Digital Infrastructure Investment Advisor

Reports to: Component Lead – Climate Support Programme

Duty Station: Hatfield, Pretoria

Duration: until 30 November 2025

BACKGROUND:

As an international organization commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Development (BMZ), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH provides international cooperation service for sustainable development in a wide variety of areas, including energy, environment, digitalization, employment, and economic development. We work with partners all over the world across different sectors towards building a future worth living for every individual.

About the Digital Transformation Centre South Africa

The Digital Transformation Centre (DTC) is part of a global initiative of GIZ, it is a hub that enables local innovation worldwide and promotes digital solution for sustainable development. The DTC combines innovation, technical know-how, inclusive and collaborative participation, digital knowledge as well as research and entrepreneurial drive. With this, German Development Cooperation strives to systematically strengthen local ecosystem and capacities for digital transformation. The DTC South Africa focuses on the Green Digital Transformation. In the context of the country’s Just Transition Framework, it explores ways to leverage the use of digital technologies for climate action in a manner of social equity and gender sensitivity. Thereby, the areas of intervention evolve around policy advice, the conceptualization of digital technology driven use cases, capacity development for relevant stakeholders and promotion of green and secure data infrastructures.

About the Data Economy Project and the Digital Investment Facility

The Data Economy Project is part of the Global Programme Digital Transformation, commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), with the overall aim of improving the conditions for a value-generating data economy together with the digital ecosystem at all levels – macro, meso and micro level. Under this mandate, the Data Economy Project is implementing the EU Action “Data Governance in Africa”, the first Team Europe approach on the topic of data economy, thus, being an official flagship-initiative under the EU Global Gateway Strategy to promote a human-centered approach to data economy and society. The initiative of 5 EU Member States - Belgium, France, Finland, Estonia, and Germany – is co-funded by the European Commission and aims to strengthen data sovereignty of African partner countries and foster local value creation from data. It supports the African Union Commission, Regional Economic Communities, and their Member States in (1) Developing data policy frameworks, (2) developing data use cases to showcase the value of data and enable data to flow across borders, and (3) supporting the identification of investments in secure and green data infrastructure in Africa.

To foster investments in green and secure infrastructures, GIZ is establishing a Digital Investment Facility (DIF) covering Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in close collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Finland and Finnish HAUS Institute. The DIF will support the facilitation of investments in data infrastructure (Data Centres and Internet-Exchange-Points), that are environmentally friendly (green) and in line with state-of-the-art cybersecurity, under the European Fund for Sustainable Development Plus (EFSD+) and other funding sources from EU Member States. The DIF will strive to achieve this by promoting enhanced and integrated partnerships between the public and private sector, as well as European Development Finance Institutions (EDFIs), with a focus on facilitating interactions between European and African actors in line with the EU’s Global Gateway Strategy. The resources of the facility will be prioritized to regions that show the highest demand and capability to develop feasible infrastructure projects and where also markets show sufficient demand for sustaining the infrastructure. By this, the DIF will contribute to bridging the gap between European financing opportunities and African data infrastructure markets.

Against this backdrop, we seek a committed, motivated, and highly skilled individual to implement the Data Economy Project’s activities within the DIF in the Southern African region. The Digital Infrastructure Investment Advisor will be part of a global, multi-cultural team of up to 10 dedicated experts allocated across Finland, Germany, Senegal, Kenya, and South Africa.

TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES - see full job description download below:

The Digital Infrastructure Investment Advisor is responsible for:

  • Supporting the implementation of the DIF’s activities relating to
    • enhancing stakeholders’ capacities in Africa and Europe to design, promote and operate green and secure data infrastructure as well as in understanding and applying international environmental and cybersecurity standards in SSA;
    • providing the European Commission and EDFIs with market analyses identifying gaps and market failures as well as mapping of promising investment opportunities in line with the EU’s Global Gateway Strategy on green and secure data infrastructure in SSA;
    • facilitating interactions between African project promoters and EDFIs on sound bankable investment projects for EDFIs’ consideration through selecting and supporting projects of key stakeholders to become economically and technically feasible, robust, environmentally friendly, and secure.
  • Develop and foster partnerships across all levels including the public sector, private sector, academia, and civil society
  • Effectively managing a network of local and regional project partners as well as steering of consultants and other service providers
  • Developing ownership for the overall project concept and its delivery; pro-actively identifying opportunities and supporting the project manager in updating the approach according to the latest developments and the needs of the project’s partners
  • Support planning, procurement processes, financial management and monitoring of the project activities
  • Contribute actively to reports (regular and ad-hoc), PR materials, and other related tasks to reporting and communication for the DIF
  • Coordinate closely with the other projects within the Global Program and beyond to ensure alignment.

 

APPLICATION PROCESS

GIZ will only assess applications which meet the following criteria:

  • Suitable candidates should apply by submitting a
    • A motivation letter (concisely 1 page) stating why they should be the preferred candidate, the value added they will bring to the project and their desired salary range.
    • This should be accompanied by a detailed CV and indicating their nationality.

Applications should be submitted to: recruit-pretoria@giz.de, with the email subject line “Application for Digital Infrastructure Investment Advisor” for the attention of Head of Human Resource.

   Closing date for applications: 02 August 2024.

              Only shortlisted for interview will be contacted.

      Applications without a Cover letter will not be considered!