Operations Officer at World Bank

Job #: req10867    
Sector: Advisory Services
Grade: GF
Term Duration: 2 years 0 months
Recruitment Type: Local Recruitment
Required Language(s): English

Overview

• Private sector development is essential to the promotion of successful and sustainable economies in low and middle-income countries around the world. Sound and efficient markets can ensure that resources are allocated where they are most productive, assisting job creation and spurring economic growth.
• Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa has lifted millions out of poverty over the past decades. Yet income fragility and inequality remains a challenge. Supporting inclusive growth is one of IFC’s priorities in the region - where our long-term investments totaled $4.6 billion in fiscal year 20. IFC’s Advisory Services portfolio in Sub-Saharan Africa in fiscal year 20 was the largest globally at $93.2 million in funds under management.
• IFC’s Creating Markets Advisory (CMA) Unit delivers on IFC’s capital increase commitments by providing a foundation for Regional, Industry and Upstream teams to increase private sector investment opportunities. CMA addresses “if-then” reform asks in IFC strategies, complementing World Bank efforts, while strengthening IFC's relationships with client countries in support of IFC 3.0. Specifically, the CMA team works proactively with governments and regulatory agencies to create effective and efficient market conditions, both at economy wide as well as industry/sector level, for increased private investments. Our global experience shows that challenges in the business environment and lack of the right enabling regulatory framework results in countries losing significant amounts of investment annually.  The unit collaborates extensively with the public sector, private sector and other teams across the World Bank Group in the design and delivery of advisory services.
• CMA currently operates across the Sub-Saharan Africa region, with an active portfolio in West and Central Africa in Ghana, Togo, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Guinea, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, DRC, CAR, Chad, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.

Role & Responsibilities

• In this role, the selected candidate will serve as an Operations Officer for the CMA team in Lagos, Nigeria.
• He/she will work closely with IFC Upstream, Investments and Advisory staff as well as World Bank staff to design and ensure implementation of reforms that address bottlenecks faced by investors in IFC’s priority sectors, using a variety of WBG tools and offerings.
• He/she will play a leading role executing strategic initiatives to enhance the CMA practice in Nigeria and potentially across the sub-region, innovate new projects and build new business in line with the WBG/IFC country strategy, and deliver high quality advisory engagements to the Government and private sector.
• The selected candidate will report directly to the CMA Manager for West & Central Africa.

Duties and Accountabilities

• The selected candidate will be responsible for delivering market-creating client solutions by leveraging local and regional resources.  In this respect, the focus will be to ensure the existing CMA portfolio is responsive to IFC’s upstream and investment priorities, as well as to build new business given the potential market and client needs, aligned with the IFC business plan for Nigeria and beyond, as needed.    

Client and Stakeholder Management:

• Participate in senior level client meetings to provide technical advice and monitor progress in implementing investment climate reforms; develop new business development in line with client and market needs as well as IFC priorities.
• Leverage relationships with Government officials, private sector and World Bank Group staff to design and implement reforms using existing or new projects and tools to support reform implementation.
• Communicate with senior level clients of the Government and private sector and articulate the case for investment climate reform that can unlock investment potential.
• Work collaboratively with IFC region Investment/Upstream/Advisory anchors to align advisory to help build a pipeline of investment projects and provide solutions to key portfolio clients.
• Engage with the relevant teams at the World Bank and IFC for reforms needed to unlock new markets and work collaboratively with Upstream teams.
• Engage pro-actively with donor partners to report progress on donor funded programs and develop new fund-raising proposals

Design and Operationalize Solutions:

• Collaborate with CMA as well as industry specialists in the identification and design of investment climate reforms to unlock investment potential and create markets in Nigeria and the sub-region as needed
• Review and contribute to the development and approval of relevant project documents (Concept Notes and Implementation Plans) and client deliverables to ensure standards and objectives are met.
• Improve the design and delivery of client solutions by incorporating global best practices and lessons from past. Partner with results team in developing appropriate theories of change and results frameworks and indicators to strengthen the development impact and sustainability of client solutions and continuously learn from client projects/ engagements.
• Ensure high quality of project supervision and completion documents and provide quality control over client deliverables. Moreover, support client in implementing recommendations and help trouble shoot as needed.

Create and Share Knowledge and Build Capacity:

• Support peer to peer knowledge exchange sessions across the region, lead diagnostics with the client and solicit AS engagements in line with IS and country policies.
• Conduct research to shape ongoing and future offerings in investment climate reform and develop new tools and guidance to incorporate internal and external best practices.
• Design and deliver training and communication strategy for Investment and Advisory staff to better enable them to be champions for investment climate reform, and for external stakeholders to generate interest in investment climate reforms and understanding of why it is important/ advantageous to businesses, community and/or economy.
• Proactively strengthen the value proposition of advisory products through embracing new trends and partnerships.
• Help build a bench strength of experts and consultants in the thematic areas of leadership across the region.

Staff Supervision:

• Oversee/ supervise assigned staff and consultants.
• Develop technical capabilities of the assigned staff and members of the broader practice group team through mentoring, coaching, structured training program and by providing on-the-job learning opportunities.
• Ensure quality control of work products and outputs
• Determine resources needed to support projects and ensure efficient/ effective use of resources.
• Manage project budgets and align staffing needs.

Selection Criteria

• Master's degree in Law, Finance, Business, Economics, or a closely related field.
• At least 8 years’ experience in private sector development, with a focus on delivering investment climate and sector reforms in at least 2 regions and across a variety of IDA and FCS countries.
• Strong skills and demonstrated track record in delivering advisory engagements in the area of investment climate reform both economy wide and sector level reforms.
• Strong technical knowledge and demonstrated track record in delivering advisory engagements in several of the following thematic areas: economy wide reforms (business regulations, investment policy, competition policy, industrial and special economic zones, climate, gender, entrepreneurship); and/or sector regulatory reforms in agribusiness, manufacturing, health, education, energy, infrastructure, PPP, financial sector, digital economy and disruptive technology.
• Understanding of IFC and WBG products/instruments and where there are opportunities for cross-organizational collaboration. Demonstrable experience working on IFC and WBG products will be an advantage.
• Understand the implications of different policy and regulatory frameworks governing the thematic areas.
• Able to design, negotiate and lead efforts to develop client offerings that reflect in-depth knowledge of thematic area and understanding of business case for how thematic focus will help client to improve their business.
• Able to identify how changes in markets, business climate, regulations or emergence of new/ successful innovators/ disruptors may create new opportunities for IFC to accelerate its mandate in a thematic area.
• Thorough understanding of IFC products, what is likely to be approved, and how long it will take. Good understanding of WBG and how to initiate collaborative efforts to leverage its products/ instruments.
• Able to design research and analytical projects or major portion of complex projects to credibly produce new understanding of a thematic issue and/or potential opportunities to unlock new markets or new streams of business.
• Strong drive for results and impact
• Excellent knowledge of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and aptitude to learn new systems is a must.  Ability to use project management systems (iportal, etc) is a plus.
• Excellent written, verbal communication and presentation skills in English is a must.