E T Consultant โ G2Px Job #: req32920 Organization: World Bank Sector: Digital Development Grade: EC3 Term Duration:ย 1 year 0 months Recruitment Type: Local Recruitment Location: Washington, DC,United States Required Language(s): English Preferred Language(s): French, Spanish Closing Date: 4/29/2025 (MM/DD/YYYY) at 11:59pm UTC
Description
Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? Working at the World Bank provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank consists of two entities โ the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA). It is a global development cooperative owned by 189 member countries. As the largest development bank in the world, the World Bank provides loans, guarantees, risk management products, and advisory services to middle-income and creditworthy low-income countries, and coordinates responses to regional and global challenges. For more information, please visit www.worldbank.org.
Digital Vice Presidency
The Digital Transformation Vertical Vice Presidency was established on July 1, 2024, and guides the World Bank Group efforts to establish the foundations of a digital economy, builds and enhances digital and data infrastructure, ensures cybersecurity and data privacy for institutions, businesses, and citizens, and advances the digital government services. Digital technologies, including AI and data, present a unique opportunity to accelerate development. The Digital Transformation Vertical has the critical mission of delivering on this development promise. The Digital Vice Presidency and its global and regional teams support client countries in building the foundational and cross-cutting elements of digital transformation through two engagement pillars, six business lines, and multiple cross-cutting areas:ย
โข Digital Core: Building digital infrastructure through broadband network, affordable devices; Enhancing data infrastructure including data centers, cloud solutions and data governance; Enabling AI and cutting-edge technology applications; and Protecting institutions, businesses, and citizens through cybersecurity, data protection & privacy, trust services as well as online safety.
โข Digital Use: Supporting the Regions and the Verticals of People, Prosperity, Planet, and Infrastructure in the digitalization efforts of clients through Digital Government (digital public infrastructure, digital government services, and digital literacy and training), Digital Economy (national ICT planning, ICT industry and jobs, and smart infra and industry) and Digital Society (digital school, digital health, etc.).ย
Both pillars will be the channels through which the Vertical will support World Bank achieving its objectives in cross-cutting areas like jobs and skills, climate and green, fragility, conflict and violence, and gender and inclusion.ย
Digital Government Unitย
This unit develops the World Bank's approach to the following areas:
โข Digital government architecture, including interoperable platforms, government data hosting solutions, and government business processes.
โข Digital public infrastructure: Encompassing digital identification, digital payments, and data sharing (building on World Bankโs ID4D and G2Px initiatives) while providing government use case support across sectors like civil service, School Service, finance (budget/tax service), social security, public safety and emergency response services (Police/Fire Department).
โข Training/capacity building for government officials, establishing training centers for hardware and software, and enhancing the E-gov Developmental Index through research, partnership initiatives, and event management.
The Unit closely collaborates and coordinates with relevant Units of the Prosperity and People Verticals to design and deliver its work program. The Unit engages through Regional VPUs and CMUs to support clients.
The G2Px initiative
As we move into an increasingly digital world, governments across the globe are leveraging new technologies to deliver services better, faster and more transparently.ย The main benefits of service digitization โ increased coverage, efficiencies and cost savings through reduced leakages โ reach the poor mainly through the impact they have on social protection programs and the cash benefits associated with these programs (G2P payments).ย Globally, nearly a quarter of adults receive payments from the government โ whether through public sector wages, pension, or social protection programs.ย Government-to-person (G2P) payments are therefore critical to government operations, and to maintaining the relationship between governments and individuals.ย Developing countries spend a large portion of their GDP on such programs.ย In social assistance, cash transfers account for 0.7% of GDP and represent well over half (55%) of all spending on social safety nets in the World Bankโs ASPIRE database. In OECD countries, spending on unemployment benefits (insurance or assistance) accounts for 0.7% of GDP on average, public spending on disability- or incapacity-related benefits accounts for 1.5% of GDP, and spending on pensions (insurance and assistance) averages 7.5% of benefits).ย As such, small efficiency gains can have significant fiscal impact for countries, particularly since cash distribution can be prone to leakage such as fraud.ย From the perspective of individuals in the โfirst mileโ โ typically the poorest and most vulnerable populations -- better payments have the potential to be more convenient and accessible at a lower cost while also advancing important long-term development outcomes.ย
The G2Px initiative, launched in early 2020, contributes to the broader agenda of improving G2P payments through digitization by shifting the paradigm beyond program-specific efficiency gains to one that simultaneously accelerates critical development outcomes such as financial inclusion, womenโs economic empowerment, resilience and government fiscal savings. G2Px is a collaboration across the World Bank, including global practices and units working on digital development, social protection, financial inclusion, payment systems, governance, gender, agriculture, social inclusion, health, data protection, and research, among others. Through this initiative, the World Bank (WB) will establish a global framework, develop best practices and provide upstream technical assistance to radically improve G2P payments globally, ensuring that all such payments aim and design for broader inclusion and empowerment outcomes through a focus on digitization. In addition, the work aims to influence work by other development partners, humanitarian agencies, and international organizations working on G2P, social protection, and humanitarian payments broadly.ย
The G2Px Initiative focuses on three mutually reinforcing pillars of work: (1) Country action โ where cross-sectoral World Bank teams to provide technical assistance to over 40 countries on how to improve their delivery of G2P payments; (2) Thought leadership and analytics โ to provide guidance and advance our understanding of what works and doesnโt when designing digital G2P payments architectures; and (3) Networks & Convening โ to share good practices and coordinate across partners to support the development of the digital G2P global agenda.ย
Job Duties and Responsibilitiesย
The roles and responsibilities include, but not limited to:ย ย
โข Provide strategic and operational inputs to the cross-GP initiative and ideate on new areas of work:ย
a)Translate the strategic guidance provided by the Director Working group into actionable program(s) to be implemented by the participating Departments /Global Themes and sectors, and in consultation with external partners.
b)Support the continuous evolution of the initiative by identifying emerging priorities and ensuring alignment with broader development objectives.
c)Closely monitor progress in the implementation of the work program and prepare comprehensive progress reports for donors, highlighting key achievements and challenges.
โข Manage the day-to-day implementation of the initiative including monitoring and coordinating grants.
a)Systematically monitor progress with G2Px grants for country implementations and analytical products, ensuring timely updates to the trackers and briefs that the initiative maintains as well as ensuring compliance with World Bank policies and procedures.
b)Maintain and regularly update project management and tracking tools (e.g., Monday.com) to monitor the status of country-level activities, analytical products, and deliverables.
โข Facilitate country implementation of cross-sectoral solutions to digitalizing G2P payments.
a)Coordinate the G2Px-supported country engagement portfolio.
b)Contribute to shaping the activities G2Px supports at the country level providing technical guidance, review and inputs throughout the engagement cycle.
c)Support policy dialogue to advance the implementation of outcome driven digital G2P payments.
โข Contribute to the development of knowledge in the digital G2P agenda.
a)Develop, contribute to and shepherd--in collaboration with other WB departments--analytical reports, policy briefs, and other knowledge products to help countries and other development partners better understand and implement the good practices and design principles that G2Px advocates for.
b)Ensure that these products support decision-making and strategic planning for the initiative.
โข Contribute to the dissemination and advocacy of good practices in the digitalization of G2P payments.
a)Synthesize findings from analytical products or country project progress in blogs, concise briefing notes or well-designed presentations for internal WB and external policy making audiences, including country clients.
b)Develop strategic partnerships with bilateral, multilateral and non-governmental donors.
โข Contribute to other programmatic work as required.
Selection Criteria
โข Masterโs degree and a minimum of 8 years of experience in Public Policy, Engineering, Economics or relevant technical discipline.
โข In depth experience working on financial inclusion, gender, social protection, digital development, or payments systems in a developing country context.
โข Proven experience with program management and donor reporting.
โข Demonstrated expertise in G2P payment process and potential bottlenecks or pitfalls for recipients in receiving their payments.
โข Excellent written and oral communication. Able to synthesize, analyze, and effectively present material from a wide range of sources.ย
โข Excellent interpersonal skills, proven team orientation, proven ability to work effectively and collaboratively across teams.
โข Ability to work independently, seeking guidance on complex issues from senior staff.
โข Ability to deal sensitively in multi-cultural environments.
World Bank Group Core Competencies
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Learn more about working at theย World Bankย andย IFC, including our values and inspiring stories.ย
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.