Strategic Communications and Knowledge Management Lead

Resilience, Adaptation, and Inclusion in Nepal (RAIN) programme is UKaid / FCDO funded six-year long programme that aims to strengthen the Government of Nepal (GoN)’s climate change adaptation, mitigation, and disaster risk reduction and management efforts and to help make social protection systems more adaptive and shock-responsive. This will reduce losses and damage and build the resilience of the most vulnerable communities at risk of natural (climate-induced and earthquake) hazards. RAIN will provide technical assistance to three spheres of the government on strengthening systems to design, develop, and implement policy, planning, and budgeting systems to support the at-risk communities in adapting to climate change and preparing and responding to natural hazards. It aspires to unlock additional climate finance for adaptation and mitigation, support the work on early action and early warning to build community resilience and make existing social protection systems adaptive and shock responsive. Inclusion, evidence, and strategic learning underpins the entire programme. The RAIN programme has four components: 

Component A: Technical Assistance (TA) and Strategic Learning Unit (SLU) 

Component B: Climate Adaptation and Finance (implemented through multilateral agencies)  

Component C: Community Resilience, Early Action, Adaptation, and Inclusion (implemented through civil society consortium partners)  

Component D: Adaptive and Shock Responsive Social Protection (implemented through an international financial institution) 

Mott MacDonald has been awarded as a supplier for the component A (TA and SLU), which starts from 01 November 2024. The RAIN TA has been designed to support for transformative change in the Government of Nepal’s responses to climatic and non-climatic shocks, building the resilience of some of the most vulnerable communities in Nepal. MM has reimagined and proposed the TA to be transformative which is underpinned by the ‘system strengthening’ approach rather than ‘project delivery’ alone, by placing political economy, empowerment and systems thinking at its core.  

Expected impact of RAIN TA: Resilience of vulnerable groups and communities to climate risks and other hazards is built through increased government capacity to prevent, adapt, anticipate, and absorb shocks.  

Outcomes: 

1. The GoN accesses international climate finance to meet the goals of its NAP.  
2. The GoN uses its own fiscal resources to allocate, spend and monitor its interventions on climate and DRR/M. 
3. Improved resilience of communities to cope from natural hazards (climate and non-climate induced) shocks.  

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Output areas / Workstreams: The RAIN TA comprises of four workstreams or output areas:  

1. Federal Engagement: To improve policy coherence and alignment at the federal level.  
2. Provincial and Local Engagement: Strengthen alignment of local and provincial budgets and expenditures with policies.  
3. Access to Climate Finance: To support a strengthened GoN system to access international climate finance.  

Strategic Learning Unit: SLU will lead on Monitoring and Strategic Learning (M&SL) across the RAIN portfolio based on a flexible and adaptive management approach informed by data and evidence, political economy and GEDSI. 

The overall responsibility of the position is to provide leadership in the development and implementation of a communication and knowledge management strategy and plan for the project.  The position holder will have strong analytical, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills and a demonstrable ability to develop strategies for internal and external communications and knowledge management. The successful candidate will coordinate with the TA SLU teams and other RAIN partners for strategic communication and knowledge management of the programme.

The position holder is expected to:

• Have experience in managing strategic communications across a large programme portfolio and expertise in knowledge management.
• Collaborate and engage with the RAIN TA workstreams, federal- and provincial-level embedded staff, RAIN partners and FCDO in the design and implementation of strategic communication and knowledge management strategies and approach, including collecting and disseminating success stories and supporting learning exercises and events.
• Lead conducting stakeholder mapping and prepare a stakeholder strategic engagement strategy and communication plan (workstream-wise and combined).
• Support RAIN TA SLU in implementing the stakeholder engagement strategy and plan by working with the DTL, SLU Lead and workstream coordinators.
• Play a central role in programme learning and facilitating a culture of collaboration, learning, and adaptation through documenting and sharing activity learning.
• Prepare and publish approved knowledge products to facilitate the sharing of lessons and disseminate outputs of RAIN programme as required by SLU and FCDO.
• Provide general support to the Strategic Learning Unit (SLU) Lead in the operations and management of the SLU.
• Support in delivering the Steering Committee and Programme Board Meetings in collaboration with the SLU Lead and the TL, DTL and other Workstream Coordinators as required.
• Provide support to the embedded staff at the federal ministries and provincial and local governments for strategic communication and knowledge management (with frequent field visits in the project provinces and local level)
• Develop/produce of communication and advocacy instruments and materials for creating visibility of the programme.
• Support RAIN TA SLU in generating and disseminating management information and results data to inform decision making for FCDO across the interlinked RAIN components.

• Understand the local context, policies, and regulations on climate and other development aspects, and reflect them in communication products.   

• Have internationally competitive competencies regarding strategic thinking, analysis, seeing the bigger picture and communication skills.
• Expected to generate new ideas and approaches, research best practices, and propose new, more effective ways of doing things.

The position holder will ideally:

• Support the Team Leader with systems strengthening activities on the project, helping to ensure that that systems strengthening is mainstreamed throughout the programme.
• Technical experience: should have technical experience and capacity to lead climate change adaptation and climate finance strategies and goals.
• Leadership: Should have strong leadership skills and the ability to motivate and manage a team of professionals from diverse backgrounds. Other requisite skills include the ability to delegate tasks, provide feedback and facilitate communication. 
• Project Management: Should have strong project management skills, including experience in developing project plans, tracking progress, and managing project budgets. Knowledge of project management tools is helpful. In addition, should be able to provide inclusive and effective management of large teams of senior, junior or mid-career professional staff from diverse backgrounds, ensuring that the correct people, resources, and processes are in place to ensure efficient and effective delivery, and making difficult management decisions to maximise impact of the programme and drive good value for money, including moving or replacing staff and closing down underperforming workstreams. 
• Stakeholder Engagement: Should be skilled in stakeholder engagement and able to effectively communicate with diverse stakeholders, including government officials, private sector, civil society organisations and international investors and donor community. 
• Communication Skills: Should have strong verbal and written communications skills, including the ability to communicate complex economic, financial and climate policy concepts to non-experts. This role also requires drafting briefs, reports, and the ability to deliver presentations to a diverse audience. 
• Flexibility and big picture vision: Should be able to see big picture in design and implementation of policies and programme workstreams so that the component works coherently and in tandem with other RAIN components. 
• Teamwork: should be able to work in a multinationals and diverse team, contributing to an amicable working environment for synergy and collaboration among different teams and workstreams.   

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