PMEL Advisor for Bankable Nature Solutions

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Do you want to work together with inspired colleagues to create a world in which nature and people thrive? And help build a ‘nature positive’ impact in biodiverse priority landscapes around the world by mobilising people to act? That is what you will do when you work at WWF-Netherlands (WWF-NL).

WWF-NL is a professional and dynamic organization with an informal working culture based in Zeist, the Netherlands. The organisation consists of four departments: Conservation, Engagement, Organization & Talent Development and Finance & Operations. Impact Academy within the Conservation department is looking for a Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (PMEL) Advisor for Bankable Nature Solutions (32-40 hours).

Background

In this role, 20% of your time will go towards supporting the Impact Academy (IA) Unit and 80% of your time will go towards supporting the Green Finance Unit.

The Impact Academy ensures that our goals and strategies are based on sound scientific evidence. IA has several core functions:

• designing new projects and programmes,
• maintaining relationships with scientific institutions,
• scientific backstopping of our landscape impact strategies, and
• providing project advice on Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (PMEL).

The Green Finance Team in WWF-NL aims to drive a meaningful shift in finance to achieve WWF’s conservation goals and Global Goals on climate, nature and development. This involves greening finance to reduce investment in activities which drive climate change and nature loss, and scaling sustainable finance as a key enabler that accelerates WWF’s overall conservation mission. WWF-NL is uniquely positioned to work with governments, key financial organizations, global initiatives and many different stakeholders as the world moves from commitments to action. WWF will seek to catalyze implementation and provide expertise to mobilize sustainable financing and to help close climate and biodiversity funding gaps.

To achieve our mission, the Green Finance team has two main pillars:

1. Financing Green: This pillar works on accelerating finance mobilization from all sources to direct funding towards projects and companies with a positive impact on ecosystems and a positive business case.
2. Greening Finance: This pillar works on influencing global, regional and national financial systems to align with and enable the delivery of WWF’s conservation goals.

The PMEL Advisor will play a key role in ensuring robust impact measurement, learning, and accountability across WWF-NL’s green and blended finance portfolio. The role has a strong focus on implementation monitoring, quality assurance, portfolio reporting, and learning, as several programs move into later implementation and graduation phases.

This position primarily supports the Green Finance Unit on:

• the Dutch Fund for Climate and Development (DFCD),
• WWF Nectar Fund, and
• a strategic partnership with a major financial institution.

You will work closely with investment officers, environmental & social (E&S) advisors, consortium partners, and implementing WWF offices. You will also coordinate closely with colleagues from the Impact Academy to ensure alignment of methods, learning, and standards across teams.

As part of the financing green strategy, WWF works to ‘blend’ public and private finance to seize and scale opportunities for climate and nature positive development. Specifically, Bankable Nature Solutions (BNS) offer a solution - financially viable businesses and projects which support the development of more resilient, sustainable landscapes and economies. Their bankability helps accelerate scaling and replication, realizing large-scale positive impact for nature and people.

The Opportunity

WWF NL manages two blended finance facilities: DFCD and WWF Nectar Fund.

• WWF-NL is part of a consortium managing the Dutch Fund for Climate and Development (DFCD), led by Dutch development bank FMO, along with Climate Fund Managers (CFM), and SNV Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV). This flagship blended finance program leverages finance for climate adaptation and resilience in the Global South, in the agriculture, forestry, water, sanitation and hygiene, and environmental protection sectors. As one of the co-leads of the Origination Facility (OF), WWF-NL provides tailored Technical Assistance (TA) and grant funding to established companies to support them in scaling their business in a sustainable way.
• WWF Nectar Fund: Nectar supports innovative nature-positive finance solutions and pilots. The program is currently in an early implementation phase, requiring strong MEL framework finalization, baseline approaches, and learning systems.

Investments in these two programs will seek to protect communities and cities from the increasing frequency of extreme weather events and benefit weakening biodiversity in areas that provide people with water, food, medicine, and economic opportunity. The activities will also improve the wellbeing, economic prospects, and livelihoods of vulnerable groups – particularly women and youth – and enhance the health of critical ecosystems, from river basins to tropical rainforests, marshland, and mangroves.

Corporate engagement partnership

The financial sector holds enormous potential to accelerate the transition to nature-positive development by shifting capital flows, redefining value, and reshaping decision-making norms. We are looking for a strategic, purpose-driven PMEL professional to drive systemic change through a highly ambitious multi-year partnership with a financial institution. The role focuses on designing and stewarding robust monitoring, evaluation, and learning frameworks that support the redirection of financial flows to halt deforestation and promote sustainable land use. By embedding nature-impact evidence and learning into financial decision-making, and applying innovative PMEL approaches to nature-based solutions, this work will demonstrate how finance and conservation can jointly deliver outcomes that are both economically and ecologically viable. Through this collaboration, we aim to generate credible evidence, actionable insights, and shared learning that mobilize resources, knowledge, and innovation toward large-scale, nature-positive systems change.

Role and responsibilities

This position reports to the Head of the Impact Academy Team and is responsible for leading and strengthening portfolio-wide MEL implementation across DFCD and Nectar, ensuring high-quality monitoring, reporting, impact aggregation, and learning.

Develop and steward robust MEL frameworks for strategic partnerships, translating evidence into adaptive management, governance decisions, and credible impact communication.

For the Impact Academy (IA), you are expected to stay informed on relevant literature, attend conferences, guide other PMEL staff, and contribute to the development of new proposals that require PMEL targets, while within the Green Finance Unit you will be responsible for designing and implementing a lean, practical reporting structure for programmes that supports learning and adaptive management and provides robust impact data for communication and accountability purposes, including defining appropriate KPIs at programme design stage, advising local WWF offices on impact measurement, and establishing baselines, all within WWF’s broader monitoring, evaluation, and learning framework to ensure credible evidence on biodiversity outcomes, sustainable land use, and system-level change.

Key responsibilities

• Lead portfolio-wide monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL), ensuring high-quality monitoring, reporting, KPIs, and impact aggregation.
• Design and maintain robust MEL frameworks aligned with global standards, including indicators, baselines, and safeguards.
• Ensure partners deliver against agreed KPIs, impact pathways, and safeguard requirements, and strengthen the quality and consistency of reporting.
• Strengthen portfolio reporting, analysis, and impact narratives for accountability, learning, and communication.
• Ensure internal quality assurance through consistency checks, risk-based monitoring, and sound MEL documentation.
• Facilitate learning and adaptive management by translating evidence into insights for decision-making and governance.

Experience of the ideal candidate

Required

• Have at least 4 years of experience in monitoring and evaluation for conservation and/or climate programmes.
• Have an educational background in conservation science, international development, environmental studies or a background in finance or economics of conservation and environmental protection.
• Have experience in designing and managing monitoring and evaluation frameworks with a focus on either private sector enterprises, sustainable finance, and/or impact investment.
• Have knowledge of and experience working with Theories of Change and assumption-based learning frameworks.
• Experience working with landscape level monitoring and reporting.
• Knowledge of design, planning, (impact) monitoring and evaluation tools and PMEL processes.
• Experience working in complex multi-partner programmes.

Desired

• Scientific peer-reviewed publications in PMEL related topics
• International experience in development, conservation, or related sector

Skills

• Independent worker and pro-active thinker, creative and innovative mindset;
• Analytical and strategic; detailed, organised and results-oriented;
• Excellent communication skills, both written and oral;
• Be results-oriented, flexible, cooperative and proactive.
• Capable of utilising project management, data management, and data visualisation software.
• Excellent knowledge and use of English language.
• Strong social and communication skills to engage others (in various cultural contexts) and the ability to liaise with other relevant staff in different functional areas.

Core values

You recognize yourself in the core values of WWF-NL:

• Courage
• Integrity
• Respect
• Collaboration

What do we offer?

• You will be able to work in a sustainable office surrounded by nature;
• Fun colleagues and the chance to build up an international network;
• Vegetarian lunches available for purchase in our canteen and free after work drinks every other Thursday;
• An employment contract of 32-40 hours. Initially, a fixed-term employment contract of one year with a one-month probation period will be offered, with the intention to renew;
• Staff receive a personal budget that is made up of 8% holiday allowance and 2,08% flexible budget, and receive 6 weeks of holiday per year (based on a 40-hour contract);
• We stimulate flexible working arrangements, the use of public transport and bike for work related travel. Employees receive an NS Business Card for 2nd class travel to and from work;
• We also have a hybrid working model, so staff can alternate working from home and from the office.

We consider the safety and protection of our colleagues as important. The successful candidate is therefore required to complete an integrity statement and supply a Certificate of Good Conduct (Verklaring Omtrent Gedrag). We may also ask for references.