Digital Specialist

Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? Working at the World Bank provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank consists of two entities – the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA). It is a global development cooperative owned by 189 member countries. As the largest development bank in the world, the World Bank provides loans, guarantees, risk management products, and advisory services to middle-income and creditworthy low-income countries, and coordinates responses to regional and global challenges. For more information, please visit www.worldbank.org. VPU Context: Digital technologies offer a unique opportunity to transform development through digital solutions. The Digital and AI Vertical Vice Presidency (VPU) and its global and regional teams support client countries in building their capacities for digital transformation and AI use. The WBG Digital and AI Vertical is led by a Vice President and was established in July 2024. WBG recently published its Digital and AI Strategy which includes four pillars: access, affordability, ecosystem and AI readiness. The strategy identifies the priorities that WBG will engage across the client segment over the next five years. The implementation of the strategy is guided by the ten solutions of the implementation plan recently approved by the Board. The Vertical will deploy a range of products, services, and partnerships to advance global knowledge across the four pillars of the Strategy through:

• Supporting World Bank regions that provide financing to governments in the form of grants, loans, guarantees, and risk management products to support digital investment projects and implement policy reforms.
• Supporting World Bank regions that provide advisory services including targeted policy guidance, technical assistance, and capacity building.
• Knowledge products include data and diagnostics to provide actionable insights at regional, country, and local levels, research and thought leadership to expand the global knowledge base, as well as thematic operational toolkits.
• Convening services that bring together key stakeholders, from both public and private sectors as well as international and non-governmental organizations involved in advancing global digital transformation. For more information: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/digitaldevelopment. Unit Context: The Development Effectiveness (DE) unit plays an important role in advising the VPU and Director of Strategy and Operations (DSO) on all matters pertaining to strategic planning, management, operational delivery, partnerships, including trust fund oversight, monitoring and evaluation, stakeholder engagement, knowledge management, and collaboration with Regions and Verticals. The Unit supports the VPU’s engagement on corporate priorities including Knowledge Bank, Operations Efficiency and Effectiveness, Corporate Scorecard and other initiatives aimed at achieving speed, scale and impact. The World Bank Group's Digital and AI Vertical Vice Presidency supports client governments in expanding digital infrastructure, connectivity, and technology-enabled public services, applications, and digital safeguards (trust). The Results and Strategy team serves as the VPU's operational intelligence and accountability engine, holding the connective tissue between what the VPU plans, what it delivers, and what the institution measures. The Unit advises the VP and the DSO on strategy implementation, results architecture, portfolio intelligence, measurement and evidence, knowledge management and operational practice. It sequences its work so that measurement, evidence and strategy outputs land against the VPU's decision points rather than after them, and it coordinates closely with other units under the DSO, with the Verticals and Regions, and with corporate counterparts including OPCS, the Outcomes team and the Knowledge Bank. Duties and Responsibilities: The Digital Specialist role requires a dynamic and high-performing team member who can adapt and be flexible in supporting the Digital and AI teams and handling special assignments as needed. Reporting to the DE Manager, the Specialist will support the delivery of the Team's work programme, with particular responsibility for the evidence layer behind Digital and AI solutions and operations, the cross-sectoral Digital and AI framework, the Digital and AI Communities of Practice, and the resolution of procurement and policy bottlenecks. Work Programme and Delivery Support
• Support in setting and sequencing the Unit's work programme so that measurement, evidence and strategy outputs are delivered ahead of, and in service of, the VPU's decision points.
• Support the integration of the Team's outputs with other units under the DSO and represent the Team at working level with the front office, Verticals, Regions and corporate counterparts.
• Contribute to the professional depth of the Team in results architecture, portfolio intelligence and operational design through peer support, documentation and internal knowledge sharing. Evidence Behind Solutions and Operations
• Together with other team members, support the development of theories of change for priority Digital and AI solutions, linking activities and outputs to intended outcomes and impacts, and articulating the assumptions and risks on which each results chain depends.
• Set indicators and baselines where appropriate and establish the data sources and collection arrangements needed to sustain them.
• Track progress against results chains on a regular cycle, flagging where delivery is on or off track, and feed learning back into operational decisions in real time rather than at reporting milestones.
• Establish a measurement-of-success approach and framework for non-funding partnerships.
• Establish a strong link between the scalability and replicability framework and the results agenda, so that evidence of what works informs decisions on what is scaled.
• Innovate in the use of AI in the preparation of analytical and reporting outputs in support of regional and global teams. Cross-Sectoral Digital and AI Framework
• Support the effort to standardize and improve the horizontal function of Digital and AI, working with Solutions and Innovation, Policy and Regulation, and the other Verticals.
• Support the cross-sectoral initiative for Digital and AI solutions, documenting pathways into health, agriculture and energy as a starting point, and extending to further sectors as the framework matures.
• Translate the framework into practical guidance that task teams can apply in project design, including entry points, sequencing and the interfaces between Digital and AI solutions and sectoral operations. Digital and AI Communities of Practice
• Help establish the operating structure for the Digital and AI Communities of Practice, with defined membership, cadence and terms of reference, designed to serve the delivery of the implementation plan.
• Participate and contribute to CoPs as the routine channel through which task teams surface operational and policy constraints from the field and establish the protocol through which these issues are triaged, escalated and resolved. Procurement and Policy Bottlenecks
• Support working-level engagement with OPCS, LEG and FM to resolve procurement-specific bottlenecks and to establish new guidance around procurement in Digital and AI.
• Maintain a live record of bottlenecks raised through the CoPs and other channels, tracking each to resolution and capturing the resulting guidance for reuse. Knowledge and Operational Support
• Prepare substantial research and written outputs on Digital and AI topics, especially those supporting project design and implementation for results, and supporting replication and scaling across the Digital VPU.
• Prepare toolkits, practice notes, presentations and briefing notes for global and regional teams to support communication with CDs, clients, donors and other stakeholders.
• Review lending and knowledge packages and other key documents to ensure they meet the Bank's due diligence, procedures, corporate priorities and quality standards, and that they align with the Digital strategy and its cross-cutting priorities (FCV, Gender, Climate, Jobs).
• Assist project teams in managing implementation challenges, bring lessons from across the Digital portfolio to bear, and connect the dots across global teams to improve project design and implementation.