Job Vacancies The World Bank, March 2011

Job Vacancies The World Bank
Job Title Financial Assistant
Job Family Financial Management
Job # 110445
Location Washington, DC
Appointment Local Hire
Closing Date: Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Language Requirements English [Essential]
Appointment Type

Background / General description
*** This is a 2-year coterminous Term appointment. Please note that an Open-Ended staff member, if selected, may retain his/her Open-Ended status so long as there is a re-entry guarantee from the releasing department. Otherwise, the appointment will be changed to coterminous upon transfer ***. For your information, an appointment is coterminous if it is 100 percent funded from sources other than the Bank Group’s administrative budget. After one year, the Bank Group may terminate a coterminous appointment if the funding source terminates or reduces the funding for the position. Coterminous service does not count toward the maximum length of a Term appointment. The Global Environment Facility (GEF), a multilateral financial mechanism established in 1991. It provides grants to developing countries for projects and programs that protect the global environment. GEF grants support projects related to six focal areas: biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, the ozone layer, and persistent organic pollutants. Since its inception as a pilot facility in 1991, GEF has committed $9 billion in grants to over 2,100 projects in more than 160 developing countries and transitional economies. Resources for the GEF Trust Fund, which finances the GEF’s programs and projects, are replenished every four year. Available funding for GEF activities in the period 2010 to 2014 is $4.25 billion (fifth replenishment period). The GEF is open to universal membership, and currently 181 countries are members. It is governed by a Council comprising 32 Members appointed by constituencies of GEF member countries. An Assembly of all member countries meets every four years at the ministerial level. The GEF is the designated financial mechanism for three international environmental conventions: the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. GEF is also a designated financial mechanism of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. Ten agencies are principally accountable for the execution of GEF projects: the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Bank (IBRD/IFC), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the U.N. Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). The GEF Secretariat, construed for administrative purposes as a VPU within the World Bank, has a staff complement of professional and ACS staff of approximately 75. The GEF Secretariat is structured into four teams: Climate and Chemicals, Natural Resources, External Affairs, and Operations and Business Strategy. Each team is led by a team leader, who is accountable to the CEO. The Financial Assistant is part of the Operations and Business Strategy team, which is responsible for pipeline management and program and project approvals, taking into account resources available through the GEF Trust Fund, effective and transparent business practices, and compliance with GEF procedures. In exercising these functions, the team collaborates with the technical teams in the GEF Secretariat and in the GEF Agencies. The team is critical to ensuring the proper management and efficiency of GEF operations. Its duties include coordinating Results-based Management and monitoring across the GEF portfolio, developing and maintaining the GEF Project Management Information System, creating and managing a GEF Lessons Learned and Good Practices Knowledge base as well as implementing the GEF System of Transparent Allocation of Resources (STAR) and the GEF Public Private Partnership initiative.

Duties and Accountabilities
Duties and Accountabilities: The incumbent will be accountable to the Head of Operations and Business Strategy. The specific duties and responsibilities will be as follows:
1. Develop a control environment for the maintenance of information related to proposals for funding submitted to the GEF Secretariat, including amounts requested for funding, requesting agency, date request received.
2. Ensure timeliness of the processing of transactions related to the Council approval of work programs, CEO approvals, CEO endorsements and prepare monthly reports to be submitted to Trustee.
3. Play a role in coordinating and overseeing database production and maintenance requirements among the GEF units and agencies and, where necessary, other external organizations.
4. Coordinate and implement data, data-analysis and reporting requirements.
5. Review financial and other reports submitted by GEF agencies and follow-up when necessary. Ensure agencies submit reports in a timely manner.
6. Work with the Trustee and other GEF agencies on required reconciliations of common data.
7. Undertake other duties related to the PMIS, as required.

Selection Criteria
Selection criteria:
1. A Bachelors Degree in Accounting/Finance with a minimum of 4 years of direct relevant experience.
2. General knowledge and understanding of Bank policies and procedures and a demonstrated ability to understand those related with the GEF and/or other similar global environmental/development operations helpful.
3. Excellent interpersonal, teamwork, communication skills (verbal and written), a positive attitude and ability to work well in a matrix organization and team environment.
4. Excellent client service/orientation skills in terms of coordinating database/system design, development, testing and maintenance in a collegial and collaborative relationship among the GEF units and with external organizations.
5. High degree of motivation, initiative, flexibility and reliability.
6. Ability to work independently with minimal supervision and manage multiple tasks and projects against ambitious deadlines;
7. Attention to detail and numerical accuracy.

World Bank
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