Senior Officer, Credit & Risk Instruments
The position can be based in Vientiane, Lao PDR, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, or Bogotá, Colombia. Please indicate your preferred duty station in your cover letter.
Please note that the deadline is based on Korean Standard Time Zone (KST, UTC+9)
INTRODUCTION TO GGGI
The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) is a treaty-based international, inter-governmental organization dedicated to supporting and promoting strong, inclusive and sustainable economic growth in developing countries and emerging economies. To learn more please visit about GGGI web page.
Forests sit at the center of the international environmental agenda and are increasingly recognized as critical to climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development. In recent years, global commitments including the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests, the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), UNCCD COP16 and UNFCCC COP30 outcomes have reaffirmed the urgent need to halt deforestation and accelerate restoration by 2030.
The European Union (EU) has been a global leader on forests and sustainable value chains, including through the European Green Deal, the EU Forest Partnerships, the Global Gateway, the EU Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products (EUDR), EU's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan, and EU’s associated support for MBD-led forest finance efforts such as the World Bank's Transformative Carbon Asset Facility (TCAF), Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL), and GGGI’s EU Sustainable Finance Trust Fund.
In this context, GGGI is implementing the Financing for Forests program, which aims to enhance forest finance ecosystems in Lao PDR, Mongolia, Guyana, and Colombia over five years by piloting and scaling innovative financing instruments and strengthening the enabling environment for sustainable forest investment, and which is expected to expand to 4 additional countries.
POSITION SUMMARY
The F4F Credit and Risk Instruments Sr. Officer will lead the design and structuring of credit, guarantee, and blended finance mechanisms. The role covers forest credit lines, credit-enhancement mechanisms, revolving funds and forestry finance windows, and concessional/blended facilities, working with financial institutions and regulators to mobilize commercial and concessional capital into the forest sector.
PURPOSE
The Credit and Risk Instruments Sr. Officer will provide global technical leadership to support the effective delivery of the F4F program by:
- Leading the design and structuring of forest finance credit-lines and risk instruments including, guarantee mechanisms, collateral frameworks and reforms, and underwriting and lending criteria.
- Advising central banks and financial regulators and supervisory authorities on prudential reforms and green-banking protocols to facilitate the expansion of responsible lending to the forest sector.
- Training financial institutions on risk assessment, natural-asset valuation, and revenue-backed lending.
- Supporting forest credit line piloting and portfolio monitoring.
- Structuring blended finance facilities and credit-enhancement mechanisms that reduce lender risk and mobilize private capital into the sector.
ENGAGEMENT
The Credit and Risk Instruments Sr. Officer will:
- Work closely with the F4F Program Manager and country teams to align Credit instrument design with country and project delivery.
- Engage national counterparts, including central banks, financial regulators, national development banks, and relevant public financial institutions.
- Lead engagement with commercial banks, guarantee funds, and financial intermediaries to structure and pilot credit and blended finance instruments.
- Coordinate with the Fiscal Instruments Sr. Officer and the Sustainable Finance & Results-Based Instruments Sr. Officer on cross-cutting instruments (e.g., blended finance facilities with a bond component).
- Support Country and Program Steering Committee processes on credit and financial-sector matters.
- Liaise with EU Delegations, donors, and financial-sector partners as required.
- Participate in GGGI Communities of Practice related to sustainable finance, banking regulation, and forest finance.
DELIVERY
- Lead banking-sector readiness assessments to identify regulatory, institutional and market barriers to forest-sector lending.
- Lead the technical design, structuring, and piloting of dedicated forest credit lines with national financial intermediaries, tailoring lending terms and conditions-including the redesign of loan tenors, grace periods, repayment schedules, and collateral requirements-to the specific financing needs, cash flows and risk profiles of forest-based enterprises and sustainable forest-related activities.
- Lead the design and structuring of credit-enhancement mechanisms, including partial credit guarantees, junior/subordinated first-loss capital layers, and associated governance, risk allocation and capitalization structures.
- Lead the structuring of forestry revolving funds and dedicated forestry finance windows, including the design of direct-lending and risk-sharing tracks with commercial banks and other financial institutions, to expand access to finance for forest-based enterprises and sustainable forest-related investments.
- Support the implementation of pilot credit transactions under real market conditions and generate replicable models for scaling forest-sector lending.
- Design and deliver capacity building activities for financial institutions and regulators on forest-sector risk assessment, natural-asset valuation, and revenue-backed lending, strengthening their capacity to assess and finance forest-related investments.
- Contribute to the design of the Forest Finance Impact Calculator and related results-tracking tools.
- Provide technical inputs to program reporting, knowledge products, and MEL indicator tracking related to performance-based and thematic financing instruments.
REQUIREMENTS
QUALIFICATIONS
Education
- Advanced university degree (Master’s level or above) in a relevant discipline, including Finance, Banking, Economics, or a related field.
Experience
- Minimum 7 years of relevant professional experience in sustainable/climate finance, carbon or biodiversity markets, results-based financing, or thematic bond structuring.
- Demonstrated experience in designing credit lines, guarantee schemes, or credit-enhancement mechanisms.
- Experience engaging with central banks, financial regulators, or commercial banks on prudential or green-banking reforms.
- Knowledge of forestry, agricultural, or natural-resource lending is an advantage.
- Demonstrated technical experience in design, implementation, and/or capacity building
Languages
- Full professional proficiency in English (written and spoken) is required.
- Working knowledge of French and/or Spanish is an advantage.
FUNCTIONAL
- Strong technical expertise in credit structuring, guarantee mechanisms, and risk-sharing instrument design.
- Ability to translate risk analysis into implementable credit and regulatory instruments.
- Strong negotiation and facilitation skills engaging financial institutions and regulators at senior levels.
- Strong writing and documentation skills for technical and financial-sector-facing outputs.
- Ability to deliver capacity-building and training content to financial-sector counterparts.
CORPORATE
- Understand and actively support GGGI's mission, vision and values.
- Promotes an organizational culture of integrity, trust, transparency, accountability, and partnership.
- Excel at problem solving, ask questions and seek support when needed, and share easily information and knowledge with others both internally as externally.
- Manage emotions and stress positively, build rapport and resolve conflict easily.
- Strong ability to work independently and/or remotely, while maintaining productivity.
- Be able to lead and manage a project independently, while knowing when to seek advice and liaise closely with the team.
- Builds effective relationships across teams, functions, and geographies to deliver shared outcomes.
- Champions collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and institutional learning across the program and the wider organization.