Social Development Specialist

Job #: 170637
Job Title: Social Development Specialist
Job Family: Social Development
Job Type: Professional & Technical
Grade: GF
Location: Hanoi, Vietnam
Recruitment Type: Local Hire
Language Requirement: English [Essential]; Vietnamese [Essential]
Closing Date: 17-Apr-2017

Background / General description:

The Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience (SURR) Global Practice (GP). 

The SURR GP covers a wide gamut: (i) developing green, inclusive and resilient cities; (ii) addressing the social inclusion of the poor, vulnerable and excluded groups through accountable institutions, and ensuring compliance with social safeguards; (iii) enhancing urban and rural development through supporting and managing the urban-rural transition, assisting local development through developing land tenure, management and information systems; and (iv) assisting in disaster risk management through issues of risk assessment, risk reduction (including flood management, urban drainage, coastal management, and retrofitting of infrastructure), disaster preparedness (including hydromet services, early warning systems, and civil defense), risk financing (including CAT-DDO), and resilient reconstruction (including post-disaster damage and loss assessment). A key responsibility of the GP is to provide professional expertise and operational support to other GPs to implement the WBG operational policies (the WB’s safeguard policies and the IFC’s Performance Standards) and corporate gender strategy to deliver sustainable development results that ensure that any adverse impacts of WBG interventions are limited and mitigated and; social inclusion is promoted.

EAP Social Development Unit. 

Within GSURR, the Social Development in East Asia and Pacific Region (EAP) is responsible for: (i) undertaking social analysis during project preparation and implementation, to mainstream social development and inclusion issues throughout the Bank’s work in the region; (ii) ensuring compliance with the Bank’s social safeguards policies on Involuntary Resettlement and Indigenous People and the roll out of the new Environment and Social Safeguard Framework; (iii) undertaking Advisory Services and Analytics (ASA) in the form of thematic studies on social development issues, country social analysis, and Reimbursable Advisory Services (RAS); (iv) leading the preparation and supervision of lending operations, with a particular focus on community driven development which promotes inclusion vulnerable groups including women and youth, and (v) facilitating partnerships and dialogue with males and females of civil society through outreach and engagement. Moreover, as part of the social inclusion agenda of SURR, the unit provides upstream guidance to task teams on strategic entry points for gender in projects across GPs; leads regional gender action plan implementation; and responds to corporate requests and commitments to gender equality.

Vietnam Social Development. 

The Social Development team working on Vietnam has three main focus areas: (i) vulnerable groups, (ii) building resources for resettlement; and (iii) land policy and governance aligned to the Country Partnership Strategy. The team also provides support to ensure gender equality across the World Bank portfolio of lending operations, technical assistance, and analytical work.

Critical to promoting the gender agenda in Vietnam is the Australia and World Bank Partnership program (ABP-2), which has the objective to share knowledge and strengthen policies and programs for selected development priorities for Vietnam, with a particular focus on gender equality. The Gender Pillar of the ABP2 is expected to strengthen the evidence base on which gender-related laws and policies are built and monitored, generating new knowledge and analysis of emerging gender equality issues, and adopting innovative approaches within World Bank funded operations for addressing key gender gaps.  The program will also help stakeholders engage in more informed policy dialogue and building capacity of both government and non-government agencies and institutions to better advocate for more effective policies and enforcement.

The Social Development Unit in EAP is seeking a social development specialist (on gender) to support the World Bank’s gender program in Vietnam; and specifically support the implementation of the ABP2 Gender Pillar under the over guidance of the regional gender coordinator based in Washington, DC and the day-to-day supervision of the social development cluster leader based in Vietnam

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 Social Development (Gender) specialist is expected to help ensure Bank operations are informed by substantive and relevant gender data and analysis. S/he will support project teams to address gender gaps and help ensure results are measured.  Moreover, building on evidence of what works, the specialist is expected to help strengthen the knowledge of key policy makers of how to address priority gender gaps.  In particular, the specialist is expected to:

Operational Support

• Drive the implementation of the World Bank Country Gender Action Plan with the objective to advance gender equality in Vietnam. Provide Bank operation teams and government clients with technical expertise to design and monitor activities that address emerging challenges to gender equality. It will draw on best practice from across the World Bank and support targeted analytical work to inform meaningful approaches for impacting men and women in select World Bank operations across various sectors (e.g. Transportation, Energy, Urban Development, and DRM).
• Serve as a member of task teams during the design and implementation/supervision of select projects which have a potential to impact gender equality, particular women’s economic empowerment. The specialist will be expected to provide task teams with advice on how to identify and address relevant gender gaps and help establish relevant data for analysis, design and M&E. To the extent possible, the advice shall draw on relevant evidence based analysis of what works.
• Develop and coordinate implementation of Country Gender Action Plan in close consultation with the Vietnam operations and portfolio manager, county team members, Gender Program Leaders and regional gender coordinator. Undertake regular portfolio reviews (including one-on-one dialog with TTLs) to determine priority operations for targeting gender impact and support. Prepare updates of Country Gender Action Plan, annual country gender engagement note and annual CGAP implementation report.
• Provide systematic upstream review comments and participate in World Bank Project Concept meetings, Quality Enhancement Reviews and Project Appraisal Document review meetings (using as reference the guidelines for the corporate gender tag). Coordinate with operations team on the monitoring of the gender flag and help review draft ISRs to ensure gender is addressed when relevant.

Analytical Work

• Provide technical (cross) support, including support to the development and implementation of the National Action Plan for Gender Statistics (NAPGS)  a time-use survey; Vietnam Development Report on Gender, and other analytical products specifically focused on women’s economic empowerment. 
• Proactively help identify priority analytical gender work to support task teams and clients to strategically address relevant gender gaps.  Assist preparation of gender analytical work which would support ongoing and pipeline operations by developing concept notes and terms of references; prepare and help coordinate funding proposals for gender analytical work. Depending on scope, the specialist might lead the implementation of some analytical work.
• Provide technical review of ABP2 analytical reports generating gender data, UFGE, and etc, to help ensure quality and assist teams strategically promote uptake of findings within operations and among clients and partners.

Capacity Development

• Develop and help implement a gender leadership and capacity building program for select organizations to advocate for changes in policies and practices that address emerging challenges to women’s economic empowerment. The program is expected to  involve the National Assembly Committee of Social Affairs and HCM Academy levels and may also benefit other public and non-public Vietnamese institutions (e.g. ministerial relevant ministerial units and agencies, and independent associations) that engage in policy analysis, advocacy, communications and monitoring.

Coordination

• Assist task teams in sharing results and lessons learned related to gender externally and within the country team and region. Coordinate with and assist the regional gender coordinator disseminate relevant analytical work and information on corporate gender commitments within the country team.
• Engage in Donor/government coordination activities on gender and represent the World Bank in donor/government gender forums.

Selection Criteria:

• It is expected that the successful candidate will meet the following selection criteria:
• Master’s degree in relevant economic or social sciences (e.g., anthropology, sociology, human geography, development economics);
• A minimum of five (5) years’ experience in the application of social development considerations across a number of sectors (e.g. infrastructure). 
• Proven ability to translate analytical work into policy advice and operational, actionable, recommendations.
• In-depth knowledge of gender gaps in Vietnam and good understanding of underlying causes and global best practices for addressing specific gender gaps.
• Direct experience in developing social assessment or impact evaluations (including e.g. survey design and implementation; focus group discussions) would be an advantage.
• Operational experience in supporting the preparation and/or management of development operations would be a strong advantage.
• Outstanding ability to build effective working relations across sectors and disciplines.
• Proven ability to build effective working relations with government and clients.
• Experience in helping build institutional capacity with respect to gender inclusion, e.g. among state or non-state partners.
• Enthusiasm for and commitment to poverty alleviation, social development and addressing the needs of the most vulnerable.
• Excellent oral and written communications skills in English.
• Highly self-motivated and proven track record in motivating others.

Competencies

• Policy Dialogue Skills – Identifies and assesses policy issues and plays an active role in the dialogue with the government and/or other stakeholders. 
• Integrative Skills – Working to develop an integrated view across all facets of the sector.
• Analytical Tools for Social Sustainability – Proven ability to conceptualize, design and implement major projects and to produce major/complex reports or studies.  Substantial experience conducting gender related analyses, deriving results that resonate with the client; ability to coach more junior staff in the application of the tools. 
• Participation and Consultation – Substantial experience in conducting gender/social development consultative and participatory approaches, and applying the approaches in the course of an operation. 
• 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.  Achieves results and identifies mission-driven solutions for the Client.
• 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 - Demonstrated professional leadership and ability to lead a team of professionals.  Shows leadership in ensuring the team stays organized and focused, and actively seeks and considers diverse ideas and approaches.  Initiates collaboration across boundaries and broadly across WBG, and brings differing ideas into the forefront.
• Create, Apply and Share Knowledge - Creates, applies and shares knowledge from across and outside WBG to strengthen internal and/or external client solutions.

Apply Now