Private Sector Development Spec.
Regional Context:
The Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region comprises of 30 extremely diverse clients, with a population of nearly 500 million people. Four of our clients are IDA only and another 5 are IDA blend countries. The remaining 21 are IBRD credit-worthy though not all have active lending programs. Although 10 of our clients have joined the EU and 7 of these have graduated, most continue to remain active recipients of knowledge and/or lending services. CASs/CPSs reflect this strong diversity with substantial variation in lending prospects, but strong demand for Bank technical services is present across the board.
Over the last 20 years of transition, ECA countries have integrated into the global economy across many dimensions such as trade, finance, and labor flows. GDP in the Region grew by two-thirds from 2000 to 2008 – an enviable growth of an average of 6.5 percent a year. Yet despite this progress, ECA was hit the hardest by the global economic crisis compared to the other regions in the Bank. Growth in the Region, which had peaked at about 7 percent in 2007, fell to a negative 6 percent in 2009.
The financial and economic crisis led to a substantial increase in Bank lending and knowledge activities in all ECA countries, including in several EU members states (e.g., Latvia and Hungary). The crisis helped serve as a powerful reminder of the relevance of the Bank both as an attractive source of funding and a reliable provider of timely and quality advice.
It is projected that ECA is going to be the slowest region to recover from the crisis. Growth in 2010 reached about 4 percent, and prospects for 2011–13 are only slightly better. Based on this changing context, the new ECA strategy is focused on developing a new growth model for the region through:
1. Increasing competitiveness to achieve faster growth.
2. Pursuing social sector reforms and fiscal adjustment to achieve more inclusive growth.
3. Supporting climate action to achieve more sustainable growth.
Even while declining from the heights of the crisis, we expect demand for our lending and advisory services post-crisis to remain strong. But we are constrained in our capacity to respond given budget constraints and a limited IDA and IBRD resource environment. This requires an increased results focus to help direct our resources to where they will have the greatest impact, along with continued emphasis on leveraging partnerships and expanding our fee for services activities in MICs, building on the successful experience in Russia.
Regional Sector Context :
The Europe and Central Asia Region (ECA), Finance and Private Sector Development Department (ECSPF) plays a key role in the strategic framework of the region, where countries face diverse challenges ranging from meeting EU Accession and/or WTO requirements, to establishing viable public institutions and rebuilding weakened or shattered societies resulting from political instability, wars or natural disasters. While there has been remarkable progress in many countries, poverty along with inequality and unemployment remain high in the region. The economic benefits of the recent commodity-driven boom in the fastest growing economies of the Region, such as those of Russia and Kazakhstan, also remain largely inequitably distributed. While client needs are increasingly differentiated, most middle and low-income ECA countries share a legacy of transition from planned to market-based economies which are still felt in many areas including shallow financial sector and smaller private and service sectors compared to market economies. Progress toward commercialization within an appropriate legal and regular framework is still highly uneven. To assure a coherent and coordinated approach to the demands of clients whose challenges transcend the Bank’s traditional ways of organizing work, cross-sectoral products and services are increasingly necessary, as are transnational initiatives requiring multi-country agreements.
Within the above context, ECSPF is responsible for providing operational support and technical advice to ECA clients on a broad range of private and financial sector issues including inter alia innovation and enterprise competitiveness, privatization and corporate restructuring, corporate and financial sector governance, trade facilitation, Micro and SME support, banking sector and payment systems development and promotion of deeper access to finance through innovative channels and use of modern technology.
In Kazakhstan, ECSPF has been providing broad technical assistance and analytical work supporting the development of the private and financial sectors.
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 renewable term appointment
Private Sector Development Spec.
The Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region comprises of 30 extremely diverse clients, with a population of nearly 500 million people. Four of our clients are IDA only and another 5 are IDA blend countries. The remaining 21 are IBRD credit-worthy though not all have active lending programs. Although 10 of our clients have joined the EU and 7 of these have graduated, most continue to remain active recipients of knowledge and/or lending services. CASs/CPSs reflect this strong diversity with substantial variation in lending prospects, but strong demand for Bank technical services is present across the board.
Over the last 20 years of transition, ECA countries have integrated into the global economy across many dimensions such as trade, finance, and labor flows. GDP in the Region grew by two-thirds from 2000 to 2008 – an enviable growth of an average of 6.5 percent a year. Yet despite this progress, ECA was hit the hardest by the global economic crisis compared to the other regions in the Bank. Growth in the Region, which had peaked at about 7 percent in 2007, fell to a negative 6 percent in 2009.
The financial and economic crisis led to a substantial increase in Bank lending and knowledge activities in all ECA countries, including in several EU members states (e.g., Latvia and Hungary). The crisis helped serve as a powerful reminder of the relevance of the Bank both as an attractive source of funding and a reliable provider of timely and quality advice.
It is projected that ECA is going to be the slowest region to recover from the crisis. Growth in 2010 reached about 4 percent, and prospects for 2011–13 are only slightly better. Based on this changing context, the new ECA strategy is focused on developing a new growth model for the region through:
1. Increasing competitiveness to achieve faster growth.
2. Pursuing social sector reforms and fiscal adjustment to achieve more inclusive growth.
3. Supporting climate action to achieve more sustainable growth.
Even while declining from the heights of the crisis, we expect demand for our lending and advisory services post-crisis to remain strong. But we are constrained in our capacity to respond given budget constraints and a limited IDA and IBRD resource environment. This requires an increased results focus to help direct our resources to where they will have the greatest impact, along with continued emphasis on leveraging partnerships and expanding our fee for services activities in MICs, building on the successful experience in Russia.
Regional Sector Context :
The Europe and Central Asia Region (ECA), Finance and Private Sector Development Department (ECSPF) plays a key role in the strategic framework of the region, where countries face diverse challenges ranging from meeting EU Accession and/or WTO requirements, to establishing viable public institutions and rebuilding weakened or shattered societies resulting from political instability, wars or natural disasters. While there has been remarkable progress in many countries, poverty along with inequality and unemployment remain high in the region. The economic benefits of the recent commodity-driven boom in the fastest growing economies of the Region, such as those of Russia and Kazakhstan, also remain largely inequitably distributed. While client needs are increasingly differentiated, most middle and low-income ECA countries share a legacy of transition from planned to market-based economies which are still felt in many areas including shallow financial sector and smaller private and service sectors compared to market economies. Progress toward commercialization within an appropriate legal and regular framework is still highly uneven. To assure a coherent and coordinated approach to the demands of clients whose challenges transcend the Bank’s traditional ways of organizing work, cross-sectoral products and services are increasingly necessary, as are transnational initiatives requiring multi-country agreements.
Within the above context, ECSPF is responsible for providing operational support and technical advice to ECA clients on a broad range of private and financial sector issues including inter alia innovation and enterprise competitiveness, privatization and corporate restructuring, corporate and financial sector governance, trade facilitation, Micro and SME support, banking sector and payment systems development and promotion of deeper access to finance through innovative channels and use of modern technology.
In Kazakhstan, ECSPF has been providing broad technical assistance and analytical work supporting the development of the private and financial sectors.
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 renewable term appointment
Private Sector Development Spec.
Post a Comment