JOB DESCRIPTION
Description
Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries; a unique global partnership of five institutions dedicated to ending extreme poverty, increasing shared prosperity, and promoting sustainable development. With 189 member countries and more than 120 offices worldwide, we work with public and private sector partners, investing in groundbreaking projects and using data, research, and technology to develop solutions to the most urgent global challenges. For more information, visit www.worldbank.org
The Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions Practice Group
The Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions Practice Group (EFI) is one of the World Bank Group’s four Practice Groups. EFI’s mandate is “Growth, Finance, and Institutions for all.” Our approach is to leverage public and private sector expertise, together with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), to support a data-driven reform agenda. EFI supports clients in advancing evidence-based structural reforms to build the foundations for inclusive and sustainable growth.
EFI is composed of four Global Practices (GPs), the Prospects Group, and CGAP:
The Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment (MTI) GP provides broad macroeconomic analysis in support of countries’ economic programs, including the analysis of macro-financial risks, and macroeconomic modelling services to the rest of the WBG. MTI supports sound fiscal frameworks and fiscal risk management as well as better institutions and capacity on debt management to improve efficiency of public spending and bolster macroeconomic stability.
The Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation (FCI) GP, consisting of two directorates (the Finance directorate, and the Trade, Investment and Competitiveness (TIC) directorate) aims to support client countries to create an enabling environment in which financial stability, efficiency and firm-level solutions are provided in an integrated way to crowd in the private sector, support the creation of markets, and accelerate equitable growth.
The Governance GP (GOV) helps countries build capable, effective, accountable, transparent and inclusive institutions that deliver citizen-centric services, facilitate private-sector growth and build trust in government; and provides fiduciary support to all Bank operations.
The Poverty and Equity GP (POV) consists of micro, labor and development economists to build the evidence base, provide advice and operational support to ensure country policies and WBG interventions are inclusive.
The Prospects Group provides analysis on global economic and financial developments and their impact on emerging market and developing countries. It is responsible for the publication of the Global Economic Prospects report, the Commodity Markets Outlook and Global Monthly.
CGAP is a global partnership of more than 30 leading development organizations that works to advance the lives of poor people through financial inclusion.
THE FISCAL POLICY AND SUSTAINABLE GROWTH UNIT
The Fiscal Policy & Sustainable Growth Unit (FPSG) in the MTI Global Practice assists internal and external clients in developing strategies and balancing risks and trade-offs in their public expenditures and domestic resource mobilization efforts in order to advance the World Bank’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity.
Global Tax Program
Housed within FPSGU, The Global Tax Program (GTP) serves as a key vehicle to deliver on the Bank’s domestic revenue mobilization (DRM) Approach as the only World Bank Umbrella Trust Fund mandated to raise funds for taxation related work. The GTP supports advisory services and technical assistance focused on strengthening tax institutions and mobilizing revenues fairly and efficiently at the international and domestic levels. GTP’s approach is centered around supporting countries’ efforts in raising more and better revenues to achieve the SDGs by (i) promoting fairness, equity, and inclusive growth, and (ii) ensuring a stable, predictable, and sustainable fiscal environment. The GTP portfolio consists of Bank-executed analytical support and technical assistance projects in more than 90 countries.
Global Tax Program Health Taxes Project
Health taxes are excise taxes applied to products such as tobacco, alcohol, and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) that are meant to address negative externalities and internalities. To this end, appropriately designed health taxes can curb consumption, improve health outcomes while generating higher revenues.
The Health Tax Project under the GTP aims to support country authorities—the Ministries of Finance, Tax and Customs Authorities, Ministries of Health—in excise tax policy and administration by supporting Low-and Middle- Income Countries (LMICs) with World Bank executed analytics and technical assistance.
The project supports country work including tax policy and administration diagnostics, revenue modeling, reform implementation support, monitoring and evaluation of reform impact, capacity development and knowledge management. In this context, the Global Tax Program is looking to recruit an expert to join the Health Tax Project to provide support in tobacco, alcohol and SSBs taxation to Bank teams and their counterparts by conducting research, revenue modelling, and any related technical assistance and knowledge generation and dissemination. S/he will work under direction of the project task team leader and in close collaboration with the project coordinator, while collaborating with other integral members of the World Bank teams. Tasks include but are not limited to the following:
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• Engage with country teams to collect data, analyze and document opportunities to improve health tax policy and administration, and identify appropriate regional and best practice countries for comparison.
• Conduct country-level revenue forecasts, modeling impacts; write and present these in an operationally relevant manner that can assist Bank teams and their counterparts as they consider reform options.
• Support country level research and technical assistance, and ensure coordination within the Bank and across relevant external partners
• Support authorities in putting in systems of monitoring and impact measurement of health tax reforms at the country-level.
• Support Bank teams in developing communications around key messages aligned to country findings for wider awareness raising.
• Contribute to the development and synthesis of best practices in terms of policy design and implementation based on technical issues that arise at the country level, as well as documentation of country level experiences as a part of knowledge sharing.
• As part of the task team, support coordination and knowledge sharing efforts with key partners such as IMF, WHO, PAHO, OECD and other technical groups who work on health taxes.
• Contribute to bolstering of a capacity development agenda with knowledge notes on the specific sub-topics that are of interest to practitioners in this field.
• Support the task team leader in preparation for technical workshops, seminars, and other global presentations to highlight the latest developments and country perspectives in health taxes from a tax policy/fiscal policy perspective.
Selection Criteria
Do you meet the following selection criteria? If so, we encourage you to apply:
• 10+ years of professional, relevant experience tobacco and, alcohol or SSB excise tax reform related economic research and modeling.
• A strong and operationally relevant publication record on tobacco and, alcohol or SSB excise tax related economic analysis. [operationally relevant refers to research that is applied and relevant to country reformers’ questions and needs, not abstract or theoretical]
• Graduate degree in Economics, Health Economics or a similar relevant field.
• Familiarity with Domestic Revenue Mobilization/Fiscal Policy issues in a developmental context is a strong asset.
• Strong research, analytical, organizational and communication skills
• Ability to work independently on routine issues, organize and prioritize work to meet deadlines.
• Ability to work under pressure and flexibility in handling a variety of concurrent business support services.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English. Demonstrated ability to write briefs and reports clearly and concisely.
• Fluency in French or Spanish is a preferred.
The candidate must also have the following competencies:
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• Written and Verbal Communication – Delivers information effectively in support of team or workgroup
• Client Orientation – Takes personal responsibility and accountability for timely response to client queries, requests or needs, working to remove obstacles that may impede execution or overall success.
• Drive for Results – Takes personal ownership and accountability to meet deadlines and achieve agreed-upon results and has the personal organization to do so.
• Teamwork (Collaboration) and Inclusion – Collaborates with other team members and contributes productively to the team’s work and output, demonstrating respect for different points of view.
• Knowledge, Learning and Communication – Actively seeks knowledge needed to complete assignments and shares knowledge with others, communicating and presenting information in a clear and organized manner.
• Business Judgment and Analytical Decision Making – Analyzes facts and data to support sound, logical decisions regarding own and others’ work.
• Public Administration – Understands the overall dimensions and structures of the mechanics of government and its public administration, especially revenue administration and information management.
• General Economic Knowledge and Analytical Skills – Possesses a demonstrated track record of working with economic and sectoral data and analytical tools and models to conduct economic analyses and produce user-friendly written outputs; understands underlying statistical concepts.
• Knowledge and Experience in Development Arena – Understands policy making process; distills operationally relevant recommendations/lessons for clients.
Behavioral Competencies:
• Excellent communications and diplomatic and client relations skills; capable of fostering long-term, productive client relationships and identifying and respond to business development opportunities.
• Actively seeks knowledge needed to complete assignments and shares knowledge with others, communicating and presenting information in a clear and organized manner.
• Takes personal ownership and accountability to meet deadlines and achieve agreed-upon results.
• Proven team orientation and leadership, ability to work across unit boundaries.
• High ethical standards and a deep sense of fairness.
Other selection criteria
• Experience with tax issues in developing countries is required.
• Work experience in developing countries desired.
World Bank Group Core Competencies
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