Country Director, Nigeria at the World Bank

The World Bank, a member of the World Bank Group, is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. Our mission is to fight poverty with passion and professionalism for lasting results and to help people help themselves and their environment by providing resources, sharing knowledge, building capacity and forging partnerships in the public and private sectors.

We are not a bank in the common sense; we are made up of two unique development institutions owned by 188 member countries: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA).

We are recruiting to fill the below position:

Job Title: Country Director, Nigeria

Ref No: 150705
Location: Abuja

Description
With a population of about 170 million people, Nigeria is the largest country in Africa and accounts for 47% of West Africa’s population. It is also the biggest oil exporter in Africa, with the largest natural gas reserves in the continent.
With these large reserves of human and natural resources, the country is poised to build a prosperous economy, significantly reduce poverty, and provide health, education and infrastructure services to meet its population needs.
Since 1999, Nigeria embarked on an ambitious reform agenda.

The most far reaching of those was to base the budget on a conservative reference price for oil, with excess saved in a special Excess Crude Account (ECA). The economy responded with strong growth between 2003 and 2014 - averaging over 7%. Weaknesses in the oil sector have increased macroeconomic risks. Oil accounts for close to 90% of exports and roughly 75% of consolidated budgetary revenues.

Declining oil revenues in 2014-15 will provide additional budgetary challenges, against the additional backdrop of Presidential elections. Nigeria was among the first countries to adopt and implement the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) to improve governance and oil sector.

The power sector reform initiative was launched in 2005, recognizing that improving power sector performance is critical to address development challenges. The challenging process of implementing reforms was revitalized in August 2010 through the 2010 Roadmap, which clearly outlines the government’s strategy and actions to undertake comprehensive power sector reform to expand supply, open the door to private investment and address some the chronic sector issues hampering improvement of service delivery.

Nigeria is both AFR’s largest IDA recipient, with a lending envelope of approximately USD1.5b per year, and has recently moved to blend status, giving it also access to IBRD resources. The coming years thus provide a unique opportunity to support the government in tackling range of pressing development needs.

With a strong federal structure, and States responsible for service delivery in the social sectors, the Bank has increasingly engaged state level reform and IDA investments. Enhancing the volume and effectiveness of social spending will be critical to tackle pervasive poverty and poor local indicators.

In addition, Nigeria faces a large income gap between the South, and Northern States, with the latter also affected by the Boko Haram terrorism and violence. Hence, Nigeria has both elements of middle-income challenges (such as urbanization in Lagos State) and fragility (in the North and oil delta region) that need to be addressed simultaneously in the Bank’s engagement.

Duties and Accountabilities
Business Management responsibilities:

• Manages the day-to-day operations of the country office.
• Leads or support the coordination and delivery of the Bank’s strategy and related work program.
• Manages the day-to-day dialogue with the Government on a broad range of policy and implementation issues.
• Provides ongoing updates, guidance, advice and support on local political, social, economic and other relevant developments country team members, including visiting missions as needed.
• Develops and implements the Country Partnership Framework (CPF), with special attention to transformative non-lending and lending interventions at the sub-regional, country, practice and program levels that produce practical, visible and sustainable development results.
• Supports the development and monitors the implementation of high quality work programs and sector strategies that are based on the CPFs and are attuned to client demand and country contexts.
• Provides oversight on portfolio (including trust fund) management and quality issues, working with clients and the country teams to provide timely and effective implementation support.
• Oversees, supported by an operations adviser, the regional integration portfolio for West Africa.

People/ Talent Management responsibilities:

• Leads and motivates the country teams with a focus on client orientation, development outcomes, strong cross-practice coordination and problem solving, and takes responsibility for achieving and communicating these outcomes with operational staff, Global Practice technical staff, and the country management team.
• Manages the functioning of CMU and RI West unit in partnership with global practice management, models integrity and inclusion, offers mentoring and development opportunities for local and international staff.

Resource Management responsibilities:

• Ensures that deployment of Bank's resources are consistent with Resource Management rules, policies and internal controls.
• Sets priorities and allocates budget within and across countries, in line with institutional priorities and a view to maximizing the impact and value-added of the Bank's activities.

Relationship Management responsibilities: (Internal and External):

• Maintains strong partnerships with the governments concerned, development partners, civil society, media, the private sector, and other stakeholders to further the aid effectiveness agenda. Exercises courageous and transformative leadership in dialogue
• Leads or maintains and further strengthens the relationship and policy dialogue on a broad range of economic and sectoral issues with the Government and key stakeholders. This includes conveying government positions and concerns to the Country Director and Country Team; clarifying the Bank’s advice, perspectives, and policies/procedures as needed, helping both Government and the Country Team translate policy objectives into concrete development proposals.
• Works proactively and innovatively with IFC and MIGA to leverage World Bank financial and technical support, including with the private sector.
• Appreciates the complexities and relevance of political economy considerations on the Bank’s development effectiveness in Nigeria and collaborates appropriately with other CDs, regional and sub-regional institutions in West Africa, and other partners to enhance such effectiveness.

Knowledge Management responsibilities:

• Embraces good corporate citizenship, including contributing to the development, implementation and communication of corporate policies, strategies and priorities (including ongoing reforms in investment lending, knowledge management, HR policies, and the “Global Bank”).
• Champions regional management initiatives.

Desired Skills and Experience

• PhD or Master's degree in relevant field/discipline and substantial professional experience (typically the successful candidate will have about 12 to 15 years of experience in positions of increasing complexity and responsibility).
• Prior work experience in achieving results on the ground in more than one world region (including both pre-Bank and Bank experience). A corporate assignment (e.g. Network, Anchor, DEC, WBI, FAC Units) may substitute for experience in a second world region.
• Sound operational experience, including thorough knowledge of Bank Group policies, programs, products, and procedures, and exposure to economic and sector work, CPF, and PRSP activities. Demonstrated results in lending and non-lending products, portfolio management, and implementation support.
• Strong strategic orientation in order to link macro and sector strategies as well as lending and non-lending services within a consistent development framework, and to anchor and integrate the overall economic and sector policy dialogue.
• Ability to innovate and leverage the Bank’s knowledge and lending tools, beyond the direct financial contribution of the Bank.

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online