La Banque Mondiale recrute un(e) Consultant basé à Addis Abeba en Ethiopie.
Description
Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? Working at the World Bank Group (WBG) 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. For more information, visit www.worldbank.org
The Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) of the World Bank’s Africa Gender Impact Evaluation Unit, which is mapped to the Africa Region Chief Economist’s Office, supports African women and girls to achieve equality by learning what does and does not work to close gender gaps in earning, productivity, assets, and agency, and using these insights to shape policy. The impact objective of GIL is to increase take-up of effective policies by governments, development organizations, and the private sector in order to address the underlying causes of gender inequality in Africa, and through that promote growth.
The Innovations in Financing Women Entrepreneurs (IFWE) project is a major initiative of the GIL in Ethiopia. IFWE partners with WBG operations to pilot, scale up, and evaluate new approaches to empowering Ethiopia’s women entrepreneurs. The IFWE project has two pillars: access to capital, and business skills and services. The activities under IFWE include pilots, impact evaluations, qualitative research, and promoting scale-up of solutions that work, IFWE is supported by Global Affairs Canada through the Umbrella Fund for Gender Equality multi-donor trust fund. The IFWE work program is a six-year program and comprises a portfolio of business services pilots, financial services pilots, and impact evaluations.
The focus of the financial services pilots is on piloting disruptive and experimental approaches to financing women entrepreneurs. This includes interventions such as using fintech tools as an alternative to traditional loan collateral, and piloting and testing new, innovative, data-driven approaches to assessing loan applicant creditworthiness, determining loan eligibility, and loan size. IFWE is doing these pilots in partnership with Ethiopian banks, microfinance institutions, and fintech firms.
Background
Institutional Context: The Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) is housed within the Africa Region Gender Impact Evaluation Unit, mapped to the Africa Region Chief Economist’s office. The consultant position will be within this unit, working under the supervision of the Task Team Lead (TTL) for the IFWE program.
Impact Objective: The Gender Innovation Lab has a clear and actionable impact objective: to increase take-up of effective policies that can address the underlying causes of gender inequality in Africa, particularly in terms of women’s economic and social empowerment, and through that promote growth. GIL aims to do this by strengthening knowledge, in particular, by producing and delivering a new body of evidence and developing a compelling narrative, geared towards policymakers, on what works and what does not work in promoting gender equality. This new evidence will deepen capacity for gender-informed policymaking throughout the Africa region, including policies created and enacted by governments, as well as common practices and program models of private firms, civil society, and development agencies.
Project Objective: IFWE is a major initiative within GIL, which focuses both on piloting new technologies and services for women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia, and running rigorous impact evaluations to generate evidence on the effectiveness of these innovations.
Regional Orientation: The current role will be focused on Ethiopia with the possibility to contribute to GIL work in other parts of Africa, depending on business needs. GIL’s work is focused exclusively on Sub-Saharan Africa, where the team is currently working in 21 countries with the aim of building an evidence base with lessons for the region.
Sector Specific: IFWE works in close coordination with the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation Global (FCI) Practice of the World Bank Group. The Financial Sector Specialist will work closely with GIL researchers and with operational staff in FCI in order to develop intervention ideas and ensure the integration of pilots into existing FCI lending operations in Ethiopia.
Duties and Accountabilities
The Extended-Term Consultant (ETC) will work under the supervision of the Africa Gender Impact Evaluation Unit Leader, and of the TTL of the Innovations in Financing Women Entrepreneurs Program. Key responsibilities will include:
Program Design/Project Management
•Work with task teams, including government and World Bank country and project teams in Ethiopia, to identify and develop innovative pilot interventions that target and test potential solutions to the underlying constraints faced by women entrepreneurs.
•Lead or support the coordination and implementation of select pilot interventions for women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia, ensuring timely and effective delivery by implementation partners on the ground, and close collaboration with other World Bank Group operations, in particular FCI lending operations.
•Prepare project concept notes, proposals, work plans, and budgets for project interventions.
•Provide technical workshops to government counterparts, project teams and other select audiences; organize training and workshop sessions and deliver selected contents.
•Ensure adherence of project interventions and activities with established World Bank policies and procedures, including policies on Environmental and Social Safeguards.
•Support in the selection, procurement, and coordination of individual and firm consultants hired for the project.
•Provide cross-support to related GIL work in the region.
Client Relationship Management
•Serve as a focal point for outreach to partner financial institutions within Ethiopia for piloting and scale-up of innovations piloted under IFWE. Work closely with Washington DC-based and Ethiopia-based colleagues also working on this initiative to determine priorities and how best to advance them.
•Identify key opportunities for policy influence at the policy and program level and mobilize the necessary resources to provide timely and targeted policy advice and capacity building. Maintain good relations and an ongoing dialogue with partner financial institutions in Ethiopia as well as other key actors in the financial sector space. Deliver presentations, provide comments, technical support, etc., as appropriate.
•Liaise and interact effectively with an extensive network of contacts, at senior levels (internal and external), and respond effectively to inquiries and to diverse situations that require tact and pragmatic problem-solving skills.
•Create new partnerships between GIL and external implementation partners in Ethiopia and globally, including banks, microfinance institutions, technology firms, government agencies, non-profits, and other collaborators Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting
•Respond to ad-hoc reporting and information requests from GIL colleagues related to the IFWE program Research and Knowledge
•Coordinate with GIL Economists and external/academic collaborators to ensure that the design of pilot interventions is amenable to rigorous randomized trials and impact evaluations
•Contribute to the writing of publications and written outputs to document lessons and key learnings of project interventions ideally with a view to publishing and widely disseminating lessons.
Communications
•Facilitate communication between GIL and related initiatives within the World Bank and IFC.
•Draft talking points and short briefs on the IFWE project as required.
•Prepare presentations, blogs, and progress updates on a periodic basis
Selection Criteria
I.Master’s degree in relevant field (Economics, International Development/Affairs, Public Policy or related field)
II.5 or more years of work experience. Experience in the field(s) of public policy, international development and/or economics preferred. Experience in Ethiopia preferred.
III.Experience working with banks and/or MFIs in Ethiopia on the development and operationalization of innovative products or services is required.
IV.Experience working on implementing digital financial services including partnering with financial technology companies to deliver services to financial institutions
V.Good knowledge of core topics in banking and financial technology.
VI.Excellent knowledge of, and contacts in, the Ethiopian banking and fintech ecosystem (banks and microfinance institutions, local and international fintech firms, telecoms, regulators, etc.);
VII.Good knowledge of the changing regulatory landscape for banking and digital finance / financial technology in Ethiopie.
Close on 10 Jul 2023