Regional Procurement Coordinator (Hub Coordinator Lusophone Countries) at African Development Bank - AfDB

Reference: ADB/19/014
Location: South Africa
Grade: PL3
Position N°: 50071208

The Complex

• The Senior Vice-Presidency (SNVP) is responsible for supporting the President in the day-to-day management of the Bank Group to achieve its strategic objective and drive performance culture that will align all processes and systems to deliver high impact results. The SNVP provides effective leadership and exceptional coordination to ensure implementation and monitoring of key corporate decisions as well as the identification of necessary corrective measures and actions. The SNVP  leads Senior Management discussions, decision-making processes and the implementation of key Board and Management decisions.

The Hiring Department

• The SVP supervises the Fiduciary and Inspection Department (SNFI), which acts as the custodian of the procurement (including procurement for private and public partnership) and financial management (FM) profession, and has the following responsibilities for its functions:
  • Developing and interpreting policy, strategy and related guidance notes and manuals;
  • Preparing annual post review reports on the Bank’s FM and procurement operations for the Board;
  • Developing training strategy for internal and external clients; and
  • Dialoguing with external and global partners with a view to building partnerships and fostering harmonization;
  • Providing the secretariat for the Procurement Review Committee (PRC); and
  • Inspecting and reporting on the performance of procurement and FM activities undertaken by the regions.
• The Regional Procurement Coordinator for Lusophone countries is responsible to ensure that the project procurement activities financed by the Bank in his/her region done by Procurement Specialists team, are compliant with the Bank’s Procurement Policy. This is done by advising on procurement arrangements and reviewing procurement decisions of the Procurement specialists’ team within the project/program operations cycle from the identification to completion stages.
• The incumbent also contributes to the preparation of the Bank’s Country Strategy Paper, and to building procurement capacity of Borrowers, which includes training of Borrower staff, advising on project related procurement matters, and assessing and strengthening the Borrower’s procurement systems.
• The Regional Procurement Coordinator reports administratively to the Regional Operations Manager for Implementation Support (ROM-IS) and functionally to the Division Manager - Procurement (SNFI) for Eastern and Southern Regions.

Duties and Responsibilities
Under the supervision and guidance of the Division Manager Procurement, the Regional Procurement Coordinator will, in his/her duty station:

• Ensure consistent, uniform and predictable application of the Policy within the region and provide corrective actions as appropriate;
• Review procurement policy deviations and provide clearance for inclusion in Project Appraisal Reports (PARs) for subsequent Board approval with clearance of the Manager as needed;
• Review all cases involving the use of Third Party procurement methods and procedures and provide clearance for inclusion of those methods and procedures in the PAR for Board approval, with clearance of the Manager as needed;
• Review and clear procurement diagnostic assessments reports (BPAR, Sector, Market Assessments) for approval by the Manager and Director of SNFI; assist Regional member countries for their procurement reforms and mobilize financial resources for this assistance;
• Review and clear the assessment of Borrowers’ procurement systems done by the Procurement Specialists, and the design of adequate action plans to improve Borrowers’ procurement systems and to strengthen the institutional capacity within borrowers’ entities;
• Participate with other Multilateral Development Banks in the assessment of the Regional Member Countries’ procurement systems;
• Review and clear procurement requests as per the Bank’s Delegation of Authority matrix for Sovereign and Non-Sovereign projects;
• Take a pro-active role ensuring ‘Quality at Entry work’ through supervision of a team of Procurement Specialists across the region in  terms of the Fiduciary and Development mandate of the Bank;
• Follow up with Procurement Specialists of complaints received from bidders, contractors or civil society;
• Deal with cases where the advice provided by Procurement Specialists was not accepted by Task Managers  and finding appropriate solutions;
• Facilitate and undertake training seminars /workshops for the Borrower and Bank Staff  and Business Opportunity seminars for the regional and non-regional private sector;
• Prepare all Project Procurement brief for the Senior Management when required;
• Monitor  Procurement Data Entry by reviewing their quality through random checks to ensure that accurate procurement data are generated for SNFI reports;
• Maintain procurement information regarding her/his region on the Bank’s Website;
• Make sure that the objectives of the key performance indicators set up by the Procurement department are attained by developing tools and;
• Prepare periodic activity reports of the region and the Bank’s Annual Procurement Reports.

Selection Criteria
Including desirable skills, knowledge and experience:

• Hold at least a Master's degree or equivalent in Public/Business Administration, Law, Engineering, Procurement, Economics or related fields
• A minimum of seven (7) years of relevant professional experience in providing procurement support and advice to the preparation and implementation of programs and projects financed by the Bank or any other similar institution in developing countries,  having private sector experience will be an added advantage
• Proven familiarity with and solid experience in the practice of procurement of goods and works and the acquisition of consultancy services under donor funding conditions; it would be desirable to have knowledge of Bank Procurement policy
• Experience in supervising and effectively managing implementation of  development projects and programs
• Ability to be flexible, open-minded with integrity, client and results-oriented for achieving both Bank’s and Borrowers’ objectives
• Effective consulting and advisory skills that enable Sector Staff and Borrowers to build their confidence and skills to deal with procurement issues
• Good networking skills and judgment are required while working within teams and when building professional relationships with Procurement Specialists and sector specialists working in the Region
• Strong leadership and coaching skills
• Ability to communicate effectively (written and oral) in Portuguese with a working knowledge of  English or French
• Competence with standard MS Office software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), preferably combined with knowledge and experience of SAP operations