Job Title:Senior Financial Specialist
Job # 120454
Job Title Senior Financial Specialist
Job Family Other
Location Nairobi, Kenya
Appointment Local Hire
Closing Date 13-Mar-2012
Language Requirements English [Essential]; French [Desired]; Portuguese [Desired]
Appointment Type
Background / General description
Qualified male and female candidates of diverse background (gender, religious, ethnic) are encouraged to apply. 1. Background The Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) is a global partnership, administered by the World Bank, with a mission to help poor people gain sustained access to water supply and sanitation services. WSP works in partnership with country client governments, external support agencies, water sector professionals, civil society and private organizations to improve various institutional, technical, economic, financial, and legal aspects of service delivery options and to promote large-scale programs to accelerate service provision to the poor. It also identifies and analyses key sector problems, identifies solutions, documents and shares lessons from the field and disseminates knowledge at local, national, regional and global level. . WSP's Business Plan for fiscal years 2011 to 2015 proposes to contribute to sector outcomes in six strategic areas: 1) scaling up rural sanitation and hygiene; 2) creating sustainable services through domestic private sector participation; 3) supporting poor-inclusive sector reform; 4) targeting the urban poor and improving services in small towns; 5) mitigating and adapting service delivery to climate change impacts; and 6) delivering services in fragile states. WSP has offices in 24 countries across Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia, and in Washington, DC. WSP is led by a Program Manager located in the World Bank’s Transport, Water and ICT Department in the Sustainable Development Network (SDN) Vice Presidency. The WSP Africa regional office is based in Nairobi. For more information about WSP please visit www.wsp.org. Purpose and Scope of the Job The access to finance work of WSP falls under the Sustainable Services through Domestic Private Sector Participation (SS-DPSP) business line. Sustainable Service through Domestic Private Sector Participation The Sustainable Services through Domestic Private Sector Participation (SS-DPSP) is the global business area for supporting client countries to further leverage domestic private sector finance and expertise to scale up water and sanitation services for the poor. The interventions under SS-DPSP fall under the following clusters of activities: • Developing viable water and sanitation business models for the poor • Public Private Partnerships in Non-Traditional Sectors • Banking the ‘Unbanked’: Access to Commercial Finance The WSP countries under the SS-DPSP program are the following 14: Bangladesh, Benin, Cambodia, Indonesia, India, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, and Uganda. In addition to the SS-DPSP focus countries, WSP Africa supports the domestic private sector in a few other African countries such as Burkina Faso, Niger and Tanzania. This SS-DPSP business area requires specialist financial skills in: (i). increasing water and sanitation providers’ access to commercial finance and working with commercial financial institutions to work with the sector, (ii) working with governments to develop public private partnerships that use public finance flowing into the sector to leverage private and commercial finance into the sector (iii) supporting client countries on delegating management of water and sanitation services to private sector, (iv). strengthening the viability of water and sanitation service providers to encourage increased investment, (v). working with, largely, private entities, to provide auxiliary services to the sector in areas such as ICT-based monitoring, business development support, etc. WSP Africa seeks to appoint a Senior Financial Specialist to support country implementation of these activities and participate in the SS-DPSP ‘Banking the Unbanked’ global knowledge team and Public Private Partnerships in Non Traditional sectors. The Senior Specialist will be based in Nairobi, Kenya. S/he will report to the WSP-AF Principal Regional Team Leader. The assignment will require frequent and liaison with WSP-AF country teams and partner agencies.
Duties and Accountabilities
i) SS-DPSP Africa Activities: As part of the global SS-DPSP program, provide expert advisory capacity and ability to engage in dialogue with clients, government actors/instrumentalities and other development partners including the World Bank group, on reform issues impacting on the ability of private sector to scale services and financing to the low income markets. Ensure quality-at-entry and implementation supervision, specifically, that proposed projects and business models are financially viable or, where justified (e.g., public goods, poverty/affordability, etc), adequate measures are in place to address financial issues and/or financial architecture/structures are sufficiently robust to allow stakeholders to move ahead with adequate comfort. The Senior Financial Specialist will perform this function by providing strategic advice and backstopping country teams and SS-DPSP country task team leaders. ii) Kenya Microfinance for Community-Based Water Projects: Task manage an on-going project being implemented by K-Rep Bank, with financial support from Global Program for Output Based Aid (GPOBA) and Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF). Duties include support to the implementing agency to achieve the project development objectives and results; supervision to ensure adherence to key fiduciary and safeguards policies of the World Bank (environmental and social safeguards; procurement, financial management and disbursement requirements; and trust fund administration and reporting.) This also includes support to improve the implementation capability of local banks/financial institutions to finance WSS infrastructure investments. Operational support further includes dialogue with key policy and regulatory agencies in Kenya, to ensure the enabling environment factors are well suited to commercial finance for small piped water systems and other eligible investments under the project. iii) Scale up on financing mechanisms for small water and sanitation providers in Kenya and Africa more generally: Develop opportunities for increasing the depth and scope of commercial financing opportunities for small water and sanitation service providers: This will include efforts to scale up and institutionalize the Kenya Micro Finance project that is on-going as well as efforts to replicate the project in other African countries - preparation for similar replication is in advance stages in Mali and starting up in Benin. Tasks will include close collaboration with country clients to develop institutional solutions for such financing mechanisms and dialogue with donor partners (including the World Bank) to help generate required financing for subsidies and enhancements. Specifically, the Senior Financial Specialist will support donors and country clients to design output based aid funds, guarantee schemes and other innovative financing mechanisms to allow commercial lenders to participate in infrastructure finance for the sub-sector. The Senior Financial Specialist will also provide direct advice on PPP arrangements which could increase the viability or reduce the risk of small water providers in the eyes of potential lenders. iv) WSS entrepreneurs/providers, utilities and municipalities access to commercial finance: Based on on-going efforts to support utilities to access commercial debt finance, the Senior Financial Specialist will provide advisory services to utilities and country clients on how such potential borrowers can access debt finance. This will include the preparation of analytic credit assessments, dialogue with lenders, guarantors and regulators on requirements for such lending and the provision of financial structuring advice to ensure that proposed transactions can be made bankable. Where relevant, support to PPP arrangements which could increase the bankability of utilities will also be supported. v) Knowledge Management: Contribute to a better regional and global understanding of critical financing issues in the water and sanitation sector implementation and operations to serve the poor. Tasks include leading or participating in analytical and advisory activities (AAA); publication and dissemination of high quality analytical reports and other finance communications products (Africa-focused as well as global); providing supervision/backstopping support to other SS-DPSP countries working on the product line ‘Banking the Unbanked;’ organizing and contributing to regional and global learning events to share WSP’s experiences and establishing linkages with the World Bank operational staff and to AAA work to ensure that the learning and best practice available from WSP is applied. vi) Partnership Management: Maintain open communications and strong relationships with all WSP financial and implementation partners including IFC, GPOBA, PPIAF and those outside the World Bank Group. Be proactive in fund-raising to support commercial finance activities, prepare funding proposals and assist in reporting and liaison with WSP’s financiers; be responsive to our financing partners’ demands whilst maintaining overall strategic focus. vii) Provide cross-support: When appropriate and time permitting, provide strategic cross support on water supply and sanitation-related programs and missions of the World Bank. Through cross support, provide inputs to other Bank and WSP teams and other partners in conducting analytical work or in preparing and implementing WSS sector activities.
Selection Criteria
i) Advanced degree(s) in a field relevant to the work profile – economics, finance, business administration, or other relevant field; ii) At least eight years of relevant experience on project and sector financing in developing countries with outstanding conceptual, analytical and technical skills; iii) A solid understanding of financial analysis, financial accounting and financial modeling in both corporate and project finance contexts; iv) Demonstrated experience in supporting governments in strengthening WSS sector regulatory and policy environment regarding participation of private sector in service provision to the poor and/or business enabling environment; v) Experience in support of small business, capacity support to micro-finance lenders and a demonstrated track record of proactive development of opportunities; including working with community groups in accessing commercial finance; vi) Demonstrated ability to collaborate with bilateral and multilateral agencies on private sector participation initiatives; vii) Intellectual leadership and ability to integrate finance knowledge with broader development sector strategies and policies and publications/knowledge products; viii) Excellent interpersonal skills, including ability to work in an inter-disciplinary, team-oriented environment as well as outstanding initiative and the capacity to work independently; Ability to deal sensitively with others in a multi-cultural background. ix) Outstanding verbal and written communication skills and the ability to express complex concepts and strategies in simple and actionable terms. Fluency in English is required; a working knowledge of French or Portuguese highly desirable. Competencies Shown below are World Bank Group competencies that are broadly linked to this job. This particular position emphasized financial analytical skills and water and sanitation elements. i) Access to Finance Demonstrate knowledge of microfinance, SME banking, other financial services and financial infrastructure. ii) Private Participation in Infrastructure and Social Sector Aims to improve the framework for private infrastructure, including removing barriers to private investments in infrastructure and designing policies, regulations and practices to attract investment such as streamlining and simplification of regulatory process, permits, licences; reviewing fiscal incentives, light-handed regulation. Support broad infrastructure enabling environment issues, including working with governments on establishing sound PPP law/frameworks and regulations, capacity building of agencies responsible for PPPs and design of long term facilities for PPP subproject financing. Focuses on supporting public sector engagement with the private sector, removing barriers to private investment in social sectors, and designing policies, regulations and practices to attract investment. iii) Water Sector Institutions: Knowledge of water institutions including: Water quality management institutions; Groundwater management institutions; Water user associations and community-based service providers; Utilities / Irrigation agencies; River basin organizations; Public and private sector institutions; Government agencies. Understands different models and roles for Ministry, local government, community, and civil society engagement, contribution, and accountability for advances in sector. iv) Water Sector Law and Regulations: Understands the body of Water law and regulations, including: Water use rights; Environmental issues and implications; Water quality standards; Customer service contracts and other commercial issues related to provision of water and wastewater services; PPP contractual structures and issues; Contract theory and analysis of incentives. v) Water Sector Policy and Strategies: Understands cross-sectoral linkages with public health, environment, economic growth and poverty reduction, service delivery. Understanding of governance and reform agenda for both public and private components. Understands emerging issues in the sector such as rapid urbanization, decentralization, water as human rights, resource constraints, and climate change. vi) Client Orientation: Understands client needs, issues and concerns and demonstrates a desire to address them. Engages the client by considering the client’s culture, work styles and perspectives. vii) Drive for Results: Delivers results and impact for clients and stakeholders. Holds self accountable for achieving sustainable results, and makes things happen both as an individual and through others. viii) Teamwork (Collaboration) and Inclusion: Collaborates and promotes inclusion within and across boundaries. Works effectively with individuals of different cultures and gender, and includes the perspectives and ideas of others. ix) Knowledge, Learning and Communication: Demonstrates agility for learning and a commitment to enhance one’s capacity. Routinely shares own knowledge with others. Listens objectively to others’ ideas, and speaks and writes clearly, concisely and persuasively. x) Business Judgment and Analytical Decision Making: Applies analytical and critical thinking to understand the business and to make evidence based interventions that impact results. Challenges conventional approaches and fosters appropriate risk-taking.
How to Apply:
http://extjobs.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64273552&piPK=64273556&theSitePK=1058433&JobNo=120454&order=descending&sortBy=job-req-num&location=ALL&menuPK=64262364
Deadline:13-Mar-2012
