Overview
The Investment Specialist will lead investment-related activities, assess opportunities, provide technical assistance to end-beneficiaries, liaise with UN-partner agencies, and manage financial instruments for sustainable private sector growth in the cocoa value chain.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the identification and nurturing of a high-quality transactions pipeline.
- Conduct preliminary assessment of investment transactions and prepare pre-assessment memos.
- Conduct detailed due diligence on investees, covering financial, operational, legal, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) dimensions.
- Validate and refine financial models to assess investment viability, risk-adjusted returns, and potential for scale.
- Conduct risk assessments and develop appropriate mitigation strategies.
- Prepare investment memos and recommendations for the UNCDF investment committee.
- Design and structure blended finance solutions, integrating catalytic capital with potential commercial co-investment.
- Support negotiations on investment terms and agreements.
- Ensure alignment of investment instruments with UNCDF fiduciary and impact requirements.
- Liaise with UN partner agencies to assess technical assistance needs for associations of producers, cooperatives, and MSMEs.
- Conduct technical assistance to investees in terms of operational, financial, and legal investment-readiness.
- Support investees in their application process to access and report on credit.
- Work closely with project partners and UNCDF to ensure alignment on investment strategy, pipeline priorities, and project goals.
- Act as the UNCDF focal point for coordination with local financial institutions and end beneficiaries.
- Support documentation and knowledge sharing.
- Develop and apply monitoring frameworks to track financial performance, ESG compliance, and environmental and social impact.
- Produce progress reports, investment updates, and lessons learned.
- Support the integration of investment learnings into adaptive programme management.
- Conduct on-site due diligence and verification of results.
- Provide internal advisory services for best practices on increasing private sector engagement and finance flows.
- Actively advocate for practices that support UNCDF objectives.
- Provide support to new or ongoing projects as UNCDF portfolio evolves in the region.
- Facilitate knowledge and capacity building, knowledge sharing, and advocacy relevant to the project.
Required Experience
- A minimum of 5 years (with a master’s degree) or 7 years (with a bachelor’s degree) of relevant work experience in structuring and/or monitoring financial investments is required.
- Experience working on development finance, rural finance or agri-food finance in Colombia, or at least experience in emerging market financing and investments in LDCs.
- Experience in providing portfolio de-risking to lending institutions.
- Experience in underwriting grants, debt, or guarantees.
Qualifications
Advanced university degree (master’s degree or equivalent) in Economics, Finance, Business Administration, or relevant related field is required, OR A first-level university degree (bachelor’s degree) in the areas mentioned above, in combination with an additional two years of qualifying experience.
