Senior Transport Specialist

The World Bank’s Eastern and Southern Africa Region, comprised of approximately 1,207 staff, mostly based in 26 country offices, has been helping countries realize their considerable development potential by focusing on the following priorities:

• Creating Jobs and Transforming Economies: We are working with countries across Africa to stimulate job creation and economic transformation by leveraging all sources of finance, expertise, and solutions to promote investment.
• Building up the Digital Economy: We are supporting Africa’s vision to ensure that every African individual, business, and government is connected by 2030 – a vision that, if realized, can boost growth by up to 2 percentage points per year, and reduce poverty by 1 percentage point per year in Sub-Saharan Africa alone.
• Institutions more Efficient and Accountable: Our support is helping governments strengthen public policy processes, manage resources effectively, and reinforce fair and reliable delivery of public services.
• Investing in People: We are at the forefront of helping African countries accelerate human capital gains and empower women by improving their access to education and skills acquisition, sexual and reproductive health services, and employment opportunities. With the influx of COVID-19, we are mobilizing financial support and timely analysis and advice to countries across the subregion to deal with the pandemic.
• Supporting Climate Change Mitigation and Adaption:  In the face of increasing climate-related risks, we are working with African countries to advance efforts to adopt renewable energy, climate-smart agriculture, and green infrastructure. A number of East African countries recently had to deal with a debilitating Desert Locust infestation that threatened the already precarious food security situation. The Bank has put together a program to help affected countries deal with the scourge.
• Addressing the Drivers of Fragility, Conflict, and Violence: Given the cross-border nature of conflicts in Africa, we are employing an approach that simultaneously focuses on the drivers of fragility while also supporting well-targeted regional initiatives to create opportunities for peace and shared prosperity.
• Building Partnerships and Working across the African Continent: We are scaling up our work on regional integration, taking a holistic view of the continent that covers both North and Sub-Saharan Africa.

 Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Manage and support the supervision of transport projects covering the core elements of planning, design, procurement, construction, contract management, maintenance, and operations, while paying close attention to the design and monitoring the implementation of safeguards and other cross-cutting issues, including the opportunities for addressing women mobility constrains, road safety, green mobility, safety, expanding the incorporation of the private sector in the financing and/or provision of transport infrastructure and services.
• Manage and support identification and preparation of new operations.
• Manage and support selected analytical studies (ASA activities) or Trust Funds, particularly on issues related to the provision of transport infrastructure and services, financing options, asset maintenance and operations, climate resilience, gender, impact evaluation, and general best practices in the investment, management and delivery of infrastructure and services.
• Under the guidance of the Practice Manager, lead sector policy dialogue and institutional reforms and support the development of new business opportunities.
• Identify opportunities in coordination with multi-disciplinary units across the world bank, including Energy, Digital Development, Urban Development, Climate Change, and others.
• Contribute in cross-sectoral teams responsible for preparation of policy notes, Country Partnership Frameworks, public expenditures reviews, sectoral studies, and research and policy development activities on the topics/sections pertaining to transport, poverty reduction, environmental management, agriculture and trade and competitiveness.
• Support the Bank-wide professional community of staff engaged in the transport practice by participating in a selected number of thematic technical groups (Global Solutions Groups) and participating in drafting of technical notes in collaboration with other Global practices to enhance the creation and dissemination of new knowledge and expanding the existing knowledge base.
• Stay abreast of recent developments in the transport sector world-wide, and on cross-cutting issues, in relation to the topics of specialization for this position; identifying knowledge gaps and disseminating relevant knowledge to clients.

The Senior Transport Specialist will be based in the World Bank’s Gaborone office.  She/He will report to the IAET2 Practice Manager. Her/His activities will be identified with the Practice Manager and adjusted based on business needs. She/He will actively participate in the relevant Country Management Unit (CMU) discussions, particularly on the preparation of Systematic Country Diagnostics (SCD) and Comprehensive Partnership Frameworks (CPFs), as well as on portfolio reviews. She/He will also liaise and work with other global practices and cross-cutting solutions areas, as relevant, and ensure appropriate collaboration and partnership between Government, the World Bank Group, and other international and bilateral organizations involved in the transport sector in Botswana and the southern Africa sub-region. 

Selection Criteria

• Advanced degree (at least Masters or PhD) in transport economics, engineering, or similar discipline relevant for the assignment.
• Sustained record of achieving high-quality substantive results in the transport sector over a period of at least 8 years.
• Proven experience in the transport sector (road, railways, inland waterways, ports), with demonstrated ability to work on at least three of the following areas: (a) development of transport policy and national planning instruments (road, railways, ports); (b) policy, institutional and financing aspects of transport and the elements to encourage private sector participation in the delivery of transport infrastructure or services; (c) road sector including rural mobility; (d) regional integration, logistics, regional economic corridors.  A good working knowledge on the procurement of works, goods and services, as well as the options to harness Digital Development technologies into the transport sector initiatives and operations will be a plus.
• Experience in working with and leading cross-sectoral teams, including teams for safeguards and fiduciary aspects, and knowledge of key cross-cutting issues that impinge on the performance of the transport sector and on which the development of transport sector infrastructure and services needs to create positive effect, including environmental and social impacts, land acquisition and resettlement, gender equality, road safety, climate change, and the interplay with digital technologies for enhance transport sector performance.
• Proven track record of design and implementation of transport programs, and experience of working on programs financed by the World Bank or other development partners, multilateral or bilateral.
• High degree of dynamism and self-motivation, as well as the ability to work with minimal supervision. Proven practical experience in project development and management would be a strong advantage.
• Familiarity with the challenges facing the transport sector in Sub-Saharan Africa would be an advantage.
• Proven ability to build client relationships involving multiple stakeholders, to discuss transformative transport policies or reforms.
• Good oral and written communications skills.
• English essential. Portuguese/Spanish highly desired.

Source: https://worldbankgroup.csod.com/ats/careersite/JobDetails.aspx?id=26839&site=1