Closing date: Friday, 30 January 2015
Background / General description
Innovation and partnership bond the five institutions of the World Bank Group (WBG): the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), which together form the World Bank; the International Finance Corporation (IFC); the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). The World Bank Group is one of the world's largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries. It uses financial resources and extensive experience to help our client countries to reduce poverty, increase economic growth, and improve quality of life. To ensure that countries can access the best global expertise and help generate cutting-edge knowledge, the World Bank Group is constantly seeking to improve the way it works. Key priorities include delivering measurable results, promoting openness and transparency in development, and improving access to development information and data.
CGAP (the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor) is a global partnership of 34 leading organizations that seek to advance financial inclusion. CGAP develops innovative solutions through practical research and active engagement with financial service providers, policy makers, and funders to enable approaches at scale. Housed at the World Bank, CGAP combines a pragmatic approach to responsible market development with an evidence-based advocacy platform to increase access to the financial services the poor need to improve their lives.
CGAP's mission is to improve the lives of poor people by spurring innovations and advancing knowledge and solutions that promote responsible, sustainable, inclusive financial markets.
The Microfinance Gateway ('the Gateway') is the most comprehensive, multilingual web resource for financial service providers and others working on financial inclusion issues. The four Gateway sites - English, French, Spanish, and Arabic - welcome more than 1 million annual visitors from over 200 countries. Users recognize the Gateway as the web's leading resource for knowledge and career development opportunities in microfinance and financial inclusion. The Gateway is most well-known for its comprehensive library of over 12,000 documents, and as a source of information on trainings, events, and job postings.
The Gateway hosts content in four languages: English, French, Arabic, and Spanish. Each language site shares similar features, but specializes in content relevant to its associated region.
The Gateway sites re-launched in 2014 with a refreshed look and feel and renewed strategy to support learning, knowledge exchange, and professional development for microfinance and financial inclusion practitioners. As part of this effort, CGAP is launching a new initiative, the Gateway Academy, to expand the Microfinance Gateway and support innovative approaches to improving the capacity of financial inclusion professionals.
With fifteen years of experience promoting knowledge exchange and professional development for the microfinance sector, the Gateway is a trusted resource and the Academy is a natural extension of the strong foundation laid by the Microfinance Gateway.
CGAP is recruiting a project team to develop and run the new Gateway Academy initiative, which will help catalyze innovative approaches to capacity building for financial inclusion professionals. Staff capacity at financial service providers (FSPs) has long been a challenge for financial inclusion efforts. Without strong staff, FSPs are limited in their ability to innovate and extend their outreach to the nearly 2.5 billion people who are excluded from the formal financial system. New applications of technology are bringing about massive change in the field of professional development and training. These digital approaches, including e-learning, have the potential to dramatically expand the accessibility of high-quality content at a lower cost than traditional training models, and thus boost much-needed capacity in the sector.
The Gateway Academy will work with training providers and the financial inclusion community on innovative approaches to capacity building and performance management, with an initial emphasis on Sub-Saharan Africa. We expect to see a significant number of users engaging in online learning and gaining skills that are relevant to their jobs and thus helping them to advance in their careers. The program's monitoring, evaluation, and learning plan will assess whether that is the case, and whether the skills gained by individuals translate into improved effectiveness of financial service providers.
Consistent with CGAP's approach of creating demonstration projects and facilitating market development, CGAP will develop and launch the Gateway Academy and associated activities during a five-year initiative and work to build a long term sustainable model for the program.
The incumbent will report to the Head of CGAP's Knowledge Products and Communications team and work closely with the existing Microfinance Gateway team.
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 2 year term appointment.
Duties and Accountabilities: The Program Analyst will be an integral part of the team, supporting the overall program coordination, administration and reporting, working closely with the Program Manager and Business Development Officer.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Selection Criteria: Minimum Education/Experience: Master's degree and a minimum of 2 years' relevant experience in one or more professional disciplines (such as but not limited to Business Management, Marketing, IT/Computer Science, Product Development), or equivalent combination of education and experience
Preferred Education/Experience: The same as above
Required Competencies: