Description
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. For more information, visit www.worldbank.org
Global Practice for Urban, Resilience and Land
The Urban, Resilience, and Land Global Practice (GPURL) is uniquely positioned to contribute to the World Bank’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity by improving the living standards of the poorer segments of the population. It works with cities as places of opportunity to mainstream disaster risk reduction and enhance resilience to protect gains from development, and land tenure for economic growth, peace, and security.
The GPURL covers a wide array of issues including: (i) supporting the development of green, inclusive, resilient cities, including harnessing urbanization to contribute to growth and poverty reduction, and strengthening local governments’ capacity to plan, finance and deliver services and infrastructure investments; (ii) promoting efficient, well-coordinated spatial and territorial development processes including strengthening rural-urban linkages and developing lagging regions; (iii) strengthening disaster risk management policies, institutions and regulations and mainstreaming resilience across development sectors including risk assessment and mapping, risk reduction (including urban flood management, stormwater drainage, coastal management, and retrofitting of infrastructure), disaster preparedness (including hydromet services, early warning systems, and civil defense), risk financing (including CAT-DDO), and resilient reconstruction and recovery (including post-disaster damage and loss assessment); (iv) post-conflict reconstruction and recovery; (v) strengthening land tenure, management and information systems; and (vi) supporting the development of national and sub-national spatial data infrastructure and supporting the development of geospatial information. A key responsibility of the GP is to provide professional expertise and operational support to other GPs to deliver sustainable development results that ensure that any adverse impacts of WBG interventions are limited and mitigated.
Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery
The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), established in 2016, is a multi-donor partnership and grant-making financing mechanism that supports low and middle-income countries to understand, manage, and reduce their risks from natural hazards and climate change. Hosted at the World Bank’s GPURL, GFDRR is positioned to scale the resilience agenda in these countries by providing funding and technical assistance to help developing countries integrate Disaster Risk Management and climate change adaptation into development strategies, policies, and investment programs, including post-disaster recovery and reconstruction. Through these actions, GFDRR supports countries to implement the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 as well as the Paris Agreement, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The GFDRR program has four strategic objectives that contribute to the Sendai Framework’s four Priorities for Action: i) evidence and knowledge on effective disaster and climate resilience approaches are generated and shared for improved policy and practice; ii) Risk-informed development is adopted at national, sub-national, and community level, using integrated, inclusive, and participatory approaches; iii) Governments in vulnerable countries have access to additional investments for scaling up disaster and climate resilience building; and iv) Disaster preparedness and resilient recovery capacity are increased at national, sub-national, and community levels. And currently has four priority areas of engagement: i) Risk-Informed Decision Making; ii) Reducing Risk and Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Management; iii) Financial Preparedness to Manage Disaster and Climate Shocks; and iv) Disaster Preparedness and Resilient Recovery. Additionally, GFDRR’s operating model is underpinned by three principles: (i) a demand-driven approach to respond to the needs of low- and middle-income countries; (ii) a socially inclusive and equitable design and participation to support community-driven development; (iv) a results-based management approach to improve portfolio performance.
The Facility maintains technical and sectoral experts within each area of engagement that provide grant recipients with specialized knowledge and quality assurance in the design and implementation of activities to effectively deliver technical advisory services, capacity building, and analytical and knowledge products and tools to clients. Along with these teams, GFDRR maintains communities of practice that help connect a broad array of sub-national, national, regional, and international partners, facilitate global engagements, and produce innovative knowledge.
Global Program for Safer Schools
GFDRR launched the Global Program for Safer Schools (GPSS) in 2014 to integrate risk considerations into education infrastructure investments. The program aims to save lives, reduce the physical impact of disasters on school infrastructure, and minimize the disruption to education services arising from disasters. Since 2014, the GPSS has boosted large-scale interventions in developing countries to reduce the physical learning environment’s (PLEs) vulnerability to natural hazards. Over the past ten years, the program has provided grant resources for in-country technical assistance activities to create an enabling environment for risk reduction and improve construction practices in the education sector. These activities are directly linked to World Bank operations and ongoing and planned education infrastructure investment programs in countries to ensure ownership and large-scale and long-term impact.
The World Bank’s global reach renders it uniquely able to capture and identify our client’s needs worldwide and to establish mechanisms that promote synergies between efforts by development partners, the private sector, and academia to build school safety solutions at scale. In keeping with the Bank’s mission and goals, the GPSS plays an important role in promoting and facilitating the integration of risk reduction criteria into Bank-funded education infrastructure projects, in supporting task teams in their engagement in safer school programs, and in promoting cross-collaboration among the Global Practices.
Role and Responsibilities
GFDRR is seeking a qualified and motivated professional to support the GPSS program and help deliver the ongoing and pipeline program. She/he will support the implementation of analytical and advisory services and preparation support for lending investments, and policy dialogue in the areas of disaster risk management and spatial planning. The Disaster Risk Management Specialist is expected to work under the supervision of the Task Team Leader for GPSS, under managerial supervision of the Practice Manager, GFDRR.
Responsibilities and duties will include, but are not limited to the following:
• Co-lead the development of global knowledge and technical assessment tools for the expanded version of flagship GPSS global knowledge tools: the Global Library for School Infrastructure (GLOSI) and the Roadmap for Safer and Resilient Schools (RSRS). Tools and guidance notes include but are not limited to spatial network analysis for PLEs planning, school accessibility, inclusivity, criteria of prioritization, costing tool for investment needs to define intervention scenarios, and implementation strategies.
• Support in-country activities through technical assistance (TA). This technical support includes demand-driven tasks for the preparation and implementation of lending operation projects that involve PLEs or disaster risk management activities in the education sector. Activities include but are not limited to (i) supporting the technical design of the operations, (ii) contributing to Project Concept Notes (PCN), Project Appraisal Documents (PAD), and operations manuals, (iii) preparing technical and corporate presentations, (iv) and other related project preparation or implementation documentation.
• As part of country activities, provide technical advice on spatial school infrastructure planning and programming of investments, rapid diagnostics, school infrastructure plans, post-disaster damage assessments, post-disaster recovery and reconstruction plans, PLEs policy advice, PLEs outlooks, PLEs baselines among others.
• Oversee the implementation of TA activities including but not limited to planning, budgeting, preparation of terms of references, quality control, supervision of external consultants and technical specialists work as well as developing and reviewing Trust Fund Proposals, contributing to Trust Funds reporting, and developing of terms of reference.
• Support the operationalization of the Physical Learning Environments Framework through the co-development of tools and training for task teams to ensure operations are delivering resilient, green, inclusive, and learning-oriented PLEs.
• Support TTLs in mission arrangements and team coordination.
• Co-organize and prepare workshops and training sessions for clients and bank task teams.
• Participate in field missions and provide technical input and guidance to client counterparts as required by operational and analytical task team leaders.
Selection Criteria
• Master’s degree in technical fields relevant to DRM and urban resilience, such as urban planning, disaster risk management, political science, public administration, engineering, or related field with an excellent understanding of government operations.
• A minimum of at least 8 years of combined professional and educational experience including at least 5 years in project management and implementation in an international setting.
• Experience in strategic planning and school infrastructure investment projects with national governments and international organizations
• Strong background in urban planning, disaster risk reduction, post-disaster reconstruction, or other related fields.
• Strong technical proficiency in Programming, Data Analytics, Spatial Analysis and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), particularly related to urban analytics and school infrastructure network planning.
• Ability to translate analytical work into policy advice and operational, actionable, recommendations and conclusions.
• Working knowledge of World Bank operations, especially in disaster risk management projects.
• Proven capacity to multi-task, deliver high-quality results, and respond quickly and effectively to requests; ability to work under pressure.
• Demonstrated skills to effectively engage and communicate with technical teams and stakeholders.
• Proven sense of initiative, results orientation, teamwork and leadership qualities, and ability to work effectively across multidisciplinary teams.
• Excellent English language skills (writing, speaking, listening, and reading).
World Bank Group Core Competencies
We are proud to be an equal opportunity and inclusive employer with a dedicated and committed workforce, and do not discriminate based on gender, gender identity, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability.
Learn more about working at the World Bank and IFC, including our values and inspiring stories.
Note: The selected candidate will be offered a one-year appointment, renewable at the discretion of the World Bank Group, and subject to a lifetime maximum ET appointment of three years. If an ET appointment ends before a full year, it is considered as a full year toward the lifetime maximum. Former and current ET staff who have completed all or any portion of their third-year ET appointment are not eligible for future ET appointments.