E T Consultant

At the World Bank, a member of the World Bank Group (WBG), you’ll join a diverse, global community working across cultures, disciplines, and borders to address the world’s most pressing development challenges. With 1.2 billion young people reaching working age in the decade ahead, the challenge of job creation has never been greater. Through partnerships across 145 countries and more than 182 offices worldwide, we work with governments, private sector, development partners and other stakeholders to invest in people, strengthen markets, and deliver scalable, data-driven solutions that generate more and better jobs and improve lives. For more information, visit International Bank for Reconstruction and Development The Governance Global Practice (GGP) focuses on helping countries build capable, effective, accountable, transparent and inclusive institutions that deliver citizen-centric services, facilitate private-sector growth and build trust in Government. It provides cutting edge knowledge on the following thematic areas: public administration reform, public financial management, governance in sectors, justice and rule of law, decentralization and sub-national governance, GovTech, and anti-corruption; and provides operational support to our teams working in the regions. Under the Fiduciary Systems Solutions and Impact Unit of the GGP, the Public Financial Management for Health Collaborative (PFM4Health) is a strategic partnership between the GGP and Health, Nutrition and Population GP (HNP) that aims to improve country systems for public financial management (PFM) essential to meeting the 1.5 billion universal healthcare coverage (UHC). FinHealth 2.0, its core diagnostic toolkit, assists practitioners to identify PFM bottlenecks that contribute to health service problems. It is a join product of the GGP and HNP and is being developed in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO). The 2.0 toolkit builds on lessons learned from the implementation of FinHealth 1.0 , which was launched in 2019 and used in over 10 countries and is aligned to the outcome-led approach to PFM reform. Following the update of the core diagnostic toolkit in mid-2026, key priorities are country implementation and the development of at deep dive modules. Country implementation is anticipated in 4-6 countries before June 2027. Proposed topics for modules requested by HNP include PIM, procurement, PFM for public employment management, decentralization, and primary health. Under the Public Administration and Services Solutions and Impact Unit of the GGP, the Global Program on Public Administration Reform is the World Bank’s program of analytical and operational engagements, and global partnerships, on public administration reform. Public administration matters for the delivery of services, the provision of infrastructure, and the effectiveness of regulations. Public administrations also have an impact on fiscal sustainability and the competitiveness of the overall labor market given that the public sector is a large employer. The Institute for Economic Development (IED), part of the Development Economics Vice Presidency, helps the World Bank Group’s research and operational knowledge travel: it chooses evidence that works in more than one setting, customizes it to country conditions, captures lessons as usable tools, and scales them, working mainly through think tanks as long-term knowledge partners. Governance and public administration reform are a natural fit for this model. The Global Program on Public Administration Reform produces global public goods (diagnostics, datasets, handbooks) that need to be adapted to country institutions and carried by trusted local partners to influence reform. IED’s Rome Hub, which works with the Bank of Italy and anchors AGORA with African and European institutions, offers a platform for this. Hosting this position in Rome will connect the practice’s work on PFM4Health and public administration with IED’s Rome Hub’s Africa-focused convenings, think-tank networks and learning products. It will also help ensure that public administration and public employment issues are reflected in IED’s research, learning and knowledge agenda, including its work around the upcoming WDR on Jobs and WDR 2026. Duties and Responsibilities The candidate will report to the Practice Manager of the Fiduciary Systems Unit and work on PFM4Health and the Global Program on Improving Public Administration Performance. He/she will be responsible for:

• Co-authoring key Prosperity publications, such as FinHealth diagnostic module on public employment for frontline health workers; operational note public financial management for community health workers; the Handbook on HRMIS and the FinHealth diagnostics, and other publications on priority topics identified together with the Task Team Leaders.
• Support country-implementation of the FinHealth diagnostic where identified public financial management constraints relate to public employment and compensation management for frontline health workers (nurses, midwives, community health workers). This is anticipated to include at least 2 and up to 4 countries in FY27.
• Supporting country teams in operational engagements on data-informed public administration reform (both lending and technical assistance) focusing on improving core government IT systems; improving center-of-government coordination and implementation mechanisms; functional reviews supporting the alignment of government structures and more efficient use of resources; wage bill diagnostics; data-informed human resource management; and efforts to improve government capacity and enhance service delivery through reforms that focus on leadership, and organizational and human resource management.
• Supporting the units’ work program on data and analytics for public administration reform, including developing, updating, and analyzing global datasets and country-specific diagnostic instruments, such as Worldwide Bureaucracy Indicators and surveys of public sector employees.
• Support IED in knowledge convening and dissemination on public administration reform, the use of AI to improve public workforce performance, and the public sector as an employer in the context of the WDR on Jobs, including contributions to IED’s Rome Hub events and to AGORA in Motion where relevant.
• Act as the technical link between the Governance Global Practice and IED’s Rome Hub: identify think tanks and research institutions (particularly in Africa) that can anchor adaptation of FinHealth modules and public administration diagnostics; help turn country implementation experience into short, reusable tools and learning products (the “capture” step); and plan follow-up with partners at 6 and 12 months so that engagements lead to policy uptake rather than one-off outputs.