Senior Financial Sector Specialist at World Bank

Job #: 171449
Location: Abuja, Nigeria
Job Family: Finance & Markets Department - Global Practice
Job Type: Professional & Technical
Grade: GG
Recruitment Type: Local Hire
Language Requirement: English [Essential]

Background / General Description

• The Finance & Markets Global Practice aims to help countries build deep, diversified, inclusive, efficient and stable financial systems, which are essential to promoting economic growth and reducing poverty and increasing shared prosperity. The practice is committed to delivering public and private sector tailored solutions to development challenges by leveraging the whole range of the Bank Group's financial, knowledge/advisory and convening services for clients. In doing so, the practice not only partners with the broader World Bank finance team (IFC, WB, MIGA and WB/IFC Treasuries) but also acts as an enabler for all of the other GPs and Cross-Cutting Groups.
• As a joint World Bank-IFC practice, the Finance & Markets Practice brings together the World Bank's knowledge, finance (loans, credits, guarantees, risk management products), and convening services, and IFC advisory in private-sector firms into a single suite of development solutions for our clients and the global community to support reaching the twin goals of eliminating extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity.
• Led by a Senior Director and two Directors, the practice has a cadre of 15 Practice Managers who oversee its regional teams and global solutions groups, and CGAP, which has a dedicated Director. Thematically, the practice is organized into three Global Solutions Teams. The first group’s activities are aimed at strengthening the foundations of stable financial systems and markets by supporting global financial sector oversight frameworks and policies; strengthening banking regulation and restructuring regimes; improving financial sector integrity efforts and deepening capital markets, insurance, pensions and investment funds; the second Improving financial infrastructure and access through its work on credit infrastructures; payment and market infrastructures; responsible financial access: and SME finance, and the third on partnering with other practices on frontier development finance initiatives such as climate change finance, disaster risk finance and insurance, infrastructure finance, agriculture finance and housing finance.
• Sub-Saharan Africa, with a population of over 700 million people in 47 countries, is home to 34 of the world’s poorest countries.  Making headway against poverty in sub-Saharan Africa continues to present the world’s most formidable developmental challenge.
• The Africa Region’s Finance and Markets Global Practice is responsible for providing operational support and technical advice to AFR clients on a broad range of financial sector issues. The Unit has over 30 staff covering a span of 47 countries and 12 country directorates.
• The Senior Financial Sector Specialists in the department have region-wide responsibility for providing technical advice and operational support to sub-Saharan country departments and their client countries. In carrying out its mandate, the unit collaborates closely with regional staff working in other Global Practices and with other parts of the Bank Group, including the IMF, IFC, MIGA and WBI. In line with the Africa region’s objective to facilitate the implementation of the Paris Declaration, the unit has an established track record in working in partnership with other development partners including Germany, DFID, AFD, AfDB, SECO, SIDA and others.
• The Nigeria Country Partnership Strategy is structured around three strategic clusters: (a) promoting diversified growth and job creation by reforming the power sector, enhancing agricultural productivity, and increasing access to finance; (b) improving the quality and efficiency of social service delivery at the state level to promote social inclusion; and (c) strengthening governance and public sector management, with gender equity and conflict sensitivity as essential elements of governance.
• The World Bank Group support to structural reform agendas for diversified growth and jobs focuses specifically on: (a) increasing installed power generation and transmission capacity and improving the efficiency and governance of electricity delivery; (b) boosting agricultural productivity, improving farmers’ linkages with agro-processors, and scaling up resilience to current and future climate variability; and (c)  increasing the supply of long-term financing for the housing sector, expanding financing opportunities for SMEs, and strengthening the ability of Development Finance Institutions to mobilize private finance for key sectors of the economy. 
• Finance and Markets (F&M) Global Practice plays a key role in delivering the Country Partnership Strategy, by supervising the operations under the F&M Global Practice and more importantly working across Global Practices to achieve the twin goals of the World Bank Group of ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity.

Duties and Accountabilities

• The position will provide operational and analytical support to Finance and Markets Global Practice (F&M GP) team working on Nigeria.

The candidate will need to demonstrate broad knowledge of financial sector topics and issues and a more in depth technical knowledge of one of the three thematic areas:

• Financial Stability and Integrity: Support teams working on financial sector regulation and oversight
• Financial Infrastructure and Access: Support teams working on strengthening credit infrastructure such as movable collateral registry and credit reporting, responsible financial inclusion, access to finance for small and medium enterprise finance, financial literacy;
• Financing for Development: Support teams focusing on initiatives such as housing finance, agricultural finance, insurance, pensions, private equity, and capital markets.
• The candidate will provide implementation support to F&M GP’s two flagship projects in Nigeria: i) Housing Finance Project which aims to increase access to housing finance by deepening the primary and secondary mortgage markets in Nigeria; and ii) Development Finance Project which aims to increase the availability and access to finance for micro, small, and medium enterprises through eligible financial intermediaries with the support of a new wholesale development finance institution.
• The candidate will also participate to Advisory Services and Analytics (ASA) in coordination with other GPs, notably Trade and Competitiveness and Macroeconomics and Fiscal Management. The Nigeria F&M team also manages advisory projects focusing on strengthen payment system development, financial consumer protection and regulation of microfinance banks, collateral registry and remains engaged analysis of ongoing financial sector developments (e.g. banking sector).

Support to above project portfolio involves the following activities:

• Project management (project preparation and project supervision): For tasks where project management responsibility is assigned in whole or part to F&M: carry out necessary project preparation and supervision activities, this includes technical inputs on to F&M issues, as well as close attention to financial management, procurement and safeguards (social and environmental).
• Advisory Services and Analytics: Contribute to advisory and analytical work undertaken by F&M, such as sectorial assessments (e.g. banking, microfinance, capital markets), impact assessments, surveys, stakeholder analysis and other technical analyses, as required.
• General technical support to the World Bank Abuja office: Provide technical F&M inputs to the country level strategic policy dialogue (including Systematic Country Diagnostic and Country Partnership Framework), cross-support to relevant components in operations managed by other GPs (investment operations or development policy grants) and in multi-sectoral advisory and analytical work (e.g. World Bank support to the North East).
• Dialogue Coordination. Maintain close liaison with key Government counterparts involved in financial sector issues.
• Donor Coordination: Maintain close liaison with the development partners such as African Development Bank, United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID), USAID, United Nations, French Development Agency (AFD), and consult with them for seeking inputs on Finance and Markets Issues.

Selection Criteria
The Senior Financial Sector Specialist will possess the following:

• Master's Degree in relevant field (e.g. Economics, Finance, Business, Public Policy or related relevant discipline)
• At least 8 years of relevant professional experience since completing university degree (i.e. bachelors).
• Financial sector experience, either in the private sector or from a regulatory/policy/development perspective.
• Solid understanding of financial sector issues and more in depth knowledge in one of the thematic areas of F&M GP (i.e. financial stability and integrity, infrastructure and access, and financial for development)
• Operational knowledge of project cycle, from preparation to completion;
• Proven ability in conceptualizing and developing high quality technical and analytical work related to financial sector topics.
• Ability to work well with clients, strong interpersonal and team skills;
• Excellent technical writing and presentation skills (in developing power point based reports and presentations) and public speaking;
• Knowledge of Nigerian financial sector

Competencies:

• Client Orientation - Maintains client relationships in the face of conflicting demands or directions and provides evidence-based advice and solutions based on sound diagnosis and knowledge. 
• Drive for Results - Identifies the needed resources to accomplish results involving multiple stakeholders and finds solutions to obstacles affecting key deliverables. 
• Teamwork (Collaboration) and Inclusion - Plays a strong role in teams in ensuring the team stays organized and focused, and actively seeks and considers diverse ideas and approaches.
• Knowledge, Learning and Communication - Is active in the sharing of best practice, trends, knowledge and lessons learned across units and with clients and partners, articulating ideas verbally and in writing in a clear and compelling way across audiences of varied levels. 
• Business Judgment and Analytical Decision Making - Gathers inputs, assesses risk, considers impact and articulates benefits of decisions for internal and external stakeholders over the long term.