Operations Officer (e-government) Dakar, Senegal

Location:	Dakar, Senegal
Closing Date:	07/07/2012
Background / General description:
Improving the investment climate in Africa is one of three core priorities of the IFC/World Bank Group strategy in Sub-Saharan Africa. IFC manages the Investment Climate Advisory Services of the World Bank Group, which comprise staff based in the regional hub offices of Nairobi, Dakar and Johannesburg and across the continent, who work with a team of product specialists based in Washington, DC and Istanbul. The Investment Climate Advisory Services have been supporting Sub-Saharan African countries to design and implement investment climate reform programs for nearly a decade, and have scaled up their efforts significantly in recent years. The programs assist client countries to implement a range of investment climate reforms, including economy-wide reforms of aspects of business regulation, supporting international trade and investment, regional integration as well as addressing obstacles to private sector investment in leading industries, such as agribusiness, infrastructure, tourism and health. The team’s objective is to support African countries’ efforts to create a positive investment climate to increase their competitiveness and private sector investment. Increasingly investment climate projects involve the deployment of ICT solutions as part of a larger reform program. This includes the automation of company and secured asset registries, implementation of informational and transactional business licensing portals, as well as trade and tax-related web applications. To support these various projects, Investment Climate Advisory Services is seeking a well-qualified ICT Specialist to be located in Dakar, Senegal. The staff member is expected to participate in and contribute to investment climate reform projects by supporting the design and implementation of appropriate technology solutions. He/she is expected to work across the region in close coordination with World Bank and IFC project teams, as well as with investment climate staff in Nairobi, Johannesburg, Dakar, Washington and Istanbul.
Duties and Accountabilities:
The successful candidate will be expected to: I. Provide technical support to IC project teams in the design and implementation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) components within field projects, especially in the area of the computerization of registries (collateral registry, commercial registry, property registry, etc). This would include, inter alia, performing or supervising consultants engaged in the following tasks: (i) Defining requirements for ICT applications to support business environment reform; (ii) Assessing client capacity to absorb and independently manage technology; (iii) Identifying appropriate technologies (e.g., package vs custom applications) and deployment approaches e.g., in-house vs outsourcing/Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), to address client needs, capabilities and sustainability requirements; (iv) Assisting in development of Terms of Reference/ Requests for Proposals and assessing vendor proposals; (v) Developing/reviewing system security and disaster recovery plans as well as post-implementation assessments. II. Identify best international practices in the areas of commercial, collateral and property registries and translate these practices into the design and implementation of such registries within the Organization for the Harmonizing of Business Law in Africa (OHADA); III. Work with the ICT Team in HQ to develop and mainstream knowledge resources relating to the design and implementation of ICT applications to support business environment reforms. Also assist in identifying emerging technologies (e.g., mobile applications) which can reduce costs, increase user access and enhance the effectiveness of government-to-business ICT applications.
Selection Criteria:
• Masters degree or equivalent in information technology or related field. • Minimum of 5-8 years of relevant professional experience in designing and implementing ICT applications. Experience in government applications, particularly commercial, collateral and/or property registries is highly desirable. • Strong knowledge of ICT industry developments. • Experience in Application Development. • Experience with open source applications and development tools such as Google Maps, PhP and MySQL. Experience with mobile applications highly desirable. • Excellent communication skills in English and French are essential. • Experience working with a variety of stakeholders, including government officials, policy-makers and regulators, consultants and academics; • Excellent team worker but can also work independently • Actively seeks knowledge needed to complete assignments and shares knowledge with others, communicating and presenting information in a clear and organized manner. • Strong business judgment and analytical decision-making - Analyzes facts and data to support sound, logical decisions regarding own and others’ work.
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Operations Officer (e-government)

Dakar, Senegal