Senior Legal Counsel and Board Secretary

City/location:

Johannesburg

Organization:

Background

African Risk Capacity (ARC) is a Specialised Agency of the African Union. The ARC Agency leads the ARC Group, a development finance institution that provides financial tools and infrastructure to help countries manage natural disaster risk and adapt to climate change. It counts 26 AU countries as members and is supervised by a ministerial level governing board elected by its Conference of the Parties. The ARC design and establishment phase was managed by WFP, under an MoU with the African Union, and WFP continues to provide administrative services support to the ARC Agency through an administrative services agreement.

In 2014, ARC launched its initial risk insurance product for Member States through its financial affiliate the ARC Insurance Company Limited (ARC Ltd). ARC Ltd is a specialist hybrid mutual insurance company and Africa’s first ever disaster insurance pool, aggregating risk by issuing insurance policies to participating governments and transferring it to the international market. ARC Ltd uses the satellite weather surveillance software Africa RiskView to estimate the impact of drought on vulnerable populations – and the response costs required to assist them – before a season begins, and as it progresses, so that index-based insurance payouts, based on Africa RiskView, are triggered at or before harvest time if the rains are poor. With a USD 200 million initial capital commitment provided by the governments of Germany (through KfW on behalf of BMZ) and the United Kingdom (DFID), ARC Ltd issued drought insurance policies totaling USD 129 million for a total premium cost of USD 17 million to a first group of African governments – Kenya, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal – in May 2014, marking the launch of the inaugural ARC pool. ARC aims to reach up to 30 countries with drought, flood and cyclone coverage totaling up to USD 1.5 billion in sum insured by 2020. In addition, in February 2015 following the Ebola crisis, the Agency was requested by its Member States to explore epidemic risk coverage and has undertaken a research and development programme to pilot outbreak and epidemic insurance in select countries in 2017.

While African countries are taking action to better manage today’s weather, for example through participating in the ARC and ARC Ltd, significant additional investments will be required to offset the predicted negative impacts of the Africa’s future climate and, at the very least, maintain the current status quo where insurance, together with other risk management and mitigation measures, can be a financially effective tool for managing weather risks. The capital required for such climate change adaptation investment in Africa is substantial however funds have not been forthcoming to the scale required. To support the level of international funding available, countries’ own investment in resilience and adaptation, and to protect the its own value proposition to member states, the ARC is now developing a new financial mechanism, called the Extreme Climate Facility, or XCF, that will provide eligible countries – those already managing their weather risk through ARC – with additional funds should extreme weather events in their region – tracked by a state-of-the-art objective index – increase in magnitude and/or frequency. As a parallel to the arrangements for ARC’s insurance programme, where insurance payouts are used by countries to implement pre-defined response contingency plans, where XCF payments are made countries would use those funds to invest in disaster risk reduction or climate change adaption measures specified in pre-defined country-level adaptation plans. The XCF will utilise both public and private sector funds and will facilitate direct access to finance for ARC Member States. Through XCF, ARC aims to secure up to USD 500 million of initial climate adaptation capital from the private markets for ARC Member States in 2017.

Responsibilities

Under the strategic direction of the ARC Agency Director General, the ARC Agency Senior Legal Counsel and Board Secretary will be responsible for providing high level legal services, authoritative advice and coordination of highly complex or novel legal matters, including oversight on quality and consistency in provision of all legal services to ARC Agency. He or she will also serve as the Secretary to the ARC Agency Governing Board (the Board) and legal advisor to the Conference of the Parties (CoP), including overseeing the production of all Board and CoP decision documents and other materials.

Within delegated authority, the ARC Agency Senior Legal Counsel and Board Secretary will:

Provide legal advice:

Provide authoritative legal advice and recommendations to the governance organs, Director General and senior management of ARC Agency, on a range of issues;
Handle a wide range of multidiscipline, highly complex, and often sensitive and/or conflicting legal matters involving issues relating to international, public, private and administrative law, to including interpretation and application of legal instruments;
Develop new legal modalities to meet unique needs/circumstances;
Determine strategies and approach to complex legal matters to ensure innovative solutions to legal issues and provision of cohesive legal services;
Provide advice on the interpretation and application of constitutive and legislative instruments governing ARC Agency activities, including the Establishment Agreement, Rules of Procedure of the Board and CoP, various regulations, rules and policies, and WFP’s rules regulations and policies;
Make various types of recommendations to senior officials of substantive units with respect to actions to take;
Identify potential liabilities and assist in the management of risks in the ARC’s activities, particularly vis-à-vis third parties;
Provide legal services to ARC Agency governing bodies, including serving as the Secretary to the Board and legal advisor to the CoP, overseeing the production of Board and CoP decision memoranda, policies, and other governance documents, and providing advice to other committees as relevant;
Advise on legal issues relating to the formation of the ARC insurance pool, risk transfer from Member countries, and other country level engagements, including supervising service providers and consultants;
Provide legal advice on the establishment of the Extreme Climate Facility (XCF) and other new initiatives of ARC Agency, including overseeing research studies, providing guidance and supervision to outside counsel and legal advisors, and providing comprehensive legal advice regarding the legal and financial structures of XCF.

Oversee ARC agency legal work and work with partners:

Oversee all of the legal work of ARC Agency, including supervising staff, consultants and coordinating the work of external advisors, on a wide range of corporate, multi-disciplinary and highly complex legal matters to ensure ARC Agency’s interests are protected and legal risks are minimized;
Represent ARC Agency during legal negotiations and in other fora to ensure that ARC Agency’s position is defended;
Review, advise on and approve the legal aspects of documents, including: complex contracts, agreements, legal opinions, reports, memoranda, rules and policies, legal motions/submissions, and other legal documents;
Liaise and coordinate productive partnerships with other Legal Divisions across the African Union (AU) – particularly on ratification/treaty support – and UN system.

Develop rules, policies and procedures:

Manage the development of policies and procedures for the ARC Agency and the ARC Agency Secretariat (Secretariat) to operationalize the functions of the ARC Agency and set standards of good governance;
Identify gaps and take a lead on the development of policies, guidelines, procedures and other internal or corporate documents to promote operational effectiveness and efficiency;
Work with the ARC Ltd staff to coordinate the work of the two entities and develop procedures governing their interaction;
Work with other Secretariat staff members to develop and codify policies and procedures relating to monitoring and evaluation, and deviations from approved contingency plans by ARC Member states;
Duty Travel as required;
Other duties as directed by the ARC Agency Director General.

Qualifications & experience required

Education:

Advanced university degree in the discipline of law or university degree in the discipline of law with experience and advanced training in both private commercial and public international law;
Candidate must be qualified to practice law or admitted to practice by a recognized national or state bar or law society.

Experience:

At least eight years (3 of which international) of progressively responsible professional experience in law and provision of a wide range of legal services including to senior managers and governance bodies, both nationally and/or in an international organization (preferably the UN or a UN system organization);
Strong practical legal experience, and experience working with multi-cultural teams and government counter parties.

Technical skills & knowledge:

Experience with the establishment of new, treaty-based international organizations, including development of policies, directives, guidelines, procedures and other foundational documents for such organizations;
Experience with public private partnerships, and particularly with the establishment of market based financial affiliates to international organizations;
Practical understanding of issues related to natural disaster insurance and response, market based-risk transfer mechanisms, and working with sovereign clients;
Experience providing legal advice, support and coordination to boards, committees, and working groups composed of high-level government and international organization representatives;
Understanding of principles of intellectual property law, particularly related to the protection of software
Capacity to work closely with government counterparties, and multi-cultural constituencies;
Solid communication, negotiation and interpersonal skills;
General knowledge of African Union and UN system policies, rules, regulations and procedures.

Competencies:

Excellent communication skills, including the ability to write clear and concise briefing papers and external communications and consolidate the work of others into key, strategic operational documents;
Strong interpersonal, partnership and diplomatic skills with ability to establish effective working relations with people at all levels and of different national and cultural backgrounds;
Ability to think creatively, proactively, strategically and problem-solve with flexibility and adaptability;
Strong organization skills with ability to plan, coordinate and monitor own work plan and those under supervision;
Ability to prioritize multiple tasks under tight deadlines in a timely manner in a dynamic environment;
Ability to maintain a high degree of judgment, discretion and confidentiality.

Language: