SUSTAINABILITY IN PRACTICE
WHAT WE DO
EU climate finance positioning
Developed UNICEF’s climate finance narrative across EU Member States and enlargement countries, mapping Green Deal instruments, the Social Climate Plan and Fund, and NDC processes to identify financing and advocacy entry points.
National policy submission on the Social Climate Fund
Coordinated recommendations to the Presidency of the Greek Government on the European Social Climate Plan and Fund, securing consideration of child-specific measures.
Parliamentary and NDC advocacy
Prepared and supported testimony before the Hellenic Parliament’s environmental protection committee, and led advocacy for child-sensitive national and EU Nationally Determined Contributions.
Multi-country climate coordination, Central Asia
Provided technical oversight for climate education, green skills, climate-resilient infrastructure, NDC 3.0 priorities and climate finance alignment.
5 country offices · 4 programme pillars
Climate Landscape Analysis for Children in Greece
Led the first national analysis of its kind, combining legal and policy review, child vulnerability mapping and costed recommendations on adaptation and disaster risk reduction.
WASH needs assessment, flood-affected communities
Designed and oversaw an assessment in Roma settlements in Thessaly after the 2023 floods, shaping a multi-year service delivery intervention.
Portfolio monitoring and quality assurance
Built monitoring and quality assurance for child protection, education, health and social inclusion.
Programme budget above €88M per two-year cycle
EU instrument negotiation
Negotiated, drafted and amended agreements under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, ESF+ and AMIF.
Programmes valued at €45M and €35M
Financial reporting frameworks
Built the financial reporting framework for RRF-funded programming, including verification methods, eligible expenditure and donor conditionalities.
Partnership portfolio management
Held accountability for review, endorsement and monitoring of a country office’s implementing partnership portfolio.
60+ documents cleared · €44M+ value · 19 partners through due diligence
Assurance and audit oversight
Managed annual assurance across audits, spot checks and programmatic checks, achieving targets in five consecutive years.
12 audits and 15 spot checks in two years
Child-responsive disaster preparedness pilot
Designed and piloted preparedness across Greek municipalities, combining capacity building, practical tools and structured participation by children and young people.
Emergency preparedness function
Coordinated the emergency preparedness platform and risk mitigation planning for a country office, and led the response to the 2023 floods and wildfires.
Global DRR policy
Advanced child-responsive disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation through GADRRRES and CADRI during a five-month UNICEF headquarters assignment in New York.
WASH and environmental justice in Roma settlements
Oversaw multi-year interventions in Thessaly and Central Macedonia with public authorities, grassroots organisations, regions and municipalities, with a deliberate focus on women and girls.
1,185 people reached in seven settlements in one year · scaled toward 15 settlements
Secondment and systems linkage
Placed and supervised a social cohesion expert inside the General Secretariat to connect programme activity to the National Strategy Framework for Roma across relocation, education and social services.
City of Athens Climate Pact
Brokered the first co-signature of the Pact by a UN agency in Greece, committing to climate neutrality by 2030 through child and youth engagement.
Inter-agency safeguarding coordination
Co-chaired Greece’s inter-agency PSEA Working Group alongside UNHCR and IOM, building shared standards for prevention, reporting and response.
42+ organisations convened
Safeguarding assessments and localised training
Completed PSEA assessments and re-assessments for 36 partner organisations and localised a safeguarding course into Greek.
1,600+ completions · 91% positive rating
Building a support function from scratch
Established a programme support unit and grew it over five years into a ten-person multi-disciplinary team covering grants, field coordination, civil works and safeguarding.
Organisational transition and staff representation
Chaired the staff association through restructuring and funding contraction, maintaining open channels between staff and management.
70+ formal consultations · coordination across Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia
Leading Sustainable Corporations, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford (2025)
Executive programme on corporate sustainability strategy, governance and human rights. Applied case study on Rio Tinto, examining social licence to operate, community consent and the governance of environmental and human rights risk in the extractives sector.
How the work runs
Senior and direct.
Every room, every level. Ministers and ministries, boards and donors, field teams, municipal officers, parents and young people. Each conversation carries something the analysis needs, and the work is better for taking all of them seriously.
Rights-based by default. Gender-sensitive, safeguarding-conscious, and attentive to who is being left out. This is what makes programmes work, not a compliance step at the end.
Built to be handed over. Every engagement should leave your team more capable of doing the next one without outside help.
IMPACT SEED
Impact Seed Single Member Private Company · Tax ID (ΑΦΜ): 803315066 · GEMI Reg. No.: 194415503000 · Athens, Greece · svlachakis@impactseed.eu