The Cities Alliance is a global partnership promoting the role of cities in pove...
The Cities Alliance is a global partnership promoting the role of cities in poverty reduction and sustainable development. Hosted by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and managed by a Secretariat based in Brussels, the Cities Alliance is a unique partnership with a diverse membership, which is committed to strengthen developmental impacts through improved coherence in urban development. Cities Alliance is a global leader with a strong track record in grant making, that supports strategic city planning, slum upgrading and national policies designed to make cities more inclusive and sustainable. Through UNOPS, the Cities Alliance operates a Multi-Donor Fund supported by an efficient, and flexible grant-making mechanism with a global reach.
The Cities Alliance history has been closely linked to the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). The World Bank has been a founding member of the Cities Alliance, provided a trustee function and hosted the Secretariat until 2013. Several other MDBs (Asian Development Bank (ADB), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), European Investment Bank (EIB), African Development Bank (AfDB), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB)) have been either a member of the Cities Alliance, and/or worked with the organisations at different point in time.
In fact, as a technical assistance organisation in the urban sector, the upstream work of the Cities Alliance in cities has always been regarded as complementary to the pipeline of the MDBs and it has been used often in preparation of follow up operations. Due to its technical expertise, the Cities Alliance has also been consulted extensively for advice on sectoral work.
The Cities Alliance is now seeking an MDB Senior Engagement Advisor to be responsible for the development and implementation of a new Cities Alliance partnership strategy with the MDBs that would take into account its reinvigorated focus on investments as well as the changed international context in development assistance. The incumbent will be also responsible for driving the engagement forward and improve the prospective role and alignment of Cities Alliance with MDBs. The goal is to expand the collaboration opportunities, identify projects and programs to be implemented by Cities Alliance and tailored to the needs and objectives of the MDBs.