MTI has a large and exciting program in CAR. The MTI team leads operations and delivers regular analytic work such as economic updates, country economic memorandum, and public finance reviews. It has provided technical assistance on a range of issues including macroeconomic modeling and forecasting, fiscal policy, trade policy, and other topics. The team has a strong technical engagement with key economic management agencies across government, and other stakeholders in the private sector, academia, civil society, the media, and the donor community. The macro-fiscal policy reform agenda is central to addressing CAR’s development challenges, and the macroeconomic situation has been fluid with new issues arising. This creates a high internal and external demand for the work of the team, which is delivered in close collaboration with the CMU and colleagues in other practices, and through intensive and flexible engagement with the government and other stakeholders.
Roles & Responsibilities:
The Economist will be an integral part of the CAR MTI Team, which comprises a Lead Economist, an internationally recruited (IRS) Country Economist and consultants. He/she will also be part of the CAR Country Engagement Team comprising colleagues from the different practice groups and other senior global practice staff and which seeks to foster cross-cutting solutions supporting the implementation of the Country Partnership Framework. Each core engagement utilizes different Bank instruments (Advisory Services and Analytics or ASAs, policy dialogue, lending).
Responsibilities: As part of the MTI CAR team, specific responsibilities of the Economist include the following:
Co-lead the delivery of the annual economic update for CAR.
Lead the biannual Macro-Poverty Outlook for CAR, working closely with the Extended Term Consultant to update the underlying Macro Fiscal Model (MFMod) for CAR.
Maintain, update, and develop macroeconomic databases, including by closely supervising Consultants.
Lead or contribute to management briefings and MTI inputs for other teams (e.g., macro context paragraphs in project documents).
Work on continual improvements to the team’s set of analytics for the CAR economy (e.g., GDP and BOP forecasting, nowcasting, and macro consistency template).
Support and participate in the policy dialogue on macroeconomic, fiscal, and monetary policy and economic growth issues with the country authorities; focus areas will evolve with policy developments and dialogue.
Support macro, fiscal and debt ASAs including Public Expenditure Reviews (PER)/Public Finance Reviews (PFR) and Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA).
Support Development Policy Operations, or other types of lending operations focused on economic and fiscal reforms.
Other country economist functions as required (e.g., coordinating the annual CPIA exercise).
Selection Criteria:
Minimum of a Master’s degree in economics, with five years of relevant experience. A PhD would be an asset.
Strong analytical skills in macroeconomic and fiscal management, and ability to conduct policy-relevant research.
Experience in economic modeling, database management, and use of statistical software packages such as Stata, Matlad or R.
In depth understanding of the CAR economy and the broader Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) region. A strong grasp of the economic issues facing CAR, built from experience working on the CAR economy in a different capacity.
Familiarity with other economies in the CEMAC region, and the regional issues related to a common monetary policy and regional central bank will be a plus.
Integrative capacity including the ability to situate sectoral issues within a broader development framework.
Strong communication and presentation skills, in English and French, including the ability to speak persuasively and to present ideas clearly and concisely with senior policy officials and a wide variety of audiences.
Very strong client-orientation and diplomatic skills combined with candor and courage of opinion.
Ability to work flexibly on a range of assignments and adjust to a variety of evolving tasks to meet often tight deadlines.
A high degree of self-motivation, positive attitude and drive.
Strong commitment to teamwork and knowledge sharing, with a willingness and ability to be part of a highly collaborative team.
