ET Consultant

Job #: req11981

Organization: World Bank

Sector: Research & Quantitative Analysis

Grade: EC1

Term Duration: 1 year 0 months

Recruitment Type: Local Recruitment

Location: Washington, DC,United States

Required Language(s): English

Preferred Language(s): French, Portuguese, Spanish, or Arabic

Closing Date: 5/30/2021 (MM/DD/YYYY) at 11:59pm UTC

Description

The World Bank Group (WBG) vision is to eradicate extreme poverty by reducing the number of people living on less than $1.90 a day to 3 percent by 2030 and promote shared prosperity by fostering the income growth of the bottom 40 percent in every country. Established in 1944, the WBG is one of the world’s largest sources of funding and knowledge for development solutions. In fiscal year 2018, the WBG committed $48 billion in loans, grants, equity investments and guarantees to its members and private businesses, of which $18 billion was concessional finance to its poorest members. It is governed by 188 member countries and delivers services out of 120 offices with nearly 15,000 staff located globally. The WBG consists of five specialized institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), and the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Thanks to the success of the past few decades and favorable economic growth, developing countries now have an unprecedented opportunity to end extreme poverty within a generation.

To achieve the WBG vision, the Board of Governors approved a strategy for the organization in 2013. This strategy leverages, for the first time, the combined strength of the WBG institutions and their unique ability to partner with the public and private sectors to deliver customized development solutions backed by finance, world class knowledge and convening services. The strategy has three components: (1) maximizing development impact by engaging country clients in identifying and tackling the most difficult development challenges; (2) promoting scaled-up partnerships that are strategically aligned with the goals; and (3) crowding in public and private resources, expertise and ideas.

The World Bank Group’s Global Operational Support Team (GOST) is looking for a qualified candidate to join the team as a Geographer. This role requires a person with a combination of skills in geography, data science, and project support/management.

Position Context

Poverty, investment, opportunity, disaster, construction, trade, and development: ultimately everything happens somewhere. Therefore, geography is a key factor in assessing the situation and decision making, either explicitly, or implicitly. In the 2009 World Development Report, Reshaping Economic Geography, and in many papers, policy notes, and research since, the World Bank highlights the role of geography in development. Urban planners consider geography when analyzing land use and infrastructure plans. Crop insurance companies take it into account when pricing policies and assessing claims. Emergency management agencies must know it and constantly update their knowledge when assessing the aftermath of a disaster and in locating victims. Investors choosing a place to invest compare the opportunities afforded by one place over another, and what it will mean for their competitive advantage. They need to know how the people, processes and policies in one place translate to productivity and costs. Each of these groups considers how local context and trends in spatial patterns inform their decision making.

In the World Bank Group, much of the innovative work leveraging novel data and analytics is based in the analytics and tools team (DECAT), in the Development and Economics VP. This position will support two teams in DECAT, the Global Operational Support Team (GOST) and the Development Data Partnership:

GOST provides direct support concerning geospatial data, analysis, and project management across the WB. Geographers help project teams determine when geographic factors or spatial analysis may inform their development operation, and then implement analysis of the human or natural environment.

The Development Data Partnership is a partnership between international organizations and private companies, created to facilitate the use of third-party data in research and international development. Team members support operations through development of tools and resources to support analysis of novel data, and through management of a repository of supporting information and documentation.

The successful candidate is expected, from day one, to be able assist in the following areas:

Project support: Manage interactions with operational teams across the World Bank. Lead discussions on requirements and requests from teams, and design appropriate solutions. Project examples include:

1. Market access using OpenStreetMap and open python tools

2. Landcover classification using commercial and free satellite imagery

3. Damage assessment using synthetic aperture radar in case of natural disasters

4. Develop and implement national least-cost electrification plans

5. Climate change data analysis, synthesis, and communication.

6. Data Science: be able to demonstrate real-world examples of their capacity to translate data, analysis, and knowledge into best practices.

7. Data/code/project management: Improve existing tools used by the Data Partnership team to standardize data access and processing and extend those tools to support GOST. Focus applications are GitHub for code, the Development Data Hub for data, and an internal Confluence instance for project management.

8. Data visualization: Prepare maps and charts for disseminating analytical results. Publication-quality cartographic skills are a plus. Automation skills are also a plus.

Communication: Must be able to explain your work in simple terms, to a non-technical audience (both verbally and in formal writing) in English and ideally in a second global language (such as French, Portuguese, Spanish, or Arabic).

Required Qualifications

A Bachelor’s degree in Geography, Economics, Computer Science, or another relevant field and 5 years of relevant professional experience.

Evidence of the required skills sets, such as:
1. A portfolio of maps and/or visualizations

2. A history of contribution to open-source geospatial tools in GitHub

3. A history of public peer reviewed publications

4. A portfolio of light scientific communications, such as blogs

5. Knowledge of, and experience implementing geospatial metadata standards (including the ISO 19115/19110/19139)

This position will require intermittent travel to World Bank client countries around the world once current restrictions are lifted. These trips require interacting with government counterparts and representing the institution in a professional manner.

Technical Qualifications

A qualified candidate is not required to be an expert in all these areas; rather we want to indicate the kinds of tools and software the GOST team regularly use to guide interested applicants:

Programming: GitHub, Python, or R is preferred. Experience with Google Earth Engine, STATA, or Julia is a plus.

Desktop GIS: QGIS experience is preferred. ArcGIS Pro expertise is a plus.

Web GIS: ArcGIS Online, Geonode/Geoserver, and MapBox Studio

Training and/or technical experience working programmatically with climate change models and meteorological data sources, types and formats is a plus.

The expected start date is July 1st, 2021. Applications are due by May 30th, 2021. Applicants are encouraged to submit their resume or CV, links to code samples (preferably through Github links), papers or writing samples, and other relevant material to [email protected].

This position is based in Washington, DC. While the office is currently closed due to CoVID-19, onboarding will happen remotely, and teleworking will be acceptable. However, the expectation is for eventual return to office.

Selection Criteria

A Bachelor’s degree in Geography, Economics, Computer Science, or another relevant field and 5 years of relevant professional experience.

Evidence of the required skills sets, such as:
1. A portfolio of maps and/or visualizations

2. A history of contribution to open-source geospatial tools in GitHub

3. A history of public peer reviewed publications

4. A portfolio of light scientific communications, such as blogs

5. Knowledge of, and experience implementing geospatial metadata standards (including the ISO 19115/19110/19139)

This position will require intermittent travel to World Bank client countries around the world once current restrictions are lifted. These trips require interacting with government counterparts and representing the institution in a professional manner.

Poverty has no borders, neither does excellence. We succeed because of our differences and we continuously search for qualified individuals with diverse backgrounds from around the globe.