Senior Environmental Specialist

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Description

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Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank Group 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.

The South Asia Region Context

The South Asia Region comprises eight countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) that range in size from India (with a population of over 1 billion) to Maldives (with 0.3 million people). The region has experienced a long period of robust economic growth, averaging 6% a year over the past 20 years. It was the second-fastest growing region in the world in the aftermath of the global crisis. This strong growth has translated into declining poverty and impressive improvements in human development. The percentage of people living below the poverty line fell in South Asia from 56% to 16% between 1981 and 2013. Still, the region remains home to a third of the world’s poorest, with 216 million people living below $1.9/day.

• The Environment and Natural Resources and Blue Economy Global Practice (ENB GP (Global Practice)): The ENB GP has been established to deliver on the opportunities, benefits and outcomes offered by enhanced management of the environment and natural resources! 
• This position focuses on pollution management and particularly air quality management (AQM), with a primary initial focus on India. Air pollution is a multi-sector and multi-jurisdictional challenge, and a regional priority for the World Bank’s South Asia Region. In India, as in much of South Asia, it has been mainly tackled on a city-by-city approach, though poor air quality is driven not only by urban sources, from transport, industry, and power generation, as is common in many countries, but also by a range of sources outside cities and beyond state borders. It is well known that crop residue burning in Punjab and Haryana affects air quality in the National Capital Region but other agricultural sources (e.g., fertilizer and livestock manure) may contribute more to high air pollution. In Kanpur, a city in Uttar Pradesh, 50 percent of air pollution is contributed by sources that lie outside the city boundary, and some outside the boundary of the State. Within India the most severely polluted region is the vast and high populated Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP; comprising Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, and Jharkhand). Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are additionally home to India’s largest contiguous population of households with incomes below the poverty line.  
• Together with the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change and the Departments of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change in IGP states, the World Bank has developed a large AQM program that intends to substantively improve air quality throughout IGP through a combination of lending, technical assistance, and concessional grant finance to each of the jurisdictions in IGP. The IGP program also includes AQM activities in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, and Pakistan.  
• Besides the World Bank, the IGP AQM program engages a set of development partners that intends to provide financial, political, and technical support. The World Bank program supports a range of activities with partners, including awareness raising.
• The ENB GP in South Asia seeks to recruit a skilled Senior Environmental Specialist to provide environmental management support to Bank-financed projects with a focus on AQM, and contribute to developing and supervising ENB projects, particularly in addressing pollution and environmental health. The Senior Environmental Specialist, who will work as part of an India and regional AQM team, will be based in Singapore or Washington, DC and report to the Singapore-based ENB Practice Manager for the South Asia Region (SAR). 

Job duties and responsibilities: 

• Serve as key technical expert on air quality management, helping oversee quality of technical approaches and modeling, and ensuring alignment with related policy dialogue, technical assistance activities, and lending approaches. Stay abreast of emerging technical and policy developments in the AQM field. 
• Lead/co-lead policy dialogue; analytical and advisory services; lending project preparation and implementation in environment sector; and portfolio reviews with a focus on pollution, circular economy and particularly air quality management.  
• Provide technical guidance/advice to operational teams and mentor junior staff to strengthen project design related to pollution management.
• Collaborate with World Bank Group staff globally, across region and in the IGP countries (India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, and Pakistan) and across sector boundaries and seeking opportunities for knowledge sharing. Disseminate/support dissemination of lessons learned and best practices for research, knowledge, and learning purposes.
• Contribute to, and sometimes lead in the development of a variety of written products and communications, including components of major reports (Briefs, Analytical Notes, Aide Memoires, Project Concept Notes, and Project Documents), as well as drafts of other reports, technical working papers and professional publications for wider circulation. 
• Support in the coordination of development partners that contributes to the development and implementation of the IGP AQM program.  
• Collaborate closely with World Bank Global Practices and IFC/MIGA colleagues on joint projects and with other colleagues from other multilateral development institutions.
• Coordinate and carry out other tasks as requested by the Manager, such as contributing to the organization of training or knowledge sharing events.

Selection Criteria

• An advanced degree (master’s or PhD) in environmental/civil engineering, environment-related science or economics is required.  
• A minimum of 8 or more years’ relevant professional practical experience in projects or policy dialogue related to pollution management is required. 
• Strong analytical skills, ability to think strategically, analyze and synthesize diverse qualitative and quantitative environmentally related data and information is required. 
• Strong expertise/experience in air quality management that will be relevant for India and the other countries in IGP is desired.  
• Strong results orientation, with ability to follow up multiple work-streams simultaneously.  
• Record of accomplishment of dealing effectively with external and internal clients; ability to work well with a range of stakeholders, including project-affected parties, government officials, non-governmental organizations and civil society, and project investors and their staff. 
• Ability to communicate ideas clearly and confidently, articulate issues and recommend solutions, particularly related to air quality management.  
• Excellent inter-personal and team leadership skills and ability to easily interact with people of diverse backgrounds and seniority inside and outside the World Bank, including clients and partners. 
• Experience working in developing countries required. 
• Excellent writing and communication skills in English is required that, among others, can contribute substantively to professional publications, particularly in air quality management.  Knowledge of other languages will be an advantage.  
• Good team player who can work as a member of a multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural team, motivate and lead group efforts and network effectively across boundaries. 
• A drive for results while working with limited supervision and under tight timelines.

Source: https://worldbankgroup.csod.com/ats/careersite/JobDetails.aspx?id=28036&site=1

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