Senior Agriculture Economist

Working at the World Bank Group (WBG) provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The WBG 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. Visit www.worldbank.org.

The vision and mission of the WBG is to end extreme poverty and boost prosperity on a livable planet. Delivery of this vision relies on a three-pronged strategy that includes maximizing development impact by engaging country clients in identifying and tackling the most difficult development challenges; promoting scaled-up partnerships that are strategically aligned with the goals; and crowding in public and private resources, expertise and ideas. The architecture underpinning the strategy is the establishment of 14 Global Practices or GPs (organized into four Practice Groups) and five cross-cutting Solution Areas that, in concert with WBG Regions, design and deliver solutions that address clients’ most pressing developmental challenges, and ultimately, enable the World Bank Group to accomplish its mission to end extreme poverty and boost prosperity on a livable planet.

The Agriculture and Food Global Practice (AGF GP) of the WBG, supports a Global Vision for Agriculture and Food with agriculture able to feed every person, every day, in every country with a safe, nutritious and affordable diet, and where jobs and income gains in the food system are sufficient to meet poverty reduction targets.

The Agriculture and Food team in the Africa West and Central (AFW) Region (SAWA4) is organized under the umbrella of AFW Sustainable Development that currently also incorporates water, environment, social, urban, disaster resilience and land teams. SAWA4’s work program covers Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea Bissau, Gambia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Ivory Coast, Benin, Togo, and Guinea and is led by a Practice Manager.  The focus of the team’s work going forward is on the future of agri-food systems, green and resilient transitions, including inclusiveness, diversification of economies, jobs, agricultural value-chains development and competitiveness, one health, leveraging the private sector, climate-smart agriculture, digital agriculture, financial innovation, fragility and conflict, and regional and cross-GP collaboration.

The selected candidate will report to our SAWA4 Practice Manager, based in Washington, DC.

Job duties and responsibilities:

The primary responsibility of the Senior Agriculture Economist will be to provide technical and strategic leadership in the development and implementation of the AGF GP’s work program including the Food Systems Resilience Program (FSRP) and the Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) Project. This selected would also contribute to the delivery of other elements of the agriculture and food program, quality assurance and interaction with internal and external clients, as well as other development partners, while working closely with the AGF team, the AFW SD Program Leaders, and Country Management Units (CMU). 

The Senior Agriculture Economist will: 

• Lead the preparation and supervision of operations as Task Team Leader of projects led by SAWA4 and those projects supporting agriculture and food system related activities led by other GPs in several countries. Assure timely delivery of these operations with high levels of quality.
• Lead or contribute to analytical products and initiate and maintain a high-level engagement and dialogue with key government counterparts on the strategic program and policy issues in areas including sustainable and climate resilient agriculture, linking smallholders to markets and agriculture value chain development to accelerate competitive agriculture development.
• Lead or contribute to policy dialogue on agricultural and rural development issues and interactions with clients, development and other partners, and alert management (both country and sector) to issues requiring attention.
• Work with the relevant Program Leaders and staff of the Agriculture GP and other GPs to find opportunities for addressing agricultural and rural development issues as part of Country Partnership Frameworks, country policy dialogue, sector investment operations, development policy operations, and other multi-sectoral projects.
• Identify innovative opportunities or ways to address existing needs in the agricultural sector, including bringing in experience from other parts of the world, and to better align the GP’s portfolio with the AFW region and core priorities of several CMUs.
• Represent the World Bank in fora involving the community of development partners and private sector. Provide support, either explicit or implicit, to the work of the development partners in the sector. As necessary, represent the World Bank and the Agriculture GP’s management at events with sectoral focus.

Selection Criteria

• A minimum of a Masters in Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness, Agriculture or related fields. A minimum of 8 years of relevant working experience in areas related to agriculture, agriculture economics, agribusiness, and other fields related to food systems.
• At least eight years of experience on agricultural development issues;
• Solid experience in leading complex operations, with demonstrated high quality results;
• Demonstrated experience in leading analytical work and dialogue with clients;
• Excellent interpersonal, problem-solving and team skills with ability to find balanced, pragmatic and implementable solution;
• Ability to work across various subject areas and multi-disciplinary teams; while being diplomatic and sensitive to cultural, political and gender issues;
• Proven written and oral communication skills in English, including the ability to present complex issues to specialists as well as to non-specialist audiences. French communication skills are a plus.

Source: https://worldbankgroup.csod.com/ats/careersite/JobDetails.aspx?id=27491&site=1