Team size:  Two   

First, can you please give us an idea of the sort of work your team has done recently? 

We recently concluded a large grant agreement with the Austrian Ministry of Climate Action and Energy worth several million EUR (sum confidential). The grant agreement kickstarts a new programme focusing on productive use of renewable energy in developing countries. Productive use of renewable energy offers the opportunity to lock in low greenhouse gas emission development pathways for rural areas of countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, improving lives and livelihoods and building resilience to future threats such as the triple energy, food and finance shock, which is currently putting food security and livelihoods at risk  

Furthermore, we set up a new programme in Latin America and the Caribbean, which launched a Project Preparation Facility (PPF) for the Caribbean Climate Investment Program (CCIP) and is funded by USAID. To successfully launch this new programme, we drafted a complex funding agreement under the partial application of US law, concluded tailor-made contracts with relevant stakeholders and supported our team inter alia by providing a compliance overview touching on data protection, security relevant aspects, procurement rules and the application of certain US laws to kick-start the programme. 

How does your legal strategy change during periods of instability or uncertainty? 

Our legal strategy is to find a balance between ensuring compliance and making life as easy as possible for our programme teams and management. We identify compliance related risks, assess them while having the requirements of our programme teams in mind and relay the relevant information to senior management (of which the Head of Legal is a part of). In doing so we act as filter for decisions of organisation-wide importance. In times of instability or uncertainty we carefully adjust this filter to capture all risks for the organisation.  

We demonstrate this ability on a regular basis and advise senior management on HR-related risks or instabilities, programme related risks as well as financial risks and obligations. In 2023, REEEP has kickstarted a process of reviewing REEEP’s organisation structure. Naturally, the ensuing changes created uncertainty within the team and required careful change management. As legal team we showed our support of management decisions while ensuring that the (legally complex) change management process is done correctly and in compliance with the applicable laws and regulations. 

Do you make use of any ‘legal tech’ products, and if so, for which areas of your job do you find it most useful? 

As not-for-profit organisation working with public money, REEEP is required to conduct a procurement procedure whenever goods, works or services are contracted. Before last year, we conducted these procurement processes manually with a knowledge management system which was far from ideal for this purpose. For contracting we used templates (e.g. for service contracts, MoUs, NDAs, employment contracts, etc.) and adjusted these templates manually in word before sending out contracts. 

Both procurement and contracting processes were not efficient due to the amount of time required and a lack of overview of where the processes were at. We therefore decided to migrate these processes to a new cloud-based workflow management software that allows for a higher level of automation. Every step in the procurement workflow is now automatically assigned to the relevant staff member and then re-assigned as soon as all necessary information is provided. The new software allows us to generate contracts automatically, however, with the legal team still being able to review the contracts before they are sent out.