Financial sector specialist

Background

The World Bank’s Capital Markets Practice and its Non-Bank Financial Institutions Service Line (FCMNB) is responsible for supporting the design and follow-up of operations, and for managing knowledge in the areas of housing finance, insurance, investment funds, and pensions.

FCMNB has developed a risk financing and insurance framework to deal with natural disasters in developing countries.  This business model aims to offer countries an operational template to develop and implement financially sustainable disaster risk financing and insurance programs.  As most countries are shifting from post-disaster financing to engage in ex-ante risk management (including insurance), catastrophic risk financing solutions at both the micro (household) and macro (government) levels become important lines of business for the World Bank Group.

In this context, FCMNB has recently established a Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance (DRFI) Program, in partnership with the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR).  DRFI is a key component of disaster risk management solutions that the World Bank offers to its clients. In the recent years, GFDRR has supported DRFI feasibility studies in more than 30 countries to enable client countries to identify the economic and fiscal impacts of disaster risks, to develop and implement need-based national strategies for financing disaster risks, and to design and implement innovative disaster risk financing solutions, such as parametric insurance, catastrophe insurance pools and catastrophe bonds.  There has been manifold increase in the client demand for innovative DRF solutions and this trend is expected to continue in the coming years. The DRFI program builds on four major lines of business: (i) sovereign disaster risk financing; (ii) property catastrophe risk insurance; (iii) agricultural insurance; (iv) disaster micro-insurance.

The DRFI program builds also on a partnership with the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO on Sovereign Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance for Middle-Income Countries.  The development objective of the program is to reduce the financial vulnerability of the states to natural disasters by improving their financial response capacity in the aftermath of natural disasters while protecting their long-term fiscal balance. The program aims to provide capacity building on sovereign disaster risk financing.  Capacity transfer and training are essential to increase the awareness and understanding about catastrophe risk financing solutions.  Sovereign catastrophe risk financing is a relatively new topic and, therefore, local capacity building is essential.  Governments must understand the benefits and the limitations of catastrophe risk financing solutions as part of their comprehensive disaster risk management strategy.  The program focuses on the following countries: South Africa, Ghana, Colombia, Peru, Indonesia, Vietnam and Egypt.

Duties and accountabilities

The person filling this role will support the DRFI program. S/he will report to the DRFI Program Coordinator and will

• Assist the DRFI Program Coordinator in the management of the DRFI program;
• Support the development of the DRFI business portfolio;
• Provide technical support to World Bank regional and country teams – primarily in less developed markets – on disaster risk financing and insurance, including: (i) risk information data collection and management; (ii) catastrophe risk modeling; (iii) financial and actuarial modeling; and (iv) DRFI product design;
• Lead policy dialogue on DRFI with the clients;
• Assist country clients in the design of their national DRFI strategy;
• Support knowledge management (KM) work in key areas of DRFI (incl. the publication of policy papers) and develop KM products on DRFI (incl. brochures and country case studies);
• Engage with the donor partners on DRFI.

Selection criteria

• Minimum 4 years of experience in catastrophe risk reinsurance or capital markets;
• Relevant professional and/or academic qualifications and training relevant to the task. Master degree in insurance/finance or equivalent is a minimum; PhD is a plus;
• Excellent working knowledge of catastrophe risk financing instruments (traditional reinsurance, parametric, reinsurance, catastrophe bonds, insurance-linked securities, etc.);
• Working knowledge of GIS software such as ArcGIS;
• Excellent understanding of catastrophe risk modeling;
• Demonstrated ability to provide client governments in developing countries with sound advice on the development and implementation of innovative DRFI solutions;
• Experience in working with local private entities (insurance companies, banks, etc.) for the development and implementation of innovative insurance solutions;
• Willingness to travel frequently, including participating in short-term in-the-field missions with multidisciplinary teams;
• Language requirement: ability to work in one or more major languages (Arabic, Spanish, French, Spanish) used in our client countries would be helpful.
• Operational project management - demonstrates broad knowledge of project management tools & methodologies; identifies key risks and mitigation measures; interprets background analysis and proposed solutions. 
• Client orientation - takes personal responsibility and accountability for timely response to client queries, requests or needs, working to remove obstacles that may impede execution or overall success. 
• Drive for results - able to take personal ownership and accountability to meet deadlines and achieve agreed-upon results and has the personal organization to do so. 
• Teamwork (collaboration) and inclusion - collaborates with other team members and contributes productively to the team’s work and output, demonstrating respect for different points of view. 
• Knowledge, learning and communication - actively seeks knowledge needed to complete assignments and shares knowledge with others, communicating and presenting information in a clear and organized manner.
• Business judgment and analytical decision making - analyzes facts and data to support sound, logical decisions regarding own and others’ work.