Associate Operations Officer/Operations Officer- Yerevan, Armenia

Job #:	122159
Title:	Associate Operations Officer/Operations Officer
Job Stream:	Operational Services
Location:	Yerevan, Armenia
Closing Date:	10/04/2012
Background / General description:
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector. We help developing countries achieve sustainable growth by financing investment, providing advisory services to businesses and governments, and mobilizing capital in the international financial markets. In fiscal 2011, amid economic uncertainty across the globe, we helped our clients create jobs, strengthen environmental performance, and contribute to their local communities—all while driving our investments to an all-time high of nearly $19 billion. For more information, visit www.ifc.org. The IFC’s Armenia Investment Climate Reform Project (Project), started in 2011, aims at improving the investment climate in Armenia, with a particular focus on SMEs, through the reduction of the administrative burden and regulatory barriers in 4 areas: (i) Business Inspections, (ii) Food Safety, (iii) Trade Logistics and (iv) Tax simplification. It includes several components: survey, policy work, consulting and outreach. The Project introduces best international practices in business regulations and works with the Government of Armenia and other stakeholders to adapt such best practices to local reality. The Project’s approach is to combine local knowledge of its national staff with global expertise of its international and regional ones to deliver high quality services to the government. Major direction of the Project is assisting the Government of Armenia in implementation of business regulatory and simplification reforms. The reforms are coordinated by the Ministry of Economy (IC Reform Unit- hereinafter ICRU) with technical assistance from the IFC.
Duties and Accountabilities:
Business Regulatory Reform Specialist will be part of the ECA IC team. S/he will contribute to Business regulatory analysis and policy recommendations in Armenia. In support of the ongoing IFC Armenia Investment Climate Reform Project, the Business Regulatory Reform Specialist will perform the following tasks and duties: • Update and refine the project’s legal analysis of the regulatory process in Armenia, describing the existing or potential constraints for the private sector that result from either the legal basis for a procedure or its application at the local level. Identify the legal or administrative source of constraints; • Develop concrete recommendations to improve the enabling environment for SMEs in Armenia; present findings/recommendations on policy issues, procedures, and questions from the Project Manager or outside counterparts; prepare background papers, written records of proceedings, memoranda summarizing documents, legislation and other legal source material, or equivalent; • Under the supervision from the Project Manager, work with government officials to enact and implement business environment regulations changes recommended by the project; • Keep abreast of activities conducted by donor agencies working on SME issues and facilitate collaboration with them; • Conduct and maintain full stakeholder analysis and mapping of key public and private sector stakeholders involved in the design and implementation of the sector-specific policy and regulatory recommendations of the IFC Armenia IC Reform project; • Proactively cultivate industry/ association links on a continuous basis to check back on implementation of reforms and/or new constraints. • Proactively engage with the GoA (Ministry of Economy and relevant government agencies) on the development of an IC Regulatory Reform Action Plan and on the strengthening, as well as establishment as needed, of permanent public-private working groups to identify and address sector-specific investment climate regulatory and policy constraints. • Engage in legislative drafting in areas of Tax, Trade and Inspections; • Assist the Project Manager with firm procurement (drafting TORs, getting contracts through procurement system, overseeing consultants, etc.). • Spend 10- 20% of the staff time as cross support to other projects in the region; • Perform any other tasks, as necessary, of the IFC Armenia Investment Climate Reform project.
Selection Criteria:
1. Advanced degree in business, economics, law, public administration or related field. 2. 5+ years of proven practical experience in working with complex projects, delivering technical advisory services to governments and/or private sector, some comparative international experience would be an advantage. 3. Experience in field of regulatory governance. 4. Strong legal analytical skills and knowledge of Armenian legal and institutional system. 5. Excellent interpersonal skills; ability to relate easily and openly with high-level government officials, private sector and academic stakeholders in the field of regulatory reform. 6. Fluent in Armenian and Russian– written and oral - for an audience that includes public officials and a wider public audience; and a very good command of English language (writing/reading/speaking). 7. Computer literate.
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