Senior Knowledge and Learning Officer, Washington----->>>

Closing date: Friday, 13 March 2015

Background / General description

The Vice Presidency for Leadership, Learning and Innovation (LLI) is responsible for translating development knowledge into client and staff learning and innovation to help address development challenges and accelerate progress towards WBG's twin goals. With a focus on the 'how' of reform, we link knowledge and learning from around the world, build staff and client capacity to implement change and scale up innovative solutions. LLI supports the World Bank's staff and country clients in a rapidly changing landscape by forging new dynamic approaches to capacity development.

LLI offers three areas of support:

Collaborative Leadership: helping staff and clients focus on complex challenges through coalition building and capacity development,
Open Learning: translating knowledge into client and staff learning, and
Innovative Solutions: scanning and incubating innovations to tackle key development challenges.
The Learning for Development Division (LLILD) is looking for a highly motivated individual for a G-level staff position as a Senior Knowledge and Learning Officer to support its mission to increase the use of smart peer-to-peer client knowledge sharing as an accelerator of development solutions for the fight against absolute poverty and to boost shared prosperity.
**The World Bank Group is committed to achieving diversity in terms of race, gender, nationality, culture,
and educational background. Individuals with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. ***

As a facilitator of knowledge exchange, connecting demand for development know-how to successful experiences across the world, the World Bank is actively moving towards becoming a 'Solutions Bank'. In doing this, the Bank recognizes that development solutions do not necessarily come from multilateral institutions but are very often anchored in developing countries and emerging market economies. The Bank is well positioned to support knowledge sharing through its unique capacity of local presence in over 120 countries and broad thematic applied expertise in the newly formed Global Practices. This allows it to have a good understanding of both the demand for experiences and the provider side, where effective solutions have been implemented.

As the Bank's clients, line ministries and sector institutions usually have a domestic mandate for service delivery and are not necessarily known to be focusing much on knowledge sharing. Therefore provision of development experiences by the countries is usually not systematically organized. Country institutions lack the capacity to capture, package and share their - often tacit - experiences.

Following the 2011 Busan High-Level Forum 4 and the 2012 High Level Meeting in Bali which outlined a forward looking agenda for 'Country-led Knowledge Hubs' the World Bank has developed a systematic approach to developing institutional capacity for capturing, packaging and sharing knowledge. The demand for this work has been strongly confirmed by representatives from 75 countries during the 2014 2nd High Level Meeting on Country-led Knowledge Hubs in Seoul, Korea.

The development objective of this work program is to strengthen the institutional capacity of country institutions to more systematically capture and share critical lessons learned from operations for domestic and international adaptation and scale-up. A suite of technical assistance offerings intend to address capacity gaps at three levels,

(i) internally to strengthen organizational effectiveness and build resilience against brain drain,

(ii) domestically to strengthen operational effectiveness to provide better services to clients and partners through knowledge sharing, and

(iii) internationally to respond to demand for peer learning from other countries in a more targeted and results-oriented manner.

The methodology for engagement with country institutions is foremost driven by co-creation and ownership. The approach is designed to help induce a culture change towards more open sharing of valuable know-how. The technical assistance and training activities strengthen capacities of senior management and staff at two levels. Organizationally, they help to develop the enabling environment for knowledge capturing and sharing to thrive. This is done through co-creation of policies, standard operating procedures, incentive and reward systems, governance structures and technical platforms. At the technical level the technical assistance portfolio includes the strengthening of staff capacities to

(i) systematically capture tacit knowledge and operational experiences,

(ii) package them so that they can be shared and used as learning materials, and

(iii) help to design knowledge sharing activities that yield results in regards to learning and replication.

This approach and the respective tools are currently being tested and fine-tuned in several exemplary pilot projects, including Indonesia's National Disaster Risk Management Agency (BNPB), the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) in Nigeria, Colombia's National Statistical Agency (DANE), or India's National Aids Control Organization (NACO) under the Ministry of Health. All pilot projects have been selected by or in close collaboration with the respective World Bank Country teams and Global Practices.

Organizationally, the Knowledge Hubs work program is housed by the World Bank's vice presidency for Leadership, Learning & Innovation (LLI) which emerged from the World Bank Institute. This work program is well positioned with the three pillars upon which the WB-LLI strategy is built: Collaborative Leadership, Practitioner Learning and Innovative Solutions. Knowledge sharing is one the key areas of activity under the Practitioner Learning pillar. This is an emerging growth area on the portfolio of the World Bank Group, an area for which we expect increasing demand from our clients over the coming months and years.

Comprising of about 12 staff and consultants, the LLILD Knowledge Hubs Team is a dynamic group with an entrepreneurial spirit and a highly multidisciplinary skill set, which allows it to operate on the crossroads of Bank operations, knowledge management, technology and learning. In order to further strengthen this skill set, the team is looking for a highly motivated individual for a G-level staff position as a Senior Knowledge and Learning Officer to work on the organizational diagnostic of various institutions in WB client countries and to guide and support a knowledge-driven change management process within these institutions, including through the facilitation of a suite of practical workshops that constitute the bedrock of the World Bank's methodology for knowledge hubs engagements. This suite of workshops include:
Change Management for Knowledge Sharing
(i) Knowledge Sharing Capacity Assessment

(ii) Visioning & Change Management for Knowledge Sharing

(iii) Planning for Rapid Results in Knowledge Sharing Capacity Development

(iv) Leadership and Policies for Knowledge Sharing
The Art of Capturing and Packaging Knowledge
(v) The Art of Capturing Experiences and Lessons Learned

(vi) The Art of Packaging for Learning

(vii) Designing Effective Knowledge Sharing Systems and Platforms
The Art of Knowledge Sharing
(vii) The Art of Knowledge Exchange

(ix) The art of Networking in Communities of Practice

Note: This is a fully open selection process with no preferred candidate. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply.

Note: This position will require travel to client countries.

Note: If the selected candidate is a current Bank Group staff member with a Regular or Open-Ended appointment, s/he will retain his/her Regular or Open-Ended appointment. All others will be offered a 3 year term appointment.

Duties and Accountabilities: The Senior Knowledge and Learning Officer will have the following duties

Lead engagements with and advise institutions in World Bank client countries on the development of their institutional capacity to capture, package and share their operational experience with peers and partners at the internal (organizational), domestic and international levels;
Guide target institutions in assessing their institutional capacity for knowledge exchange/sharing and co-create capacity building plans with institutional leadership;
Providing technical skills building in the areas of identifying, capturing, packaging and sharing operational experiences and lessons learned.
Advising our clients on change management processes that are centered around strengthening knowledge sharing capacity, including work with the leadership of client institutions on knowledge sharing policies, targets and supportive incentive systems, and organizational arrangements for knowledge sharing;
Co-facilitate all KS capacity development workshops to be offered to WB client country institutions
Support the planning, delivery and logistics of South-South knowledge exchanges, as well as domestic knowledge sharing activities, through joint revision of agendas, materials and methodologies, as needed;
Lead the development of analytical work relevant to the Knowledge Hub Program;
Document processes and contribute to the development of applicable tools for assessment and capacity building of target institutions and packaging of lessons learned for institutional knowledge sharing capacity development; this includes active participation in a community of practice focused on institutional development for knowledge exchange;
Supervise consulting contracts including individuals and firms; and
As needed, contribute to knowledge sharing related partnerships and mainstreaming efforts at the corporate and international levels including input to and follow-up on the High Level Meeting on Country-led knowledge hubs, and the production of analytical work.
Support local consultants in client countries in the development of tools (templates, facilitation guides, practical exercises, training guides, etc.) for internal and external knowledge sharing;
Regularly capture lessons and experience from all engagements, and contribute to measurement of success indicators;
Contribute to the Knowledge Hubs Community of Practice (at www.knowledgehubs.org) with blog posts on observations/lessons learned on the change management process happening in targeted country institutions;

Selection Criteria: The successful candidate would have the following essential competencies: Specialized Skills/Knowledge:

Master's degree or above in business administration, knowledge management, learning or related field with a focus on multidisciplinary themes of organizational learning, change management, organizational development, capacity building and institutional knowledge sharing with a minimum of 8 years of relevant work experience;
Demonstrated experience facilitating change management efforts in complex organizational settings, preferably in a developing country setting;
Hands-on experience with South-South knowledge exchange and centers of excellence in developing countries is desirable;
Thorough understanding of and familiarity with the technologies, tools and approaches for organizational development, knowledge management, and peer-to-peer learning;
Excellent, demonstrated project management skills;
Excellent facilitation skills and versed in participatory approaches;
Fluency in written and spoken English with a good command of Spanish, French and/or other languages being a plus;
Solid writing skills.
Good understanding of and prior exposure to Bank client operations a plus.
General Professional Competencies:
Born team-player, who is able to work well in multi-cultural environments, builds effective working relations with clients, partners and colleagues, and places a premium on 'getting things done'.
High degree of motivation, initiative, independence, reliability, adaptability, and professional maturity.
Highly developed conceptual, analytical, and innovative problem solving ability.
Demonstrated leadership skills and ability to mentor colleagues.
Behavior Competencies:
Design of Learning Activities - Demonstrates broad working or functional proficiency level in the design of learning. Identifies strategies, delivery formats and resources to support Learning activity.
Development of Learning Activities - Demonstrates in-depth proficiency in the development of Learning Activities. Works with facilitators, participants and subject matter experts to develop learning materials. Manages contracting process of vendors & STCs to support learning activity.
Fostering a Culture of Learning - Demonstrates in-depth proficiency in organizational learning. Oversees the implementation of learning products and services. Employs change management strategies to continuously enhance the Bank's culture of learning.
Client Orientation - Maintains client relationships in the face of conflicting demands or directions and provides evidence-based advice and solutions based on sound diagnosis and knowledge.
Knowledge Strategy, Leadership and Implementation - Is able to independently identify and assess opportunities to incorporate KM into a broader range of business processes which bring advantage to organization and/or its clients.
Culture Change, Community Building and Collaboration - Has solid understanding of, and interest in, theory of organizational change, applies it in organizational environment and in KM activities
Knowledge Assessment, Content Management and Evaluation - Has ability to create and promote the right conditions for knowledge to be created and used
Knowledge Architecture, Technology and Tools - Demonstrates broad understanding of and keeps up to date with newest technologies and applications relevant to KM.
Client Orientation - Maintains client relationships in the face of conflicting demands or directions and provides evidence-based advice and solutions based on sound diagnosis and knowledge.
Drive for Results - Identifies the needed resources to accomplish results involving multiple stakeholders and finds solutions to obstacles affecting key deliverables.
Teamwork (Collaboration) and Inclusion - Shows leadership in ensuring the team stays organized and focused, and actively seeks and considers diverse ideas and approaches.
Knowledge, Learning and Communication - Leads in the sharing of best practice, trends, knowledge and lessons learned across units and with clients and partners, articulating ideas verbally and in writing in a clear and compelling way across audiences of varied levels.
Business Judgment and Analytical Decision Making - Gathers inputs, assesses risk, considers impact and articulates benefits of decisions for internal and external stakeholders over the long term.