Policy Support Officer At Interpeace

Background

Interpeace is an international organization for peacebuilding that supports locally led peacebuilding initiatives around the world. Interpeace tailors its approach to each society and ensures that the work is locally driven. Together with local partners and local teams, Interpeace jointly develops peacebuilding programmes and helps establish processes of change that connect local communities, civil society, government and the international community.

As a strategic partner of the United Nations, Interpeace is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland and has offices around the world.

For more information about Interpeace, please visit www.interpeace.org

Position within the Organization

The Policy Support officer will support Interpeace’s Finance for Peace initiative (the Initiative), working with the Head of Research and Senior Peacebuilding Advisor to scale up a series of activities involving research, convening, partnership building and multistakeholder consultations aimed at improving the peace responsiveness of private sector activity. In 2022, the Policy Support officer will work closely with the Head of Research and Senior Peacebuilding Advisor and subsequently with a larger team as the Finance for Peace Initiative scales up.

The Initiative is based within Interpeace’s Policy, Learning and Advisory (PLA) Team and will report to the Head of Research and Senior Peacebuilding Advisor. The position is based in Geneva, Switzerland with planned travel to European capitals.

Purpose and General Overview

The Finance for Peace Initiative is part of Interpeace’s five-year 2021-2026 strategy which calls for Interpeace to seek systemic change in how peacebuilding is financed and how private and public economic development supports peace. This is partly a response to a widely understood series of system problems in peacebuilding whereby interventions are too often not deployed at adequate scale, not effectively sequenced with economic development actions and too short term. This recognizes the significant role private sector actors have in fragile and post-conflict settings and how livelihood and resource competition issues impact many of the conflict dynamics we work on. Private actors that do not deploy their resources and investments in fragile and conflict affected places in conflict sensitive ways can exacerbate conflict dynamics and increase the risk to their own investments undermining future development prospects. Conversely, private actors that operate in peace responsive ways can potentially contribute to peace and lower the risks attached to their investments by increasing community ownership, trust and better meeting local needs.

At a higher and more systemic policy level, it is also important to recognize Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is a significant component of the financial flows into fragile settings, exceeding Official Development Assistance for most of the last ten years until Covid-19. How conflict sensitive, and peace responsive these flows are, can be highly consequential for peace and yet much international peacebuilding action and response remains disconnected from the role, activities and approaches of private actors. Further, the growth of new ESG, SDG and Impact investing approaches provides significant opportunity for increasing peace responsive private investment, yet existing frameworks are not adequately tailored to realizing peace impacts and/or improving conflict sensitivity.

The Finance for Peace Initiative is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office (GFFO) and builds on feasibility research supported by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) on a new sustainable investment category developed by Interpeace called peace bonds. Over the course of 2022, the initiative will start by establishing a Peace Impact Lab and Peace Standards Lab to start a process of harmonizing metrics, norms, guidance and standards on how the private sector can positively impact peace. Concurrently, the initiative will scale up to develop new partnerships, market intelligence, political and technical support across a diverse array of actors including DFIs, Donors, researchers, scholars, peacebuilding and civil society organizations, as well as the finance sector to develop supporting market infrastructure and knowledge to scale peace responsive private sector activity.

Duties and responsibilities

With the support of Interpeace’s Head of Research and Senior Peacebuilding Advisor, the Policy Support officer assumes responsibility for the following:

• Conducts high quality research driven stakeholder mapping of key individuals in key organizations working on issues related to peace and finance, across, DFIs, government donors, think tanks, universities, peacebuilding organizations at both a local and international level, civil society organizations, ESG / SDG / Impact investing and other key sustainable investment companies and sectoral actors.
• Supports research on scoping and reviewing existing ESG/SDG and sustainable investing impact measurement approaches and frameworks.
• Supports research on scoping and reviewing existing standards and norm-based frameworks for business activity in fragile, conflict affected and developing settings, such as Social Bond Principles of the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA), the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), the Performance Standards of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Equator principles.
• Leads project management of the Peace Impact Lab and Peace Standards Lab including coordinating sequenced bilateral and online meetings of Lab participants.
• Prepares briefing notes, summaries and meeting guidance and notes for all engagement related to the initiative.
• Supports development of a networked engagement with key stakeholders, contributing to the development of a sequenced meeting timetable for both the peace impact lab and peace standards lab that includes participatory consultation, substantive feedback sessions and validation process.
• Coordinates meeting logistics of key internal and external stakeholders including the steering committee of the Initiative.
• Contributes to research, preparation and dissemination process of two key research deliverables at G7 meetings in Berlin in Q3 2022.
• Contributes to internal communication across Interpeace to inform key stakeholders including the Global Management Team (GMT), The Policy and Learning Advisory (PLA) Team and Country Programme teams of major developments in the Finance for Peace initiative.
• Contributes to the grant and proposal preparation for later phases of the Initiative and its scale up.
• Participation in various intergovernmental policy fora on financing.

Role requirements:

The successful candidate will have a strong general understanding of peacebuilding, development, finance and the landscape of international development finance institutions and private financial institutions. The candidate should have strong desktop research skills, ability to quickly learn new concepts and prepare clear communication to different audiences. They will have strong project management and networking skills.

Education

• Undergraduate or Masters level degree in international studies, development economics, finance, social or political science, or other relevant fields.

Experience

• Minimum of 3 years of experience working in at least one, or some combination of, private finance, a Development Finance Institution, peacebuilding, development or government donor environment.
• Experience with a previous research, policy or technical communications role
• Familiarity with technical and political issues associated with sustainable finance, SDG, ESG investing, impact investing, blended finance, peacebuilding, donor policies in development and peacebuilding.

Competencies

• Strong desktop research skills.
• Strong communication skills and ability to craft communication to very different audiences.
• Strong project management skills and demonstrable ability to effectively organize and convene array of disparate actors online.
• Relevant domain knowledge of technical and political issues related to the Finance for Peace Initiative, or ability to quickly learn and adapt knowledge.
• Ability to interact with policy-makers, researchers and practitioners and government representatives related to the Initiative.

Interpeace Competencies

• Collaboration and Weaving
• Communication
• Drive for results
• Adaptability and Continuous Learning
• Respect for Diversity

Success factors

• Strong general understanding of peacebuilding, development, finance and the landscape of international development finance institutions and private financial institutions.
• Strong desktop research skills and ability to quickly learn and contribute to the ideation of new concepts.
• Entrepreneurial and adaptive mindset, ability to quickly adapt and contribute to a growing initiative.
• Commitment to positively changing how private actors can build peace, and to the values and working principles of Interpeace.
• Excellent social and inter-cultural skills, outstanding communication skills to a variety of stakeholders from very different backgrounds.
• Creative team player with a commitment to inclusiveness and consensus building.
• Political tact and a high adaptation capacity.