Location: New Delhi
Reports to: Associate Director – Communications and Strategic Outreach
Experience: 4-6 years

About the role

Vasudha Foundation works at the intersection of climate, energy, and sustainable development to support evidence-based decision-making in India, with a strong focus on national and sub-national policy processes.

We are looking for a young, dynamic, and analytically strong communicator who can work across technical understanding, policy engagement, convening, and storytelling. The role focuses on translating complex climate and energy evidence into clear, decision-relevant narratives that resonate with policymakers, states, partners, and informed public audiences.

This is not a conventional media role. It is a narrative-building communications role, centred on helping evidence travel into real decision spaces, through policy briefs, convenings, advisory processes, and selective media engagement.

A significant part of this role will involve working on emerging and under-addressed climate issues (including going beyond the energy sector ) and situating them within broader development priorities such as livelihoods, health, productivity, urban services, and resilience.

What you will do

Shape climate–development policy narratives

You will support the development and movement of clear, evidence-based narratives that link climate action to development outcomes. Focus will be on the non-conventional climate sectors, like waste, agriculture, etc. Working closely with programme teams, you will help translate complex technical issues, including under-represented climate risks, into framing that is usable in policy, planning, and advisory contexts.

Drive programme-facing communications

You will contribute to programme-facing communications by shaping briefs, framing notes, talking points, and insight notes that inform real decision moments. This includes preparing inputs for closed-door policy discussions and consultations, identifying key policy windows such as budgets, plans, and international processes, and aligning communications to these timelines. You will track how evidence and framing are taken up in policy and institutional spaces and help refine approaches based on feedback.

Convene and manage stakeholder engagement

You will design and support high-quality roundtables, workshops, and side events with policymakers, state officials, donors, and sector actors. This will involve curating agendas, coordinating speakers, and developing background materials to ensure discussions are focused, constructive, and grounded in evidence. Wherever possible, you will work with partners to embed key themes into existing platforms rather than creating standalone forums.

Lead writing and editorial quality

You will write and edit clear, persuasive, policy-facing content, including briefs, backgrounders, and opinion pieces. You will also support programme teams and leadership with speeches, remarks, and talking points, ensuring consistency in tone, clarity of argument, and alignment with Vasudha’s positioning.

Shape selective media engagement

You will work closely with the communications team to identify opportunities for people-centred storytelling that connects climate and energy issues to lived experience such as farmers, waste workers, urban residents, or MSMEs. You will bring a strong understanding of the Indian media landscape to inform what stories to pitch, when to pitch them, and how to position them for credibility and impact, particularly around key national and international moments. You will also coordinate with external PR and media partners to ensure outreach is aligned with evidence and organisational priorities.

Support learning and continuous improvement

You will help track how narratives and evidence travel across policy documents, speeches, events, and media. You will document what framing works, where, and why, and feed these insights back into strategy to support learning, refinement, and stronger coherence over time.

What we are looking for

Essential

• Strong grounding in climate, and environmental aspects, with the ability to engage with technical material and understand system-level impacts. Direct experience with specialised topics (going beyond the energy sector) is valuable but not mandatory; the ability to build depth quickly is essential.
• Clear understanding of how climate and development intersect in the Indian context, across sectors such as agriculture, waste, urban services, energy use, livelihoods, or public health, and the ability to frame environmental action through development outcomes.
• Comfort working in public policy environments, with a practical understanding of how influence and advisory processes operate across ministries, state governments, regulators, and consultations.
• Excellent writing skills, with the ability to produce clear, structured, and persuasive content for policy, donor, and public audiences. Ability to align the narratives with Government priorities for climate action.
• Strong convening and stakeholder management skills, with confidence engaging policymakers, government officials, sector experts, partners, and donors.
• Good working knowledge of India’s media and policy ecosystem, including how narratives move across platforms and institutions. Keeps a track on latest development in the sector and can summarize latest reports/policies for internal discussions/upcoming convenings.
• Curiosity, adaptability, and comfort with ambiguity, with the ability to learn fast and connect dots across disciplines.

Desirable

• Prior exposure to under-addressed climate issues such as emissions beyond carbon dioxide, waste, agriculture, cooling, or short-lived climate pollutants, or demonstrated experience quickly building expertise in new technical domains.
• Experience working with think tanks, civil society organisations, policy institutions, or research organisations, particularly in policy-facing or evidence-based roles.
• Background in journalism, editorial work, or policy communications, with experience shaping complex issues into accessible narratives.

Please note: Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted. However, if you are not shortlisted for this position, your CV will be retained in our database for future opportunities that match your profile.