabled services in such areas as health, education, sanitation, and food security. The activity will additionally support Just Energy Transition; improve the reliability of power supply; reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector by supporting cleaner electricity generation delivered by the national power grids; accelerate distributed renewable energy (DRE); support the transition of host governments’ resource planning leading to the adoption and further integration of renewable energy sources and solutions to meet climate action commitments; crowd in new technologies and innovations that scale access and impact; and, increase access to private capital investment including improved uptake of climate funds, while working in partnership with governments to improve the enabling environment for energy sector investment and innovation. The EWA activity anticipates supporting the West Africa region in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

Responsibilities

Candidates should be fluent in English, or French in Francophone countries and have a minimum of 10 years of experience in the energy sector.

Qualifications

We are currently accepting CVs/resumes for technical experts and specialists with experience in the one or more of the following areas:

• Renewable energy development, procurement and grid integration, including hydro, wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, fuel cell.
• Climate change and climate finance.
• Energy efficiency and demand-side management.
• Emerging clean energy technologies and applications.
• Generation, transmission, and distribution services, inclusive planning, reliability, loss reduction.
• Electric utility reform and restructuring; utility turnaround.
• International and regional power exchange and power trading.
• Rural electrification, including mini-grids, off-grid system development, and solar home systems experience.
• Access to finance.
• Monitoring and evaluation.
• Private sector engagement and partnerships.
• Enabling environment, including policy and regulatory frameworks.
• Communications and knowledge management.
• Environmental and social impact.
• Gender, equity, and social inclusion