Operations Officer

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Description

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The GEF unites 186 countries in partnership with international institutions, civil society organizations (CSOs), and the private sector to address global environmental issues while supporting national sustainable development initiatives. An independently operating financial organization, GEF is the designated financial mechanism for five multilateral environmental conventions: The Convention on Biological Diversity, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), UN Convention to Combat Desertification, and Minamata Convention on Mercury. GEF was also recently designated to serve as part of the financial mechanism of the international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ).

Since 1991, the GEF has achieved a strong track record with developing countries and countries with economies in transition, providing $24.7 billion in grants for over 5,700 projects in over 170 countries. 

The GEF Secretariat is a Vice Presidential Unit (VPU) within the World Bank for administrative purposes and has approximately 70 professional, administrative and client support staff. 

Duties and Accountabilities:

The Operations Officer will report to the GEF Policy and Operations Manager and will focus predominantly on project cycle management with both internal and external clients – e.g., GEF Secretariat, GEF implementing Agencies, and GEF Participants/countries.  The main duties and responsibilities will be to: (a) support the development of GEF policies and corporate strategy; (b) provide strategic advice on internal processes and procedures, and policy implementation; (c) carry out operational quality reviews and administration of key workflows and support project and program reviews by internal clients; (d) contribute to preparation of analytical reports in response to requests from key stakeholders and responding to business needs; (e) support portfolio management; (f) collaborate with information technology teams on requirements for GEF systems (GEF Portal).

Specific duties include the following:

• Provide critical contributions to the process of overall project and program reviews;
• Take specific responsibilities for the operational quality review of key project documents submitted for GEF approval; 
• Provide advice, coaching and support to staff in other units in the GEF Secretariat, as well as to external partners on issues related to GEF policy and guidelines;
• Collaborate across different units in the GEF Secretariat, and with other members of the GEF Partnership, to help ensure smooth processing of funding proposals and other GEF business processes;
• Coordinate and gather project data required;
• Monitor and ensure GEF project and program information is accurate across different online platforms; 
• Contribute to the preparation of business requirements and follow-up on the adjustments of the functionalities to business process systems, such as the GEF Portal;
• Prepare analytical reports on the GEF portfolio for targeted audiences including donors, Council, international organizations, among others;
• Provide inputs to corporate monitoring requests, prepare and analyze GEF portfolio reports/dashboards and identify existing or potential issues, focusing on risks in operations;
• Monitor and report on follow up actions resulting from portfolio/pipeline reviews and discussions, and GEF governing Council decisions;
• Prepare briefings, talking points, presentations and action plans on GEF portfolio for senior management, Council, and other audiences as requested.

Selection Criteria

• The ideal candidate will have operational experience in a field relevant to the GEF mandate as well as exposure to members of the GEF Partnership, in positions with a GEF implementing agency, a government and/or a Civil Society Organization. 

Key requirements are:

• Master’s degree in a relevant discipline with a strong quantitative background.
• Minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience.
• Operational experience, including working directly with project teams or quality assurance teams, ideally in a GEF Partner institution or similar (implementing agency or international organization with similar mandate).
• Ability to retrieve and analyze complex information, extract critical information from large data sets, understand, consolidate and report on results.
• Experience in analyzing relationships among different operational components of projects and programs
• Experience with business process systems
• Experience providing guidance or coaching on operational and technical issues
• Ability to express concepts clearly through visual representations that effectively display data, elements of correlation and trends requiring attention.
• Ability to understand the governance, policies, procedures and technical issues related global environmental/development operations; deep knowledge of the GEF system is a plus.
• Experience in international best practices in areas of fiduciary management including financial management, procurement, and audit is an advantage. 
• Excellent communication skills.
• Excellent command of the English language, both oral and written; mastery of French or Spanish is a plus.
• Ability to work in a multi-cultural team environment, willing to embrace new ideas, and experience dealing with a range of stakeholders, including international organizations, development agencies, and governments.
• Experience working in developing countries is preferred.
• Excellent diplomatic skills and ability to communicate effectively and with tact.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the capacity to work effectively on sensitive issues across the GEF Secretariat and partnership

Source: https://worldbankgroup.csod.com/ats/careersite/JobDetails.aspx?id=27273&site=1

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