Senior Environmental Specialist

Would you like 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 Environment and Natural Resources and Blue Economy Global Practice (ENB GP): 

• Located within the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Practice Group, the Environment, Natural Resources, and Blue Economy Global Practice (ENB) provides expertise, technical assistance, and financing to help developing countries manage land, sea, and freshwater natural resources in a sustainable way! This helps create jobs, improve livelihoods, enhance ecosystem services, decrease pollution, and increase resilience to climate change.

Unit Context:

• SSAE1 is one of two ENB units in South Asia Region (SAR). Staff in the unit manage a full spectrum of environment, forest, climate change, green growth, blue economy, pollution management, and natural resource lending and non-lending tasks in India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Importantly, the unit provides environmental risk management support to the entire World Bank investment portfolio in these countries, helping them to increase sustainability through managing potential environmental impacts from their Bank-financed development programs.

The Environment and Natural Resources and Blue Economy Global Practice (ENB GP):

• Sustainable environment and natural resources (ENB) management, including support to the blue economy, is at the heart of the World Bank Group (WBG) poverty agenda. Natural resources and biodiversity often constitute the social safety net of the poor, representing a food bank and often their only source of livelihood. The world Bank promotes green, clean, and resilient development where natural resources–from forests to fisheries, freshwater, oceans, coastal zones and ecosystems–are managed to support livelihoods, strong economies, and a world better prepared for shocks and global challenges. The ENB GP has been established to deliver on the opportunities, benefits and outcomes offered by enhanced management of the environment and natural resources. One specific ENB GP responsibility is to support effective environmental risk management, and to ensure good environmental management across the Bank’s work in part through the implementation of the Bank’s environmental policies and its Environmental and Social Framework (ESF).
• The ENB GP team is also leading analytical work, policy dialogue, and lending operations in a range of areas such as pollution and waste management, air quality improvement, integrated coastal zone management, forest and fisheries management. On August 4, 2016, the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved a new Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) to help protect people and the environment in the investment projects it finances. This effort is one of several key initiatives, including procurement reform, and the climate and gender strategies, recently undertaken by the Bank to improve development outcomes.
• The ESF responds to new and varied development demands and challenges that have arisen over time. It brings the World Bank’s environmental and social (E&S) protections into closer harmony with those of other development institutions, and makes important advances in areas such as transparency, non-discrimination, social inclusion, public participation, and accountability – including expanded roles for grievance redress mechanisms. The framework helps to ensure social inclusion, and explicitly references human rights in the overarching vision statement. The ESF is made up of the World Bank’s vision for sustainable development, the World Bank’s Environmental and Social Policy for Investment Project Financing, and ten Environmental and Social Standards (ESS). These set out the mandatory requirements for the World Bank, in relation to the projects it supports through Investment Project Financing (IPF), and for Borrowers.
• ENB GP is seeking to recruit a highly skilled Senior Environmental Specialist with expertise in Environmental and Social Risk Assessment and Management and practical experience and training on Occupational Health and Safety (OHS). The Senior Environmental Specialist will report to the ENB-1 Practice Manager for the South Asia Region (SAR) and will work very closely with the Regional Safeguards Coordinator and the Country ESF Focal Points. While based in Colombo (Singapore is another possibility) the candidate is expected to work across all countries in the South Asia Region. The position requires frequent travel across countries in the Region.
• The primary responsibilities for the tasks are listed below.

Job duties and responsibilities:

• Serve as a Technical Lead and point person on Occupational Health and Safety and Community Health and Safety in the South Asia Region (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) and provide leadership on the Health and Safety Platform in the Region.  He/She is expected to work closely with Task Team Leaders, project team members, Accredited Environmental Specialists (AESs), other specialists and consultants responsible for projects’ environmental safeguards/ESSs management.
• Provide expert guidance and support for the screening and risk and impact assessment of Bank-financed projects for environmental risks (especially for projects with substantial and high-risk ratings) and identify risk management opportunities/strategies/plans/measures including in labor influx, occupational and community health and safety, and other relevant standards and mitigation in Bank operations.
• In accordance with the Bank’s ESF, determine the appropriate environment risk classification (ESRC) of projects taking into account all relevant information such as the type, location, sensitivity and scale of the project, the nature and magnitude of the potential E&S impacts, the capacity and commitment of the Borrower (and any other entities responsible for project implementation) to manage risks and impacts in a manner consistent with the ESSs. In determining and managing E&S risk, use the ESSs, related guidance and good practice notes, as well as internationally accepted good industry practice for informed decision making.
• Review the risk classification assigned to projects on a regular basis, ensuring, prompt notification to the PM during preparation and implementation of a project where there is a proposed change in risk classification to or from High Risk, or for a Project where E&S Standards Advisor (ESSA) corporate advice is being provided.
• Review, at the concept and appraisal stages, the Bank’s Environmental and Social Review Summary (ESRS), Environmental and Social Risk Classification (ESRC) and E&S instruments disclosed prior to appraisal for all Projects, for ESSA clearance and concurrence. Review, during the implementation stage, environmental instruments prepared following Board approval for Projects classified as Substantial, Moderate or Low Risk. For projects with High-risk rating, review environmental instruments and recommend them for submission for ESSA clearance.
• Provide training on ESS2 and ESS4 and other relevant ESSs and their provisions and implications for project preparation and implementation to World Bank Clients, WBG staff and other interested / relevant parties (e.g. NGOs, academia).
• Disseminate lessons learned and best practices from specific Bank projects for research, knowledge and learning purposes.
• Resolve project related questions from Bank staff and clients related to the interpretation of the Bank ESSs, especially related to Environmental and Social Standards 1 (ESS1), ESS2, ESS3, ESS4 and ESS6 under the guidance of the Regional Safeguards Coordinator.
• Lead the development of ESS related guidance and technical support materials particularly on ESS2 and ESS4 such as guidelines, knowledge materials as applicable.
• Provide guidance to Task Teams, Accredited Environmental Specialists, Task Team Leaders, consultants and support staff on meeting the requirements of the ESF and ESSs, technical concerns and ESF/safeguards process flow.
• Collaborate with World Bank GPs and IFC/MIGA colleagues on joint projects as well as other colleagues from multilateral development institutions when supporting same projects, understanding and implementing a common approach.
• The World Bank Group is committed to achieving diversity in race, gender, nationality, culture, and educational background. Individuals with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply.
• Candidates with open term appointments will retain their employment status if selected for this position. All others will be offered a 3-year term appointment. All applications will be treated in the strictest confidence.

Selection Criteria

• Masters or PhD degree in environmental science, environmental or civil engineering, or related disciplines.
• Minimum of 8 years of proven experience working on occupational health and safety (OHS), AND environmental assessment and management.
• Sound knowledge of World Bank’s ESF, ESSs and/or IFC Performance Standards/MIGA Environmental and Social policies or similar standards as well as its stakeholders, especially the challenges and opportunities for borrowing countries would be an advantage.
• Sound knowledge of OHS or similar standards, is an advantage.
• Field experience in both assessing project site vulnerabilities, environmental risks and OHS/CHS risks, as well as supervising/ inspecting/monitoring projects during implementation to mitigate and monitor environmental impacts is required.
• Demonstrated ability to lead high quality analytical tasks that include environmentally related analytics and studies.
• Experience in developing countries / emerging economies is a strong advantage.
• Ability and willingness to travel frequently, including to developing countries and possibly remote, fragile and conflict affected areas, is required.
• Collaborate with a range of stakeholders, including project-affected parties, government officials, non-governmental organizations / civil society, as well as project investors and their staff.
• Excellent verbal and written English language skills are essential; French or Spanish or Arabic language proficiency is highly desirable. 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.

Source: https://worldbankgroup.csod.com/ats/careersite/JobDetails.aspx?id=28546&site=1