Senior Operations Officer- Honiara, Solomon Islands

Job #:	122834
Title:	Senior Operations Officer
Job Stream:	Technical Assistance & Advisory Services
Location:	Honiara, Solomon Islands
Closing Date:	02/10/2013
Background / General description:
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector investment arm of the World Bank Group, pursues its mission of reducing poverty and improving people’s lives by promoting private sector development through investment and advisory services. IFC Advisory Services is structured into four business lines – Access to Finance, Investment Climate, Public-Private Partnerships and Sustainable Business Advisory. The Access to Finance (A2F) business line aims to increase the number of individuals/firms with access to basic financial services, to increase the diversity of financial services available to poor households, and to lower the costs of essential services. The Investment Climate (IC) business line focuses on helping governments implement reforms to improve their business environment and encourage and retain investment, thus fostering competitive markets, growth, and job creation. The Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) program aims to increase access to public services such as electricity, water and sanitation, transport, and health and education. IFC’s Sustainable Business Advisory (SBA) business line works with firms in manufacturing, agribusiness, services, and infrastructure to contribute to the creation of inclusive, environmentally sustainable, and efficient markets.  In the Pacific region, IFC is developing an integrated Pacific Islands Tuna Sector Program across a number of countries, which will be jointly supported by the IFC investment team and span all four advisory business lines. The program will be complex with multiple components. IFC is looking to recruit a Senior Operations Officer to provide the overall leadership for this initiative in the Pacific as well as take on specific accountabilities for designing and implementing select components of the Program. The Program: The Pacific Islands tuna fishery is part of a connected set of resources and harvesting operations dispersed across the larger Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO), a region defined by the biological range of the tuna populations within it. The WCPO tuna fishery is the world’s largest and most valuable. It accounts for nearly 60% of global tuna production and has a value of around $4 billion annually.  Tuna taken within Pacific Island country waters account for around 45% of the WCPO catch by volume and provide around 25% of the world’s canned tuna supply. But only 20% of this catch is taken by Pacific Island fleets and only 10% is processed locally. The benefits that Pacific Island countries derive from tuna fisheries mostly comprise fishing access fees, but these fees represent only about 6% of the landed value of the catch. Although access fees equate to only a fraction of the catch value, such revenues are of critical economic importance for many Pacific island economies where the potential of marine resources typically outweighs other resources. This is particularly true for the smaller island and atolls states, most of which have few other opportunities for sustainable economic development. This represents a significant loss of potential revenue and indirect benefits (i.e. economic growth and diversification, employment generation, taxes, infrastructure development, and downstream linkages with local suppliers).  As Pacific Island countries move to capture a greater share of the value of their tuna resources, by linking the granting of fishing access to onshore investment in tuna processing plants, key failures and constraints continue to restrict greater local participation and greater retention of benefits. Some of these failures apply to the resource owners, some to the global aggregators and processors, and some to the wholesale and retail markets.  a) Although PICs have ready access to first rate stock status and resource management advice from regional fisheries agencies that enable them to allocate the use of tuna resources in line with good science and regional management arrangements, they most often lack well-considered tuna sector investment strategies, investment evaluation frameworks, and transparent processes.  The tuna value chain is global and complex and an asymmetry of information and experience leaves small island nations ill-equipped to negotiate with global aggregators, processors and marketers proposing onshore investment. It is common that PICs cannot vet investment proposals in accordance with transparent criteria established to ensure that new investments are contributing to long-term national benefit within sustainability guidelines. This leads to poorly governed, poor quality investment in the Pacific Islands tuna sector.  b) Local enterprise participation in the tuna supply chain is constrained by the tyrannies of distance, small economies, under-developed private-sectors, poor infrastructure, and lack of capital. Again, an asymmetry of information leaves governments unsure of how they can promote local participation, local enterprises unsure of how to realize the opportunities presented, and global players unsure of how best to leverage local skills and capacities.  c) Individual tuna fishing and processing companies struggle to adequately address social and environmental challenges. Although standards could provide a strong potential market mechanism for driving improved environmental and social performance as well as market access, significant barriers remain to widespread adoption. There is a lack of agreed upon, auditable standards and the emergence of “competing” standards in the marketplace. Where standards are recognized there is limited adoption by firms due to constraints, including cost, incentives, knowledge and regulatory environment. This situation is exacerbated by a failure of dialogue between sustainability stakeholders and producers around setting and implementing standards, including alignment with certification schemes that will meet market demand  Program Strategic Goal Influence the Pacific Islands tuna sector value chain through public and private sector engagement so as to enable effective partnerships and investments consistent with both the sustainability of the resource and increasing, long term benefit to Pacific island countries. Program Strategic Objectives . The strategic objectives are to: i. Generate a return on IFC investment that is commensurate with the opportunities and risks associated with engagement in the Pacific Islands tuna sector. ii. Achieve outcomes that contribute to sustainable economic development for client countries in partnership with the private sector. iii. Demonstrate the benefits of open, transparent and competitive markets to the sustainable, economically effective use of Pacific Island tuna resources. iv. Maximize the effectiveness and impact of IFC engagement in the Pacific Islands tuna sector through partnerships with common-interest entities. To achieve these objectives IFC engagement in the Pacific tuna sector will align with IFC’s inclusive business model concept and its strategic focus on leveraging global supply chains to build SME capacity and access to markets. It will also encourage mitigation and resilience to climate change through improved energy efficiency, use of renewables, and risk management. IFC engagement will additionally build market solutions for sustainable primary production by promoting good industry practices and standards through market solutions and consumer recognition. Integrated IFC investment and advisory offerings will be delivered through established business lines, including:  - Investment climate work with governments to create greater knowledge, capacity and transparency in the tuna sector investor selection and investment management process within Pacific Island countries and, in so doing, level the playing field between the resource owners and investors so that island countries are better able to weigh the cost/ benefit of investment proposals. - Sustainable business advisory at firm and sector level aimed at: increasing the value-addition captured in-country from tuna resource use by improving the ability of local communities and businesses to participate in onshore processing and support industries, including access to finance for SMEs, and; increasing market access for firms and ensuring the potentially negative environmental and social impacts of their processing operations are well managed, by helping them set, adopt and deploy internationally-recognized environmental, social and trade standards. - Public private partnership work with governments and the private sector aimed at accelerating and scaling up infrastructure to support onshore processing of tuna in the Pacific Island countries and in doing so create benefit to the broader community for non-fish related activities. The IFC program will complement World Bank’s developing Pacific Fisheries Engagement Strategy, align with World Bank’s present global fisheries strategy and complement World Bank’s Global Partnership for Oceans initiative, as well as satisfying the expectations of development partners and clients. Reporting Lines: The position reports jointly to the EAP Regional Business Line Manager for Sustainable Business Advisory and to the Regional Manager, Pacific.
Duties and Accountabilities:
The Senior Operations Officer will act as the overall coordinator for the Pacific Islands Tuna Sector Program and will take overall responsibility for coordinating all aspects of the Program including financial and operational reporting to IFC and donors, team cohesion and communications. In addition, the Senior Operations Officer will be directly responsible for specific program components that will fall into the Sustainable Business Advisory BL, including their design, managerial and financial oversight, day-to-day delivery of advisory services to clients, and overall quality control.  The Senior Operations Officer will work closely with all 4 Regional Business Line Leaders and the IFC investment team to make this initiative a success. Specific duties and accountabilities include, but are not limited to: • Program Design: Overseeing all aspects of further elaborating the design and implementation of the Program, including impact targets and timelines. Draw on the expertise of global and regional product specialists to ensure Program design exemplifies best practice and lessons learned from similar initiatives globally. Draw on his/her own and external sectoral expertise to design advisory interventions that address challenges and opportunities the sector while also promoting environmentally and socially sustainable behaviors across all market segments.  • General Program Management including accountability for Program objectives and target:  a. Develop a detailed project plan for the Program’s various components in close collaboration with Regional Business Line Leaders from the Investment Climate, PPP and Access to Finance business lines as well as the IFC investment team b. Manage external and internal relationships for successful delivery c. Collaborate with IFC investment staff in identifying and assessing clients d. Work constructively with staff in other IFC business lines who have core expertise to contribute as well as with other market stakeholders as necessary in designing and executing program elements e. Represent the Program to stakeholders at multiple levels (e.g. at sectoral fora, thematic seminars, etc.) • Team Coordination: Serve as the focal point for the Pacific Islands Tuna Sector Program as it spans all business lines of IFC. For the SBA component, design the team roles and responsibilities, recruit and manage a team of professionals and a resource base of consultants who can deliver on the various objectives:  a. Set clear goals and targets for team members  b. Manage the performance evaluation process for all team members, incorporating feedback across the institution as per IFC guidelines  c. Adapt to different circumstances and demonstrate ability to act decisively when faced with obstacles by identifying innovative solutions and approaches  d. Resolve differences across stakeholders and consider interests of multiple stakeholders in addition to clients • Communications and Reporting: a. Manage the communications and reporting required by IFC and donor partners according to IFC standards and guidelines; b. Track project performance indicators against the monitoring and evaluation plan, refocusing activities as required to meet project targets in coordination with other IFC stakeholders including the global product specialist  • Budget and Financial Management: develop a detailed program budget, manage and report on financial performance according to plan: a. Ensure that the IFC pricing policy for advisory services is applied Control expenditures according to IFC policies and guidelines and within own approval thresholds while achieving maximum results • Knowledge Management:  a. Systematically consolidate and analyze lessons learned from project implementation experience and share with team members and colleagues across the region; b. Ensure connectivity with the IFC global product team and other IFC/World Bank programs.
Selection Criteria:
The candidate should be a senior professional with comprehensive and in-depth expertise in project/program management, and in providing advisory services. S/he routinely leads complex projects and integrates work of other (often multi-disciplinary) professional staff. S/he can interact with clients at the policy level or with senior counterparts in national governments and/or other organizations with confidence.  Minimum Requirements • Master’s degree in economics, finance, business or other relevant discipline required • At least 10 years of relevant work experience in a position with significant decision-making responsibility, preferably working with/in fisheries or agribusiness in an emerging market environment  • Proven ability to conceptualize, design and implement major projects and to produce major/complex reports or studies • Demonstrated professional leadership and ability to lead a team of professionals in the execution of major project components • Ability and comfort working with limited supervision and to think independently • Ability to work effectively under time pressure with high degree of accuracy and with a strong capacity to produce quality work • Proven ability to demonstrate initiative, monitor issues and tasks, meet deadlines and priorities, and ability to work in a team • Ability to communicate ideas clearly and confidently, articulate issues and recommend practical solutions • Ability to engage with various stakeholders, effective influencing skills and demonstrated diplomacy • Relevant experience working in the East Asia and the Pacific region is desirable • Excellent English written and spoken communication skills are essential  • Willingness to travel extensively in the region IFC offers a challenging and rewarding work environment, attractive compensation and excellent career opportunities. All applications will be treated in strict confidence. Please note that only short-listed candidates will be contacted. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.