World Bank Young Professionals Program 2016

The World Bank, a member of the World Bank Group, is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. Our mission is to fight poverty with passion and professionalism for lasting results and to help people help themselves and their environment by providing resources, sharing knowledge, building capacity and forging partnerships in the public and private sectors.

In 2015, the World Bank Group launched a recruitment mission to attract Sub Saharan African professionals to its work force. The initiative was the first of its kind for the institution and resulted in numerous hires into business areas such as Education, Health, Development Economics, Information Technology Systems, Social Urban/Rural & Resilience and Governance. The World Bank Group continues its commitment to hiring Sub-Saharan African professionals and announces its latest recruitment mission to again attract highly qualified Sub-Saharan African professionals who are looking for an exciting career, where their effort will contribute to the institution's goal of ending extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity.


Applications are invited for the position below:

Job Title: World Bank - Young Professionals Program

Location: Africa

Job Summary

• The World Bank Young Professionals Program is a premier global recruitment program and is a unique opportunity for exceptionally talented young people (under 33 years of age, born on October 1, 1984 or after) with a passion for international development to contribute to solving some of the world's most pressing problems.
• The Program is designed for highly qualified and motivated individuals skilled in areas relevant to the World Bank's Operations such as: economics, finance, education, public health, social sciences, engineering, urban planning, and natural resource management.

Minimum Requirements
The following are the minimum requirements to be eligible for the Young Professionals Program:

• Citizenship of a member country of the World Bank
• 32 years of age or younger (i.e. born on or after October 1, 1984)
• A PhD or Master's degree and relevant work experience[?]
• Fluency in English
• Full proficiency in one or more of the WBG's working languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish is desired but not required.
• Specialization in a field relevant to the WBG Technical/Operations such as economics, finance, education, public health, social sciences, engineering, urban planning, agriculture, natural resources, and others.
• At least 3 years of relevant professional experience related to development or continued academic study at the doctoral level.

Additional Qualifications:
To be competitive for the limited number of positions, a combination of the following credentials is highly desirable:

• Display a commitment and passion for international development
• Possess outstanding academic credentials
• Exhibit excellent client engagement and team leadership skills
• Have international development country experience
• Be motivated to relocate and undertake country assignments (operational stream)

Application Closing Date
27th July, 2016

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Application Process
Before You Apply, please ensure that:

• You meet the minimum requirements for eligibility for the Young Professionals Program
• You have all the information at hand including key dates, an updated Curriculum Vitae (CV), Education Certificates/Transcripts, PhD Dissertation/Master's Thesis topics (short summary), if applicable, and the Application Essay ready to be uploaded.

Application Essay for the 2017 Selection Process
"There is no single blueprint for countries in their efforts to end extreme poverty and to promote shared prosperity in a sustainable manner. Strategies to reach the least well-off must be tailored to each country's context, based on solid evidence provided by the latest data and analysis and on the needs of the people.

The World Bank Group partners with countries to take on these challenges in a number of ways. These include funding projects that can have transformational impacts on communities, collecting and analyzing the critical data and evidence needed to ensure these programs reach the poorest and most vulnerable, and helping governments to create more-inclusive and more-effective policies that can benefit entire populations.

...The World Bank works across intersecting and complex sectors. Examples include increasing agricultural productivity and building infrastructure that provides access to energy, irrigation, and markets; promoting freer trade that provides greater access to markets for the poor and enabling entrepreneurs in low- and middle-income countries to grow their businesses and create new jobs; investing in both health care and education, especially for women and children; and implementing social safety nets and providing social insurance, including initiatives that protect against the impacts of natural disasters and pandemics. In working across these diverse topics, the World Bank aims to help developing countries find solutions to the toughest global and local development challenges." (Extract from the 2015 WBG Annual Report)

Describe in fewer than 1,000 words your own contribution and the potential role of World Bank in resolving some of the above challenges. You may focus on a region or set of countries as well as your area of expertise to describe your proposal.

Application Checklist
The application checklist is meant to facilitate your application experience:

• Ensure that you use either Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, or Internet Explorer 10 or higher as your browser version.
• You will be asked to register for an account and provide an email address.
• You must complete your application in a single session and will be able to submit it only if you have uploaded all the required documents and answered all the questions (all questions marked with an asterisk-*- are required). Please apply only once.
• Provide the most current contact information. The information should be valid for a period of one year. In case your contact information changes during the selection process, it is your responsibility to email us the updated information.
• Ensure that you have correctly spelled out your email address, since this will be our main channel of communication with you regarding your candidacy.
• Remember to enter your complete phone number (country code + city code + number).
• Attach the following documents (mandatory):
  • CV
  • Education Certificates/Transcripts
  • PhD Dissertation/Master's Thesis topic (short summary), if applicable
  • Application Essay

Note: Each file should not exceed 5 MB, and should be in the following format: .doc, .docx, or .pdf

• Make sure that you are connected with a reasonable bandwidth of internet connection without any network/firewall restriction.
• Complete the application within 45 minutes to avoid system timeout.
• Do NOT enter any special characters in any of the application fields. Try not to copy and paste any characters/text from Microsoft Word.
• Once you submit your application, you will not be able to make any further changes/updates.
• Applicants will be informed of their status as the process moves along.