Senior Country Officer

Job Title: Senior Country Officer
Job Type: Professional & Technical
Grade: GG
Location: Hanoi, Vietnam
Recruitment Type: Local Hire
Language Requirement: English [Essential]
Closing Date:28-Jul-2015

Background / General description:

Since re-engagement with Vietnam in the early 1990s, Vietnam and the World Bank have built a strong partnership based on trust mutual respect.  It is widely acknowledged within the Government and Vietnamese society that the Bank has made an important contribution to Vietnam’s remarkable development success, including in areas such as Economic Reform, Rural Electrification, Targeted Poverty Reduction, Rural Finance and Basic Education.  The Bank therefore enjoys the status of trusted partner and our financing as well as technical expertise is greatly valued.   Annual commitments to Vietnam have grown rapidly from US$325 million in FY94 to US$1.5 billion in FY14 and the total current portfolio of approximately US$ 8 billion consists of around 50 active projects.  A new Country partnership Strategy (CPS) for Vietnam for 2012-2016 was agreed in December 2011.  The CPS has 3 pillars: Competitiveness; Sustainability; and Opportunity, and three cross-cutting themes: Governance, Resilience and Gender.  The strategy also places a lot of attention on knowledge through a strong program of analytic work and bringing global experience on various development issues to Vietnam.  

The East Asia and Pacific Region is the most decentralized region in the World Bank, and the Vietnam Program is almost entirely managed and implemented from the Country office in Hanoi under the leadership of a Country Director.  This high degree of decentralization and the large and growing size of the program demands a high-caliber and well-functioning front office team to support the Country Director in managing different aspects of the program, including strategy development and implementation, development and oversight of the program and its implementation, internal operation of the office, collaboration and dialogue with Government and other stakeholders in the country, and effective communications with HQ. The Sr. Country Officer is a key member of the Country Director’s Front Office team.

The Sr. Country Officer will be based in the World Bank’s Hanoi Office. The appointment, at grade level GG locally recruited, will initially be for three years term contract with possibility of conversion to Open-ended appointment given satisfactory performance and business need.

Note: If the selected candidate is a current Bank Group staff member with a Regular or Open-Ended appointment, s/he will retain his/her Regular or Open-Ended appointment. All others will be offered a 3 year term appointment.

Duties and Accountabilities

Country Strategy Monitoring: Working closely with the Country Management Team the Sr. Country Officer will play a key role in monitoring the implementation of the CPS (Country Partnership Strategy), and work closely with staff of Global Practice (GPs) Units to track progress on strategic objectives, intermediate indicators and milestones agreed under the CPS. The Sr. Country Officer will also advise task teams on country context and strategy issues.

• Provide Analysis and Review. The Sr. Country Officer will review and comment on documents including Project and AAA Concept Notes, Project Appraisal Documents (PAD), Implementation Completion Reports (ICR), engagement notes, and other reports to ensure their quality and consistency with the Country Partnership Strategy. He/she will provide direct support to Country Director in screening/reviewing such documents submitted by GPs. The Sr. Country Officer will prepare inputs into retrospective reviews and work program agreement (WPA) exercises. The CO will work on specific tasks managed by the CMU including the Post 2015 Financing Options, Vietnam’s IDA graduation issues and others.
• Reporting/Briefing.  Working closely with the DC-based Sr. Country Officer, the Sr. Country Officer will take the lead in preparing briefing materials and related analysis as required for the Spring and Annual Meetings, as well as for meetings arranged between the World Bank’s senior management and clients and ad hoc events such as high-level management visits to the countries and visits of senior Government officials to DC.  In addition, the CO will prepare minutes of meetings, and other written materials for Bank management and external audiences as necessary as well as preparing presentations, and talking points as needed for the Country Director.
• Work Program Management: The Sr. Country Officer will contribute to AAA management and quality issues for the CMU, working closely with the Country Program Coordinator. Such work could include managing the AAA program, quality and ensuring compliance with Bank policies. He/she will participate in all AAA strategy and review meetings.

Selection Criteria:

• A Masters (or equivalent) in a relevant discipline.
• Minimum of 8 years of progressive, professional experience (after the Masters) in relevant fields;
• At least 3 years prior experience in a country or operations services assignment or in a sector operations assignment in a regional VPU in the Bank will be an important advantage.
• Sound operational experience, including thorough knowledge of Bank Group policies, programs, and procedures, and exposure to economic and sector work, and Country Partnership Framework (CPF) /Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) activities.
• A strong track record in operations with demonstrated results in lending and non-lending products is required. 
• Superior interpersonal, diplomatic and partnership skills required for building and maintaining collaborative relationships with internal and external partners and stakeholders.  
• Superior level of resourcefulness, ability to work with considerable autonomy as well as willingness to work under pressure and through the whole spectrum of activities from the strategic level to the resolution of specific implementation issues.
• A proven record in timely delivery of written /analytical outputs with high quality.
• Experience with donor coordination and the development and strengthening of partnerships with country strategy and program stakeholders.

Competencies: 

• Strategic Thinking.  Proven ability to think strategically and articulate strategic position.  .
• Stakeholder Engagement - Ability to advance and make substantive contributions to the country dialogue.
• Client Orientation - Maintains client relationships in the face of conflicting demands or directions and provides evidence-based advice and solutions based on sound diagnosis and knowledge. 
• Drive for Results - Identifies the needed resources to accomplish results involving multiple stakeholders and finds solutions to obstacles affecting key deliverables. 
• Teamwork (Collaboration) and Inclusion - Shows leadership in ensuring the team stays organized and focused, and actively seeks and considers diverse ideas and approaches. 
• Knowledge, Learning and Communication - Leads in the sharing of best practice, trends, knowledge and lessons learned across units and with clients and partners, articulating ideas verbally and in writing in a clear and compelling way across audiences of varied levels. 
• Business Judgment and Analytical Decision Making - Gathers inputs, assesses risk, considers impact and articulates benefits of decisions for internal and external stakeholders over the long term.

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