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Country and position context
Papua New Guinea (PNG) belongs to the World Bank’s PNG and Pacific Country Management Unit (CMU) which covers twelve countries as follows: Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. The CMU is managed from the Sydney Office under the leadership of the Country Director, assisted by an Operations Manager. The PNG Country Office in Port Moresby is led by the Country Manager, assisted by the Senior Operations Officer. Since July 1st, 2024, the Country Manager is now also the Joint Country Representative (JCR) for the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).
The World Bank’s portfolio in PNG consists of 10 active projects (all IPFs) with net commitments of US$462.5m covering energy, transport, water, agriculture, community-driven development, urban youth, labor mobility, and health and nutrition. There are six ASAs underway, three of which are multi-year Programmatic ASAs financed largely by trust funds. Preparation of a new Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for the period FY2025-2029 is underway.
The Position
The World Bank is seeking an experienced professional for the position of Senior Operations Officer to be based in Port Moresby. Reporting to the Country Manager, the Selected Candidate will play a lead role in the following: (i) preparation and implementation of country engagement products, (ii) portfolio monitoring, operational support, & quality assurance, (iii) support to the CM & management of the joint CO, and (iv) Client and stakeholder relationship management.
Duties and Accountabilities
1. Preparation & Implementation of Country Engagement Products
• Play a key role in the preparation and implementation of the WBG’s Country Engagement Products for PNG - the Country Partnership Framework (CPF), Performance and Learning Review (PLR), and the Completion and Learning Review (CLR).
• Help ensure that technical and financial support to PNG responds to country context and needs.
• Advise the CM and the OM throughout the yearly WPA exercise.
• Facilitate related business development, as requested by the CM, in collaboration with Program Leaders and relevant Global Practice (GP) staff.
2. Portfolio Monitoring, Operational Support, & Quality Assurance
• Lead the monitoring of project portfolio and operational performance, including quality at entry, during implementation support, and exit, and ensuring compliance with Bank policies.
• Ensure quality, timeliness, and candor of Implementation Status Reports (ISR); work with teams to develop and implement action plans to improve project performance and to anticipate and resolve bottlenecks.
• Ensure seamless mission planning and execution by task teams, including timely and high-quality operation of pre- and post-mission processes and submissions (mission announcements, management letters, aide memoires)
• Lead quarterly portfolio performance deep dives with relevant Government agencies.
• Hold regular, dedicated meetings and follow-up with task teams, implementation support teams (including fiduciary, procurement and safeguards specialists) and with the Project Implementation Units and Government counterparts.
• Work closely with multidisciplinary project teams to ensure knowledge sharing and engagements have design and implementation arrangements that build on lessons learned and are appropriate for the country’ institutional context; ensure that at the technical level, the CMU is part of and influences, the client conversation during project preparation, and that issues for management attention are timely flagged and followed up upon.
• Through analysis, identify trends and systemic issues in pipeline and portfolio, and advise on ways to address them.
• Engage the Program Leaders and other members of the CMU in an effective way to influence the quality of the pipeline, portfolio, and ASA program.
• Review and provide comments on packages at each stage of the project cycle and liaise with task team leaders to ensure that all comments are considered before clearance.
• Advise the country team on operational policies, instruments, and procedures and on complex operational issues. Serve as liaison with regional and corporate units that deal with operational quality, effectiveness, and risk management.
• Advise and as needed train task teams, CMU staff and other stakeholders on operational changes and innovations.
• Proactively ensure collaboration and cross-fertilization between task teams who work on similar topics within different operations and engagements.
3. Support to the CM & Management of the Joint CO
• As needed, serve as Acting CM, including in the role of JCR.
• Review, comment on, and clear all out-going correspondence; manage in-coming correspondence; review/comment/clearance of all operational requests (PIDs, AISs, etc.).
• Prepare a range of reports and briefs to counterparts, regional and senior management, including Spring and Annual Meetings briefs, visiting missions’ briefs and ad hoc briefs.
• In coordination with the CM and the Resource Management team, monitor the implementation of the WPAs, utilization of resources, including providing periodically updated information to TTLs for budget monitoring at task level; monitor the utilization of CMU resources during the Fiscal Year including reallocation of CMU budget towards operational uses/projects.
• Supervise and serve as a mentor for ACS and other CMU-mapped operational support staff.
• Support the preparation of high-level missions.
4. Client and Stakeholder Relationship Management
Assist the CM in representation of the WBG and outreach to key stakeholders, especially the Government, private sector clients, development partners and donors, as well as NGOs, civil society, and the media, especially as they relate to project operational matters and the broader strategic agenda of the WBG; support the day-to-day dialogue with Government on a broad range of policy and implementation issues.