Program Officer

Program Officer

Description

Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? The World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries; a unique global partnership of five institutions dedicated to ending extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity. With 189 member countries and more than 120 offices worldwide, we work with public and private sector partners, investing in groundbreaking projects and using data, research, and technology to develop solutions to the most urgent global challenges. For more information, visit www.worldbank.org.

The Department for Outcomes is seeking a proactive, creative, and highly organized Program Officer (PO) to join its Front Office. The PO will help strengthen the Department's knowledge management, learning, engagement, communications, and coordination functions by capturing, curating, mobilizing, and applying knowledge from the Department's work, partnerships, events, and strategic engagements.

Working closely with the Director, the Front Office, and divisions across the Department, the PO will support external engagements and missions, the rollout of the Outcomes Solutions Program, university and knowledge partner engagement, internal learning, and the disciplined tracking of commitments and deliverables. The role requires someone who can connect people, ideas, evidence, and opportunities; translate them into practical products and follow-up actions; and help reduce internal silos through strong information flow and knowledge sharing.

The successful candidate will bring outstanding communication and business storytelling skills across written, visual, and digital formats, including briefs, PowerPoint presentations, photography, video, podcasts, and other innovative media. The role calls for strong judgment, a sense of urgency, empowerment and accountability, thoughtful risk taking, curiosity, and a willingness to go the extra mile.

Duties and Accountabilities
1. Capture, Curate, and Mobilize Knowledge from External Engagements:
•  Provide direct support to the Front Office in coordinating and knowledge-enabling the Department's external engagement agenda, including the Director's external engagements, missions, meetings, and strategic outreach activities.
• Support the planning, preparation, execution, and follow-up of external engagements involving the Director and senior Department leadership.
• Conduct active research and knowledge scanning to identify strategic engagement opportunities with external partners, institutions, universities, thought leaders, and other relevant stakeholders.
• Prepare read-ahead packages, briefing notes, talking points, presentations, background notes, and follow-up documentation that organize relevant evidence and insights in clear, actionable form.
• Capture insights, lessons, commitments, risks, and next steps from meetings, missions, and partner interactions, and codify them in accessible tracking systems and repositories for reuse.
• Mobilize knowledge from external engagements to inform Department priorities, internal learning, partnership opportunities, and follow-up decisions.

2. Support Strategic Communications and Business Storytelling:
•  Contribute to internal and external communications by translating the Department's outcomes agenda, partnerships, and knowledge into compelling messages and products for different audiences.
• Design, draft, edit, and improve communication products for the Front Office, including briefs, stories, talking points, PowerPoint presentations, event materials, digital content, photography, videos, podcasts, and other multimedia products.
• Use business storytelling techniques to convey complex ideas, results, and lessons in audience-appropriate, well-structured, and persuasive ways.
• Support high-visibility engagement moments, including Spring Meetings, Annual Meetings, launches, campaigns, and leadership events, through innovative formats that encourage interaction and learning.
• Modify, refine, and integrate new information into existing content so that materials remain accurate, relevant, high quality, and aligned with the Department's strategic messages.
• Coordinate with relevant teams to ensure consistency of messaging, quality control of materials, and timely delivery across communication channels.

3. Support the Rollout of the Outcomes Solutions Program through KM and monitoring:
Play an active role in supporting the rollout of the Outcomes Solutions Program by applying project support, monitoring, evaluation, and learning practices to engagements, results, and partnership management.
• Coordinate meetings, outreach, engagement plans, and follow-up related to the Outcomes Solutions Program.
• Track engagements, deliverables, commitments, results, and outcomes using disciplined systems that support management oversight and learning.
• Collect, organize, analyze, and synthesize information from program activities to identify patterns, progress, gaps, risks, and opportunities for improvement.
• Prepare inputs for updates, reports, dashboards, presentations, and learning notes that visually represent goals, outcomes, outputs, activities, and related indicators.
• Ensure that program knowledge, decisions, lessons, and partner interactions are documented, searchable, and available for future use.

4. Coordinate Stakeholder Engagement and University Partnerships:
•  Support the Department's engagement with universities, academic institutions, and knowledge partners from across the world, helping build constructive relationships and mobilize expertise for the outcomes agenda.
• Map, organize, and maintain information on relevant universities, academic networks, research centers, and knowledge partners, including areas of expertise and potential collaboration.
• Coordinate meetings, seminars, strategic conversations, missions, and follow-up with universities and external knowledge partners.
• Develop and maintain stakeholder engagement plans, track feedback and partner interests, and ensure communication is timely, professional, and useful.
• Broker knowledge by identifying expertise, resources, and opportunities that can be linked to Department needs, emerging priorities, and the Outcomes Solutions Program.
• Track commitments, next steps, deliverables, and lessons from partner engagements to strengthen continuity, accountability, and institutional memory.

5. Strengthen Information Management, Content Governance, and Quality Control:
•  Help the Front Office maintain high-quality knowledge, information, and communication products for the Director and senior Department leadership, while improving systems for follow-through and cross-divisional coordination.
• Review, edit, and quality-control materials for the Director, including briefs, notes, presentations, speaking points, decision materials, and other Front Office products.
• Establish and maintain effective systems to track commitments, deliverables, deadlines, owners, decisions, and follow-up actions across Front Office workstreams.
• Apply good content management, document and records management, and information management practices to ensure that knowledge products are accurate, complete, well organized, protected, searchable, and accessible.
• Use metadata, taxonomies, folders, trackers, and collaboration platforms to reduce duplication, improve retrieval, and strengthen information flow across divisions.
• Identify bottlenecks, gaps, and risks in coordination, and suggest practical improvements that help avoid internal silos and promote shared accountability.

6. Foster Departmental Learning, Collaboration, and Knowledge Sharing:
•  Organize and support strategic internal conversations, retreats, learning sessions, and knowledge-sharing mechanisms that strengthen the Department's openness, interaction, and shared understanding of priorities.
• Coordinate agendas, materials, logistics, facilitation support, records, learning notes, and action items for Department retreats, leadership conversations, seminars, and learning events.
• Apply adult learning and facilitation principles to make internal sessions purposeful, interactive, inclusive, and oriented toward practical outcomes.
• Support communities of practice, learning circles, or other peer-exchange mechanisms that connect staff around shared domains and enable structured knowledge exchange.
• Capture and disseminate lessons learned, good practices, decisions, and follow-up actions from internal conversations and learning activities.
• Help ensure that staff across the Department are up to speed on priorities, initiatives, tools, and lessons, and contribute to a culture of collaboration and continuous learning.

7. Drive Innovation and Continuous Improvement in KM Practices:
•  Bring initiative, creativity, and a service orientation to the Front Office, using digital tools, AI where appropriate, and innovative formats to improve knowledge flows, engagement, and results.
• Identify opportunities to streamline processes, strengthen trackers, improve information architecture, and enhance the usability of knowledge products and repositories.
• Use digital tools and, where appropriate, responsible AI-assisted approaches to improve knowledge capture, synthesis, communication, and collaboration.
• Test new engagement, storytelling, and learning formats, seek feedback, and iterate based on lessons learned.
• Demonstrate sense of urgency in responding to Front Office and client needs, while maintaining quality, discretion, and sound judgment.
• Model empowerment and accountability by anticipating needs, taking initiative, following through, and going the extra mile to support Department priorities.

Selection Criteria

• A master’s degree plus a minimum of 5 years’ experience.
• Demonstrated ability to capture, curate, codify, and mobilize knowledge from diverse sources and translate it into practical products, decisions, and follow-up actions.
• Strong experience supporting projects, programs, or senior leadership workstreams, including planning, coordination, tracking, monitoring, reporting, and risk identification.
• Excellent written, oral, visual, and digital communication skills, with the ability to develop compelling briefs, presentations, stories, videos, podcasts, and other engagement products.
• Strong content management, information management, and document management skills, including the ability to organize materials, maintain trackers, support repositories, and improve searchability and reuse.
• Ability to build and maintain constructive relationships with internal teams, universities, academic networks, knowledge partners, and other external stakeholders.
• Experience organizing learning events, retreats, strategic conversations, seminars, communities of practice, or other knowledge-sharing activities.
• Ability to collect, analyze, synthesize, and visualize information to support monitoring, evaluation, learning, management updates, and decision-making.
• Proficiency with collaboration platforms and digital tools; openness to applying responsible AI and innovative technologies to improve knowledge flows and efficiency.
• Strong judgment, discretion, attention to detail, and ability to deliver high-quality work under tight timelines in a fast-paced Front Office environment.
• A proactive, creative, and service-oriented mindset, with a strong sense of urgency, accountability, curiosity, and willingness to go the extra mile.
• Excellent command of English; ability to work effectively across teams, functions, and cultures.

WBG Culture Attributes:

1. Sense of urgency: Anticipate and quickly respond to the needs of internal and external stakeholders.
2. Thoughtful risk-taking: Challenge the status quo and push boundaries to achieve greater impact.
3. Empowerment and accountability: Empower yourself and others to act and hold each other accountable for results.

World Bank Group Core Competencies

The World Bank Group offers comprehensive benefits, including a retirement plan; medical, life and disability insurance; and paid leave, including parental leave, as well as reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity and inclusive employer with a dedicated and committed workforce, and do not discriminate based on gender, gender identity, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability.

Learn more about working at the World Bank and IFC including our values and inspiring stories.