Description

Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries; a unique global partnership of five institutions dedicated to ending extreme poverty, increasing shared prosperity and promoting sustainable development. With 189 member countries and more than 120 offices worldwide, we work with public and private sector partners, investing in groundbreaking projects and using data, research, and technology to develop solutions to the most urgent global challenges. For more information, visit www.worldbank.org

Regional Context:

The South Asia Region (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) is at a crucial stage of development. Rapid economic growth, driven by urbanization and demographic dividend, has brought down poverty rates, but severe forms of exclusion and disparities based on ethnicity, caste, and gender remain. Rapid growth has also come with congestion and pollution in cities. South Asia is more than other regions affected by changes in temperature and extreme weather event. Additional challenges are that South Asia is underperforming in exports, has large informal sectors and low female labor force participation rates. All these challenges must be addressed to secure rapid growth in coming decades. 

Private sector led growth, focused on investments in infrastructure, energy, logistics and cities are essential to generate the jobs needed to employ South Asia’s sizeable youth population. At the same time, the region needs to continue building human capital so that South Asia’s population is well equipped for the jobs of the future. 

The World Bank in South Asia: https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/sar

COUNTRY CONTEXT:

Since the August 2021 fall of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the humanitarian crisis has worsened, with rising poverty and unemployment, and losses in education, health, and gender outcomes. 24.4 million Afghans require humanitarian assistance. The banking sector has collapsed, creating barriers to delivering humanitarian assistance. The flow of humanitarian assistance has been severely constrained by the lack of a functioning payment system.  
From August 2021 until now, the international community’s approach has evolved, with the recognition that a humanitarian response alone will be insufficient to address Afghanistan’s challenges, provide essential basic services and sustain even a smaller economy.  

The Bank’s initial response (Approach 1.0) focused on providing financing gap for immediate humanitarian response, specifically health and food distributions by way of transfers out to UNICEF ($100 million) and WFP ($180 million), respectively.  

Approach 2.0 has made available just over US$1.1 billion in ARTF resources in calendar year 2022, in addition to the US$280 million in TOs provided in 2021. Approach 2.0 will focus on financing for delivery of essential basic services through off-budget recipient-executed grants to parties outside the control of the interim administration, in particular UN agencies, and potentially international NGOs (iNGOs). The Bank has also been working with international partners to establish a Humanitarian Exchange Facility (HEF) as a temporary measure to facilitate payments until a more permanent solution is found and also a program to assist capacity of local NGOs. 

Duties and Accountabilities:

The ETC will work in close collaboration with the CD, the OM, the ARTF Program Manager and other members of the country management and leadership teams to further strengthen good partnership relations established with ARTF donors, UN partners, regional partners, and broader international community. More specifically s/he will:

ARTF donors/partners relations

• Strengthen and develop strong relationship with ARTF donors, especially at the technical level, and Heads of Cooperation level, by maintaining close communications with them. 

• Prepare and convene ARTF donors meetings, in close coordination with the ARTF Program Manager, including Strategy Group, Management Committee, and Steering Committee.

• Help organize capitals meetings, in close coordination with Senior Country Officer, usually held in Washington DC during the IMF-WB annual meetings and spring meetings. 

UN/iNGO partners relations

• Play a coordination role in strengthening Bank’s relationship with UN partners, especially with UNAMA and other agencies that are critical to deliver Bank-funded operations and analytics.

• Assist CD/OM to conceptualize/operationalize Afghanistan’s aid architecture framework. Play a key role in coordinating with UNAMA counterpart to have joint monitoring of funding streams and contribute to effective management of Strategic Technical Working Group (STWG).

• Represent WB at UN and donor meetings, as requested by CD/OM.  

Strategic planning

• Participate as a key team member in preparation of important strategic products (incl. CPFs, SCDs, PLRs, CPPRs, PFFP); and contribute to preparation of management briefs and other major or complex reports, including the PFFP updates. 

Selection Criteria

• Masters in a relevant field (Economics, Business Studies, Political Science, Finance, International Relations, or similar field relevant to the Bank's mission).

• Minimum of 8 years of relevant experience with the World Bank or in comparable work in FCV contexts. Thorough knowledge of Afghanistan’s FCV context and detailed understanding of Afghanistan’s aid architecture.

• Strong knowledge of trust fund operations and policies, portfolio management, Bank operational policies and business practices. 

• Understanding of the Public Financial Management Systems and solid knowledge of disbursement functions, fiduciary and audit arrangements for the Bank/ARTF funded operations.

• Solid understanding and experience with development issues in fragile states including budget support operations and third-party monitoring arrangements 

• Sound knowledge of using Bank’s system i.e client connection, Business Intelligence (Bi), MyTF, Operations Portal and SAP and familiarity with the ARTF database used for ARTF financial data.

• Demonstrated initiative, leadership skills, innovation and drive for results including ability to undertake a diversity of tasks within a rapidly changing and demanding environment on short deadlines.

• Strong organizational skills and ability to deal rapidly, and in a timely and accurate manner, with shifting priorities and work pressure with minimum supervisory requirements.

• Outstanding inter-personal skills with proven ability to work cooperatively within a multi-disciplinary and cultural country team and with other Bank groups and development partners, while demonstrating political sensitivity and mature judgment. 

• Excellent spoken and written communications skills including strategic analysis and planning and the ability to draft clear and concise reports, correspondence and briefs.

• Client orientation, high degree of motivation, and agility to effectively and efficiently deliver results are strongly desired.

World Bank Group Core Competencies

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This vacancy is archived.

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