Download 65 JPO TOR 10 SDN

Position Description
Junior Professional Officer
Sustainable Development Network Vice
Presidency
World Bank Headquarters, Washington
D.C.
BACKGROUND
The Sustainable Development Network (SDN) was established in 2006 to help improve the
quality of the World Bank’s (Bank) work and strengthen professional development and
knowledge sharing in and across four areas: agriculture, environment, infrastructure and social
development.
A central unit serves as the anchor for the Network and is made of multiple departments
that focus on specific thematic or sectoral areas: agriculture and rural development, energy,
transport, water, environment, urban development, social development, oil, gas, mining, and
chemicals, information and communication technologies, and sub-national activities. This anchor
serves as the Network’s nerve center for the Bank wide analysis of sectoral policy issues related
to its areas of expertise and new initiatives, and for overall contact with the Board and donors.
The office of the Chief Economist of SDN brings together staff with operational
experience, strong analytics, technical capacity, and ability to think strategically about the SDN
agenda. Current work focuses on operationalizing the policy recommendations of the World
Bank’s World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
The Junior Professional Officer (JPO) will report to Chief Economist of the Sustainable
Development Network, whose work focuses on the economic aspects of the various policy and
sectoral dimensions under the mandate of the Network. In addition to working closely with the
Chief Economist to respond to demands from the network, the JPO will be involved in the
following initiatives of the Chief Economist, taking leadership of specific tasks to be determined
based on the selected candidate’s background and interests:
Infrastructure and climate change knowledge platform. Climate change affects many aspects
of infrastructure – what kind of infrastructure we need, how it should be designed and managed,
as well as its costs and benefits. Infrastructure enters on both the mitigation and adaptation sides
of the climate change problem. The World Bank, along with a number of other institutions and
researchers, is beginning to look in more details at the implications of climate change for
infrastructure. However, efforts remain piecemeal, largely sectoral and far from being organized
in a coherent whole. In addition, infrastructure economics— notably regulatory economics—
remains largely unfocused on climate change. In this context, the purpose of this initiative is
three-fold. First, identify in a structured manner what are the issues raised by climate change for
infrastructure. Second, identify what knowledge exists on these issues, and where the gaps are.
Third, commission or undertake work on topics where gaps have been identified. The outputs
would also be of three types: first, a knowledge platform (e.g. website) with papers, toolkits and
structured links to relevant websites; second, papers and knowledge products commissioned to
fill in the knowledge gaps; third, a report offering an overview of the infrastructure and climate
issues.
“ Robust” decision-making or decision making under uncertainty. This is one of the critical
inputs into the above task, and one that will be led from the Chief Economist’s office. A key
conclusion of the World Development Report 2010 is that, with climate change increasing
uncertainty about future climatic conditions (averages, variance and extremes), it is becoming
imperative to revisit the economic analysis of projects, particularly those involving long-lived
capital stocks or large sunk investments. There are a number of theoretical approaches that have
been developed, but so far few have actually been applied, particularly in developing countries.
The goal of this initiative is to test out different approaches, bringing researchers and taskmanagers of specific projects together to identify decision frameworks and tools that work in
constrained environments.
Green growth agenda. Green growth has very much been in the news in the context of greening
fiscal stimuli that followed the financial crisis with the argument that green public expenditures
carries a triple bottom-line – reduced emissions, job creation and removal of growth bottle neck.
However, the debate does remain as to whether green growth means slower growth with
resources diverted to cleaning up the growth process; as to the impact of countries unilaterally
deciding to impose domestic environmental regulations and/or a carbon price and whether this
would lead to jobs moving abroad—to poorer or less-green countries that would become
pollution havens? The goal of this initiative (undertaken in collaboration with the research
department of the World Bank) is to examine potential trade-offs between greening and growing,
and ways of minimizing these trade-offs.
The work will require frequent engagement with other staff in the Bank, as well as with
researchers and practitioners outside the Bank.
The position is located in Washington, DC, with only limited travel.
SELECTION CRITERIA
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Advanced degree in Economics, and at least two years of experience;
Academic or professional experience with climate change issues;
Strong research and analytic skills;
Good diplomatic, organizational, and oral presentation skills, with ability to work in a
multicultural environment with an inter-disciplinary team;
Computer skills, including data analysis with standard statistical packages;
Excellent oral and written communication skills in English;
Additional language skills desirable.