World Bank Group Seeking an E T Consultant

Description:
 

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.

The WBG sees the closing of key gaps between men and women, and expansion of voice/agency for women and girls as critical to its goals of eliminating poverty and boosting shared prosperity. The WBG has made large strides in addressing these issues over the past 20 years. Under IDA 18, as well as with the recent capital increase, the WBG has committed to an ambitious corporate push on new targets and strategic frontiers, and the current WBG gender strategy commits Regions and Global Practices to draw on strong, evidence-based gender analysis to inform policy and program priorities. The WBG seeks stronger and better-resourced efforts to address gender inequalities in human development, access to good jobs and control over productive assets, and services that meet the needs of both women and men, especially the poorest, and focus also on areas that could have transformational impacts.  

Gender global theme:  
 

The World Bank Group (WBG) sees the closing of key gaps between men and women, and expansion of voice/agency for women and girls as critical to its goals of eliminating poverty and boosting shared prosperity. The WBG has made large strides in addressing these issues over the past 20 years and has committed to an ambitious corporate push on new targets and strategic frontiers, and the new WBG gender strategy commits Regions and Global Practices to draw on strong, evidence-based gender analysis to inform policy and program priorities. The WBG seeks stronger and better-resourced efforts to address gender inequalities in human development, access to good jobs and control over productive assets, and services that meet the needs of both women and men, especially the poorest, and focus also on areas that could have transformational impacts. 

The Gender Group Global Theme aims to inspire and drive results across the World Bank Group.  The Group facilitates the flow of global knowledge on what works to close gender gaps.  This includes in tested solutions to close gender gaps, through supporting cross-cutting operational approaches to development challenges, improving the evidence base for results, engaging in knowledge generation and capture, training and learning, monitoring corporate commitments and scaling up partnerships with public and private sector stakeholders for reach, relevance, and effectiveness of results. 

The Gender Group works across all Global Practices, Regions, and other Themes to leverage the full breadth of available expertise in the implementation of the WBG’s gender strategy, and to help the institution achieve its corporate targets and goals.  A central function of the Gender Group is knowledge curation, generation, capture and dissemination. Increasingly this includes a focus on support upstream to inspire and support Bank-wide engagement for impact at the country and regional level. For more information:  https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/gender 

Duties and responsibilities:
 

The candidate would play a lead role on childcare within the Gender Group and will be part of a small cross-sectoral team that is responsible for delivering a new World Bank Group work program on childcare which is led by EDU (see description below). 

The main responsibility will be to lead, curate and encourage knowledge uptake on gender related aspects of the childcare agenda focused on women’s economic empowerment, drawing both from evidence and analytical work as well as experience from implementing WBG operations.  Products will include the development of various childcare tools and guidance for WBG country teams that could also serve as global public goods, leading on some pieces and bringing the gender perspective to products that will be led by others.

Specific responsibilities will include: 
 

• Working closely with the childcare team to ensure a coordinated approach to the emerging global analytical workstream on evaluations.  The evaluation portfolio of the childcare work program will consider the holistic impact of childcare on women, children, families and businesses.  This will include a focus on women’s economic empowerment in the context of the broader set of outcomes. The selected candidate could contribute to developing an overall evaluation strategy for the childcare portfolio, guidance for teams, coordinating the call for proposals and review process, working with internal and external stakeholders to pull together guidance on tools and experts, distilling insights across the evaluation portfolio, and liaising with external research institutions on the childcare research agenda, including an initial evidence review.
• Providing technical assistance to country teams designing and implementing projects that include childcare components, particularly as part of supporting projects in meeting the IDA20 childcare Policy Commitment focused on expanding access to quality, affordable childcare, especially for low-income families. This includes support on policy reforms and the enabling environment for the expansion of childcare; strategies to directly support affordable expansion such as government provision or subsidies and direct support to families; professionalization and quality training for the childcare workforce; and quality assurance.
• Participating in the review process for Bank-Executed catalytic country grants and Recipient-Executed grants as part of the childcare work program, with a focus on the female labor force participation elements.
• Facilitating a coordinated approach to Senior Management messaging and preparation for high level speaking opportunities for childcare. This includes preparing inputs for updates to senior management on the childcare work program, in coordination with the small multi-sector working group.
• Developing gender content for capacity building programs, including for World Bank staff, policymakers and the Early Years Fellows.
• Identifying and organizing opportunities for internal and external childcare learning events, in collaboration with internal and external stakeholders especially those in the gender field.   
• Supporting the delivery of other aspects of the childcare work program (including monitoring the IDA20 childcare policy commitment, donor reporting, contributing to the workstream on collecting in-country and cross-country data)
• Supporting the Gender Group to deliver on other aspects of their work program. 

Description of the childcare work program: 
 

Expanding access to quality childcare has the potential to yield multi-generational impacts by improving women’s economic empowerment, child outcomes, family welfare, business productivity and overall economic growth. The World Bank’s new paper Better Jobs and Brighter Futures: Investing in Childcare to Build Human Capital lays out the evidence base for investments in childcare from a holistic perspective, estimates the global need and suggests policy goals for government to consider to ensure access to quality, affordable childcare for all families that need it. Recognizing the need for a whole-of-government approach and nonstate sector involvement to address the childcare challenge, the World Bank Group (WBG) is launching a new work program on childcare that will take a whole-of-WBG approach. The work program aims to expand the size, and improve the quality, of WBG investments in childcare to improve women’s economic empowerment and child development outcomes as well as broader benefits for families, businesses and ultimately economies. At the country level, activities will focus on making the case for childcare and supporting countries to design and implement quality projects, as well as to build capacity.  At the global level, analytical work and the development of tools and guidance will contribute to the global evidence base and global public goods as well as support country work. It is a 5-year work program until November 2026, which will be coordinated by the World Bank’s Early Learning Partnership team, working with a cross-sectoral working group of WBG staff

Selection criteria:
 

• Master’s degree in economics, gender or relevant field
• 8-12 years of relevant professional experience 
• Demonstrated ability to think and work across WBG, practices and sectors
• Demonstrated ability to work with country teams to prepare and deliver quality projects
• Knowledge of, and interest in, the topic of childcare 
• Experience working on evaluations and knowledge of gender evaluation tools
• Ability to link childcare to the broader gender agenda

World Bank Group Core Competencies

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Note: The selected candidate will be offered a one-year appointment, renewable for an additional one year, at the discretion of the World Bank Group, and subject to a lifetime maximum ET Appointment of two 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 second-year ET appointment are not eligible for future ET appointments.