Senior Operations Officer

The Senior Operations Officer for the North Pacific, covering the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and the Republic of Palau (Palau), will be based in Pohnpei, FSM.

For all the North Pacific countries, the development environment is characterized by remoteness, fragility, small size of human settlements and capacity constraints. This environment offers the opportunity to test innovative approaches designed to maximize impacts in small island states. The development objectives for the three North Pacific countries are set out in the Regional Partnership Framework (RPF), which covers the nine Pacific Island countries (PIC9) .

The RPF has four focus areas:

• fully exploiting the available economic opportunities;
• enhancing access to employment opportunities;
• protecting incomes and livelihoods; and
• strengthening the enablers of growth opportunities (macroeconomic management, infrastructure and addressing knowledge gaps).

In the FSM and RMI the overall volume of lending and the number of operations has increased substantially over the past few years and the first IBRD lending operation is expected to be delivered in FY24. As of June 30, 2023, FSM, RMI and Palau have a combined active portfolio of 19 operations and commitments of US$530 million.  A further 9 operations are in the FY24-FY25 pipeline. 

Duties and Accountabilities

• Country Strategy Formulation & Implementation
• Play a key role in the formulation and in supporting the implementation of Regional Partnership Frameworks (including Performance and Learning Reviews, Completion and Learning Reviews).
• Help ensure that technical and financial support to North Pacific countries responds to country context and needs.
• Advise the Res Rep and the OM throughout the yearly WPA exercise.
• Facilitate related business development, as requested by the Res Rep, in collaboration with Program Leaders and relevant GP staff.

Pipeline and Portfolio Quality & Monitoring

• Lead the monitoring of project portfolio and operational performance, including quality at entry, supervision, and exit, and ensuring compliance with Bank policies.
• Ensure quality, timeliness, and candor of Implementation Status Reports (ISR); work with teams to develop and implement action plans to improve project performance and to anticipate and resolve bottlenecks.
• Ensure seamless mission planning and execution by task teams, including timely and high-quality operation of pre- and post-mission processes and submissions (mission announcements, management letters, aide memoires)
• Lead quarterly portfolio performance deep dives with relevant Ministries of Finance.
• Advise Operations Manager and the CMUs on appropriate pipeline and its integration with the overall strategy
• Hold regular, dedicated meetings and follow-up with task teams, implementation support teams (including fiduciary, procurement and safeguards specialists) and with the Project Implementation Units and Government counterparts.
• Work closely with multidisciplinary project teams to ensure knowledge sharing and engagements have design and implementation arrangements that build on lessons learned and are appropriate for the countries’ institutional context; ensure that at the technical level, the CMU is part of and influences, the client conversation during project preparation, and that issues for management attention are timely flagged and followed up upon.
• Through analysis, identify trends and systemic issues in pipeline and portfolio, and advise on ways to address them.
• Engage the Program Leaders and other members of the CMU in an effective way to influence the quality of the pipeline, portfolio, and ASA program.
• Review and provide comments on packages at each stage of the project cycle; liaise with projects team leaders to ensure all comments are considered before clearance.

Operational Quality Assurance

• Advise the country team on operational policies, instruments, and procedures and on complex operational issues. Serve as liaison with regional and corporate units that deal with operational quality, effectiveness, and risk management.
• Advise and as needed train task teams, CMU staff and other stakeholders on operational changes and innovations.
• Proactively ensure collaboration and cross-fertilization between task teams who work on similar topics within different operations and engagements.

Support to Resident Representative of North Pacific

• As needed, serve as Acting Resident Representative.
• Review, comment on, and clear all out-going correspondence; manage in-coming correspondence; review/comment/clearance of all operational requests (PIDs, AISs, etc.).
• Prepare a range of reports and briefs to counterparts, regional and senior management, including Spring and Annual Meetings briefs, visiting missions’ briefs and ad hoc briefs.
• In coordination with the Res Rep and the Resource Management team, monitor the implementation of the WPAs, utilization of resources, including providing periodically updated information to TTLs for budget monitoring at task level; monitor the utilization of CMU resources during the Fiscal Year including reallocation of CMU budget towards operational uses/projects.
• Supervise and serve as mentor for a small team focused on operational support.
• Serve as a liaison, coordination, and integration point for the extended country teams, providing guidance and advice on country developments, operational priorities and strategies as needed.
• Support the preparation of high-level missions.

Client and Development Partner Relations:

Assist the Res Rep in representation of the Bank and outreach to key stakeholders, development partners and donors, as well as NGOs, civil society, and the media, especially as they relate to project operational matters and the broader strategic agenda of the Bank; support the day-to-day dialogue with Governments on a broad range of policy and implementation issues.

Promote effective donor coordination and relations with other development partners and stakeholders. Maintain good relations, collaborate and coordinate with the development partner community on the ground, including the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Australian Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the European Union (EU), Japan (JICA), the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), the People’s Republic of China, the United States Agency for International Development (USAid), the UN Agencies, the Pacific Regional Organizations and other partners, to strengthen country-led development processes. Build and deepen the process of consultation with NGOs, the private sector, media, state and local governments, academia, and other civil society groups, with the aim of increasing capacity and participation of all levels of society in the development process in FSM, RMI and Palau.

Reporting: 

• The Senior Operations Officer will report to the Resident Representative of North Pacific in Pohnpei.

Selection Criteria

• Master’s degree in a relevant field/discipline (economics, international relations, public policy, business administration, finance, engineering, or similar field relevant to the World Bank’s mission) and a minimum 8 years of operational experience.
• Proficiency in English, with excellent writing skills.
• Deep knowledge of World Bank instruments and operations (projects, technical assistance, and trust funds);
• Strong and proven knowledge of World Bank policies, processes, and operational procedures and of the roles and responsibilities of various World Bank units;
• Proven Ability to support the CO-led work on the quality of portfolio performance management.
• Ability to promote client/beneficiary participation and commitment to ensuring effective implementation and longer-term sustainability of projects/programs.
• Ability to operate effectively in a matrix management environment, both as a team leader and team member.
• Ability to deal sensitively in multi-cultural environments and build effective working relations with clients and colleagues in the CO, with sector teams, and visiting missions.
• Ability to coach, mentor, and develop more junior staff.
• Demonstrated ability to undertake a diversity of tasks within a rapidly changing and demanding environment on short deadlines.
• High level of integrity and discretion, sound business judgment, diplomatic skills, and ability to work in teams; and
• Ability to speak and write persuasively and present ideas clearly and concisely.

Source: https://worldbankgroup.csod.com/ats/careersite/JobDetails.aspx?id=27914&site=1