Lead Social Protection Economist/Specialist

Background
The Africa Region Human Development department (AFTHD) is responsible for promoting progress towards a vision where healthy and educated people are able to pursue productive and secure livelihoods towards an improved quality of life. While there are high hopes for how Africa can progress towards improved human development results, there are also enormous challenges to making real progress in education; health, nutrition and population (HNP); and social protection. Working towards these goals with a solid appreciation for these challenges, AFTHD develops strategic policy dialog, effective operational programs and projects, and technically strong analysis with our client countries.

The Social Protection group (AFTSP) has an exciting, innovative, and growing portfolio of operational and analytical work in the areas of social safety nets, labor market, and social insurance. In the past decade the Africa region significantly increased funding to safety nets with major increases after the 2008/09 crisis. Between FY01 and FY07 new IDA commitments for social protection averaged below $300 million a year. Between FY08 and FY10 this jumped to an average of $845 million (with delivery in FY09 of $1.2 billion). AFTSP contributed significantly to the crisis response in Africa, utilizing in FY10 $175.3 million of CRW funds to respond to the crisis. Similarly, the region has received a total grant amount of $18.8 million supported through the RSR Trust Fund for providing analytical work, technical advice, and seed money for piloting safety nets. The quality of the social protection portfolio, as rated by IEG, is the best in the Africa region (with 92 percent satisfactorily achieving their development outcomes FY06-09) and above the Bank's already high SP portfolio quality (81 percent satisfactory).

AFTSP has had a growing and exciting AAA program with the aim to help Governments make evidence-based policy reforms to strengthen and expand their social safety nets. By early FY13 AFTSP will have completed safety net assessments in 20 countries over a 3 year period (Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia). This work is providing the basis for a discussion of safety nets with governments and among donors, and is resulting in shared views on how to proceed with implementing country social protection strategies and how to design and implement safety nets. Based on these assessments in a number of countries, governments with assistance from IDA and other development partners are in the process of establishing national safety net programs.

The new Africa Region strategy articulates Vulnerability and Resilience, which are critical themes of social protection, to be one of its two main pillars. AFTSP itself is finalizing a new regional social protection strategy that presents a new approach to social protection and safety nets in Africa. An important part of implementing these strategies is to advance safety nets from a current reliance on small, time-bound projects to national systems that can be scaled up quickly. This will be done through (i) partnerships, by supporting country-owned national safety net systems and advancing knowledge; (ii) knowledge, by expanding social protection assessments and creating a database on programs; and (iii) finance, by devoting significant attention to institutional development and capacity building, deploying lending strategically to increase coverage of successful interventions and providing rapid, flexible support to countries during crises, i.e. Rapid Social Response (RSR) Trust Fund and the CRW.

To address this challenge of vulnerability and resilience, the social protection team is building a strong and cohesive team. We expect products from AFTSP to meet high quality standards both analytically and operationally. We seek candidates who have successfully led policy dialogue, have an interest in AAA, and have strong experience in leading Bank lending operations.

Duties
The specific responsibilities are as follows:
1. Overall Sectoral Leadership: Serve as a Lead Social Protection Economist/Specialist for the growing and innovative Africa Region SP program, leading SP dialogue at the highest policy levels with external clients that is analytically sound, operationally relevant, and politically viable. Advising Country Directors and internal clients on social protection programs and policies and otherwise providing leadership on social protection policies and programs, both analytical and operational to the Social protection team. Additionally the individual will be responsible for leadership on knowledge development and sharing across the SP family within the Bank.
2. Lead Innovative and High Quality Analytical and Operational tasks: Influence the design and execution of major policy and/or research initiatives for the Bank, our clients and other donors. Lead or participate in ground-breaking or precedent-setting social protection analytical and operational work and play a key role in developing innovative practical approaches to difficult social protection systems development reform issues. The Lead Economist/Lead Specialist would provide thematic leadership and bring innovation in a number of the following areas (i) the development of appropriate social protection systems within the African context, (ii) the development of social safety net dialogue and the development or reform of existing programs to improve their efficiency and effectiveness and their ability to more quickly respond to changing environments, (iii) a focus on graduation issues, even at the design stage, (iv) analysis of and dialogue on labor market issues, especially around youth employment and informal labor markets, and the development of employment strategies and interventions to address the identified issues; (v) analysis and work on social insurance/pension programs. In each area, there will be a strong emphasis on linking programs and developing SP systems.
3. Mentoring: There will be a strong emphasis on mentoring by our GH staff with more junior teams. This includes providing them with a constructive, enabling environment in which they can grow and develop their skills as well as brainstorming on program design, development and problem solving on problems during implementation. It can also include being a team member in operational tasks managed by others to mentor more junior teams as well as to carry out and contribute to the more complex dialogue with clients and donors.
4. Business Directions/Development: Provide leadership in conceptualizing new areas of business given shifting client demands and play a promotional role in generating new business in social protection for the Bank.
5. Cross-sectoral work/linkages: Take the lead in collaborating with other sectoral colleagues and to identify, conceptualize and exploit thematic inter-linkages across the three HD families -education, health, and social protection – as well as with colleagues in PREM and other sectors, such as our environmental colleagues on climate change issues. Maintain close links with Bank-wide economists across HD, PREM and DEC, and ensure that the expertise is brought to bear. Represent AFTSP in various different activities in the Region and the Bank, including strategy developments (sector, region), flagship brainstorming, and high visibility events with clients and partners.
6. Country Team Engagement. Undertake country and regional sector and strategy work on SP or other HD areas as needed, particularly on cross-sectoral products, such as Country Partnership Strategies, Country Economic Memoranda, and HD components of economic management lending and AAA. Actively engage in wider country teams on behalf of HD.
7. Partnerships and Knowledge: Participate fully in the Bank-wide Human Development Network by contributing to thematic groups, providing operational cross support to other regions, collaborating with staff in other sector units, and contributing to internal training activities. Work constructively with partners, including bilateral donors, Regional Banks, UN agencies, and NGOs.
8. Fun and Passion. You will have a responsibility to maintain our close team in AFTSP by encouraging fun, always maintaining a respectful environment, identifying issues and problems and then raising them in a problem solving manner and finding joint solutions, sharing our knowledge, and helping others as the need arises.

Criteria
The selected candidate will report to the Social protection Sector Manager and will be expected to work in close collaboration with the other members of the HD Team.

1. Commitment: A strong personal commitment to The World Bank's mission and to the Africa Region vision for carrying out that mission. We are looking for someone with a commitment and the wherewithal to help clients achieve tangible progress, quickly, in social protection.
2. Education: A Ph.D. in Economics or related field is highly recommended. A Master's degree with very strong experience will also be considered.
3. Skills/Experience: A minimum of 12 years of experience is required. Demonstrated expert-level knowledge of and experience in addressing issues in social protection through high level analytical work. Expert-level knowledge and a track record of excellence in Bank operations.
4. Conceptual and Analytic Skills: A track record of conceptualizing, writing, and speaking about policy problems in social protection at the expert level, along with a capability to communicate this analysis effectively to non-technical specialists. A track record of excellent and robust economic methods to help policy makers understand in tangible ways how analysis, attention to incentives, household demand, quantifying costs and benefits, cost analysis, and improving outcomes for the poor can improve our portfolio and provide value for governments interested in improving their Social protection policies. Ability to think "out of the box" and to help clients develop a flexible and creative approach to social protection policy that takes advantage of public, charitable, household, and private-for-profit contributions.
5. Time Management: A record of prioritizing and managing your time to deliver high priority and top quality products in a timely fashion. This ability must be coupled with a tolerance of and capability to manage significant uncertainties in the work program and to undertake a range of tasks simultaneously.
6. Communication, Interpersonal, and Client Relations: An excellent record of sharing information with colleagues, clients, and managers and a proven track record of being a first rate team leader and team member. A record of promptly responding to clients' requests and successfully conducting high level policy dialogue. Capacity to interact effectively with a range of stakeholders within and outside the Bank.
7. Language: Excellent English writing, presentational, and communication skills. French and/or Portuguese would be a very nice additional benefit.

The World Bank Group is committed to achieving diversity in terms of gender, nationality, culture and educational background. Individuals with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated in the strictest confidence.

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