Program Assistant

Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. 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, increasing shared prosperity, and promoting sustainable development. 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 Regional Context The Middle East and North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan Region serves twenty two countries across different income groups, of which fourteen are active/potentially active IBRD/IDA borrowers (Afghanistan, Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Syria, West Bank and Gaza, Tunisia, and Yemen), with a total of 251 projects and over $51 bn in total commitment. Eight are users of the Region's non-lending services, mostly on a reimbursable basis (Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya, Malta, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). The mission of the region is to foster sustainable growth with a focus on job creation and poverty reduction, economic and social inclusion, and good governance. The region attaches importance to creating a supportive work environment based on the values of teamwork, transparency, trust, and client service, underlined by professional excellence. The region places high value on diversity. The region is organized into seven Country Departments (CMUs), the Office of the Regional Chief Economist, and the Development Effectiveness Unit (MNADE). With an expanded regional strategy, the World Bank aims to help the region weather the current crises, move from stabilization to transformation, unlock its vast economic potential of youth and women, develop its human capital to adapt to global megatrends, and foster innovation The Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan Region: https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/mena Country Management Unit Context: The Program Assistant will join the Regional World Bank Group Regional Hub Office in Riyadh, a vibrant regional office that manages a growing portfolio of advisory and knowledge services, working in close partnership with government and private sector institutions in Saudi Arabia, the GCC countries and the wider MENAAP region. The office houses a diverse team of local and international sector specialists and operations support staff. The World Bank team includes the Regional Vice President and his front office, a Regional Hub Manager, Regional Directors that oversee the five World Bank Verticals (Prosperity, Planet, People, Infrastructure, and /Digital), several Regional Practice Managers, two Senior Operations Officers, a Senior Knowledge Officer, and a Senior Communications Officer for the World Bank. The office also includes a team from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Agency (MIGA) – working together with the World Bank as one World Bank Group team. The office manages a wide array of strategic and results-oriented activities that support the achievement of the Vision 2030 and the government’s longer-term goals. Roles Responsibilities: The Program Assistant will report to the Regional Hub Manager in Riyadh and is expected to primarily focus on supporting the administration of the GCC KSA Operational tasks and country office functions. Specific duties and accountabilities include the following: • Provides administrative assistance at various levels in organizing meetings, conference calls, video conferences, workshops, conferences, including handling administrative and logistic arrangements, preparing and assembling meeting materials, sending out invitations, and follow-up. • Provides day-to-day assistance to selected Practice Managers on an as-needed basis. • Prepares, reviews, edits and formats project documentation according to Bank and Regional guidelines, as well as maintain a coherent filing system ensuring that all projects’ documents are properly filed and referenced. • Participates in developing project/product timelines, using appropriate software. • Responds and handle a wide range of extensive and diverse inquiries, prioritizing and making decisions when multiple courses of action are possible and prepare correspondence on a range of topics • Provides administrative support, organize and manage meeting schedules for task teams (and visiting missions before and while they are in country). • Manages internal and external inquiries related to the status of projects in the absence of task team leader and team members. • Maintains current distribution lists, phone/address lists of project/product contacts, and distributes documents for the team. • Extracts, monitors and reports on disbursement data for active projects. • Translates short documents from English/Arabic and Arabic/English relevant to the work of the team, such as reports, memos, articles, etc. • Organizes and maintains filing system in appropriate filing setup. • Processes all travel requests for relevant consultants working in the CMU. • Drafts routine correspondence and proofread materials using proper grammar, punctuation and style. • Records, disseminates and tracks all correspondences and minutes of meetings. • Coordinates schedules taking priorities into account, monitors changes, and communicates the information to appropriate staff inside and outside the immediate work unit, including officials outside the Bank Group. • Undertakes ad hoc inquiries, investigates standard and non-standard databases, identifiesy and researches various sources of information, retrieves, manipulates and presents data. • Undertakes CO-support duties as assigned by the Program Manager. • Undertakes ad-hoc assignments and provides support to other staff in the unit as required.