Senior Operations Officer

The South Asia Region is at a crucial stage of development. The rapid economic growth, driven by urbanization and demographic dividend, that was helping to reduce poverty has now been hindered by the challenges of the COVID pandemic. South Asia was particularly hard hit by the pandemic. Even before these latest challenges, rapid growth had been accompanied by increased congestion and pollution in cities. South Asia, more than other regions, has been affected by changes in temperature and extreme weather events, the loss of biodiversity, and other global challenges with cross-border externalities that require the region to invest in the protection and provision of Global Public Goods (GPG). Additional

• challenges are that South Asia is underperforming in exports, has large informal sectors and low female labor force participation rates. All these challenges must be addressed to secure rapid growth in coming decades. Private sector-led growth, focused on investments in infrastructure, energy, logistics and cities are essential to generate the jobs needed to employ South Asia’s youth. At the same time, the region
• needs to continue building human capital, so the population is equipped for jobs of the future.
• India houses 17.7% of world’s population and the most populous democracy in the world. The country has experienced strong growth and poverty reduction in the past 2-3 decades. India is on track to reach upper middle-income status in the next decade and aspires to become a developed economy by 2047 when it celebrates the 100th year of independence. While post-Covid recovery has been strong (with the economy growing at 6-7% per annum), achieving India’s ambition requires faster economic growth; and taking advantage of its large and young population requires more jobs for the youth and women. Now the 5th largest economy in the world, India is increasingly seen as a leading voice and a source of development knowledge.

Your tasks

The World Bank India Country Management Unit (CMU) is seeking a Senior Operations Professional to support building effective financing and knowledge partnerships with bilateral agencies and MDBs. The selected candidate will work closely with the Operations Manager with primary responsibilities to contribute to improving collaboration among bilateral and multilateral partners in the context of lending and knowledge sharing with India. The CMU requires a staff with extensive experience navigating partnerships as well as technical experience in a key development topic of interest to the Indian government. Specifically, will have the following principal duties and accountabilities:

• Join the CMU Team to help World Bank staff scale up external collaboration and partnership to support India’s ambitious development agenda, especially with a focus on GPGs
• Help identify lending operations and knowledge-sharing activities that can leverage the strengths of the WB and Germany to bring the best development solutions to India
• Support task teams in analytics, technical assistance, innovative implementation designs, capacity, and skill development, as well as improved coordination and mobilization of public and private financing (Experience mobilizing private capital will be a plus)
• Contribute to the development of ‘lessons learned’ on partnerships in India
• Collaborate with Program Leaders (PL), the Senior Country Officer, and Senior Operations Officers to promote stronger collaboration bilaterally in the Bank’s activities in India
• Participate in relevant meetings including with task teams and development partners
• Participate in teams with potential for bilateral partnerships (regional integration, regional electricity trade, private capital mobilization, regional issues like air quality management)
• Conduct or contribute to research and preparation of economic research papers, good practice notes and publications on international partnerships for development
• Participate in policy dialogue with development partners and other stakeholders
• Stay abreast of WBG Corporate priorities, bring cutting edge development knowledge from outside the WB, ensure that colleagues are aware of trends in the topics of most interest in WB/India collaboration
• Contribute to CMU’s effort to implement one World Bank approach and better bank for impact
• Stay abreast of ways to support private sector collaboration, step up private capital mobilization, and leverage IFI financing

Your profile

• Advanced degree (MA/MS) in a relevant field with 8 years of relevant experience, preferably experience working on investment operations
• Solid understanding and experience of leading policy dialogue around country or sector-specific issues, forming partnerships, and building common approaches with partners
• Strong development experience in the multilateral context, including project preparation, implementation, and ideally strong experience in private capital mobilization
• Working experience in India a plus
• Recognized by peers and/or managers for providing high quality, pragmatic advice to teams on financing and knowledge-sharing; and for ability to identify and maintain strong development partnerships in specific fields
• Leads in sharing best practice and lessons learned across agencies and with clients and partners; articulates ideas verbally and in writing in a clear and compelling way
• Understands policy making process; distills operationally relevant lessons for clients
• Strong presentation skills, with the ability to present complex ideas in a straightforward way

Source: https://jobs.giz.de/index.php?ac=jobad&id=72407