E T Consultant Research/ Data Specialist
Job #:
req38998
Organization:
World Bank
Sector:
Education
Grade:
EC2
Term Duration:
1 year 0 months
Recruitment Type:
Local Recruitment
Location:
Washington, DC,United States
Required Language(s):
English
Preferred Language(s):
Closing Date:
10/31/2026 (MM/DD/YYYY) at 11:59pm UTC
Description
Expanding access to quality childcare has the potential to yield multi-generational impacts by improving women's economic empowerment, child outcomes, family welfare, business productivity and overall economic growth. Recognizing the need for a whole-of-government approach and nonstate sector involvement to address the childcare challenge, the World Bank Group (WBG) launched the Invest in Childcare initiative in 2022 to expand the size, and improve the quality, of WBG investments in childcare to improve women's economic empowerment and child development outcomes as well as broader benefits for families, businesses and ultimately economies. At the country level, activities focus on making the case for childcare and supporting countries to design and implement quality projects, as well as to build capacity. At the global level, analytical work and the development of tools and guidance are contributing to the global evidence base and global public goods as well as supporting country work. The work program is coordinated by the WBG's Invest in Childcare team, working with a cross-sectoral working group of WBG staff and delivered jointly between the Education and Skills Global Unit and the Gender Department. The work of Invest in Childcare is a core part of Education and Skills Solution 1: Early Childhood Development (ECD) and Childcare.
There are four core sets of activities:
• Country grants:
• BE catalytic grants. Competitive funding rounds for demand-driven activities in countries. Funding is used in various ways by teams based on their needs but typically includes one or several of the following: conducting upstream analytical work that generates knowledge or helps make the case for childcare, designing quality operations, providing technical support for implementation, strengthening the enabling environment and/or evaluating interventions.
• Recipient-Executed country grants. Match funding on a 1:1 basis (leveraging IDA, IBRD, domestic or other resources), up to a maximum of $10 million per country) allocated to WBG-financed operations.
• Global analytical work to make the case, generate data, evaluate impacts and build evidence, find solutions and develop tools, including:
• Gathering cross-country and within country data on childcare, including costing and ROI analysis.
• Building the evidence base through evaluations of childcare that comprehensively consider benefits for children, women, families and productivity.
• Preparing tools for country teams and clients that could also be used as global public goods.
• Capacity building and knowledge exchange
• Building external capacity through Early Years Fellowship and Early Childhood Policy Academy.
• Building internal WBG capacity through technical support to teams, disseminating tools and products and organizing knowledge opportunities.
Project management
Scope of Work
The ETC will be hired to work as a core member of the Education and Skills team and coordinate and distill the research of the Invest in Childcare work program with the following five priorities: (i) distill the insights coming out 30+ situation assessments and 29 impact evaluations into digestible and actionable products under Solution 1; (ii) promote harmonization across the portfolio of childcare evaluations; (iii) support the delivery of the cross-country study including writing up country reports and additional analysis; (iv) portfolio monitoring; and (v) contribute to the development and implementation of the ECD and Childcare Solution. The ETC may also be expected to work flexibly on other assignments to support the scalable solution for ECD and Childcare, both independently and as part of several teams, and to multi-task with an orientation to results. More details on the main tasks are provided below.
• Distill the insights coming out 30+ situation assessments and 29 impact evaluations into digestible and actionable products under Solution 1: ECD and Childcare.
• Review data and engage with country and global teams, including DEC, DIME, LSMS and the regional GILs.
• Distill insights through briefs, visualization (e.g., Power BI) and other products, to be curated on K360, the external Invest in Childcare webpage and for learning and knowledge exchange events. This will include identifying and distilling information on a number of priority topics as well as broader insights.
• Promote harmonization across the portfolio of childcare evaluations, including:
oContinue to work with evaluation teams to ensure harmonized indicators and approaches across countries.
oConvene the evaluation community of practice to support harmonization, build capacity on evaluation, and share what works to measure childcare outcomes across the WBG.
• Support the delivery of the childcare cross-country study.
• Conduct analysis, write up country reports and produce country level presentations (for 3-4 countries).
• Lead the development of the global paper to capture insights from across the 11-country study.
• Conduct additional pieces of analysis on deep dive topics
• Lead portfolio monitoring on ECD and childcare.
• Complete writing on 10-year ECD portfolio review (FY15-FY25).
• Prepare the FY26, FY27, and FY28 portfolio reviews for childcare.
• Coordinate with Education and Skills Learning and Assessment Team to harmonize methodologies on portfolio monitoring to support tracking Education and Skills indicator of 500 million children learning and with the Gender Department to track childcare as an Ambitious Result
• Support IDA21 monitoring and reporting (childcare and ECD contribute to two policy commitments)
• Contribute to the development and implementation of the ECD and Childcare Solution.
• Work with the Solution 1 leads to coordinate information, products and tools available on K360 for ECD and childcare and to prepare data visuals (e.g. power-bi outputs) that communicate insights, results and activities in a compelling way.
• Guide team members on strategies to distill insights and communicate what works in ECD and childcare and results for children and families in a compelling way to WBG country teams, clients, and partners.
Other work as needed
• Prepare just-in-time reports and contribute to writing projects and technical briefs related to the childcare to support the Education GP, the Gender Group and Invest in Childcare, as required
Selection Criteria
• Education: a minimum qualification of a masters degree in education, child development, gender, international development, economics, political science or related fields.
• Experience: a minimum of 5 years of relevant international experience, including specific experience working on early childhood and childcare.
• Excellent quantitative and qualitative analysis skills.
• Detailed knowledge of the World Bank's ECD and childcare portfolio.
• Adept in communicating result findings in compelling ways to internal and external audience across both written and visual formats.
• Demonstrated experience in managing consultative processes and convening experts across sectors/fields.
• Excellent written and spoken communication skills in English.
• Outstanding Knowledge Management skills.
• Experience working or living in LMIC(s).
• Ability to work as part of a multi-disciplinary team and independently, seeking guidance on complex projects/issues from senior staff.
• Outstanding interpersonal and organizational skills, client-orientation, diplomatic skills, mature judgment, ability to collaborate with others in a multi-cultural environment, capacity to manage multiple tasks, identify and respond to needs as they arise, and remain flexible and self-motivated in a dynamic, fast-paced work environment.
• Willingness to travel.
Competencies:
• Client Orientation - Translates insight into practice across disciplines, hierarchies, geographies and organizational units in service of clients.
• Drive for Results - Ensures successful implementation and delivery of key programs and projects, ensuring that outputs positively impact results.
• Knowledge, Learning and Communication - Demonstrates command of all forms of communication and presents in a clear, objective and engaging manner in high-level settings; ensures knowledge is captured and shared in a variety of ways.
• Knowledge and Experience in childcare / ECD - Possesses experience in working on policy-relevant analytical work and childcare / ECD projects.
• Integrative Skills - Understands relevant cross-sectoral areas and how they are interrelated; able to undertake cross-sectoral work in lending and non-lending operations.
• Deliver Results for Clients - Achieves results and identifies mission-driven solutions for the client.
• Make Smart Decisions - Recommends and takes decisive action
• Collaborate Within Teams and Across Boundaries - Initiates collaboration across boundaries and broadly across WBG and brings differing ideas into the forefront.
• Create, Apply and Share Knowledge - Creates, applies and shares knowledge from across and outside WBG to strengthen internal and/or external client solutions.
