Senior Agriculture Economist
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Eastern and Southern Africa (AFE) Region
Home to about 700 million of Africa's people, Eastern and Southern Africa is a geographically, culturally and economically diverse region of 26 countries stretching from the Red Sea in the North to the Cape of Good Hope in the South. Children under 18 make up almost half of the total population.The subregion boasts of some of the world's richest human and natural resources and, apart from South Africa, the countries are predominantly raw material exporters.
The World Bank's Eastern and Southern Africa Region, comprised of approximately 1,207 staff, mostly based in 26 country offices, has been helping countries realize their considerable development potential by focusing on the following priorities:
- Creating Jobs and Transforming Economies: We are working with countries across Africa to stimulate job creation and economic transformation by leveraging all sources of finance, expertise, and solutions to promote investment.
- Building up the Digital Economy: We are supporting Africa's vision to ensure that every African individual, business, and government is connected by 2030 - a vision that, if realized, can boost growth by up to 2 percentage points per year, and reduce poverty by 1 percentage point per year in Sub-Saharan Africa alone.
- Institutions more Efficient and Accountable: Our support is helping governments strengthen public policy processes, manage resources effectively, and reinforce fair and reliable delivery of public services.
- Investing in People: We are at the forefront of helping African countries accelerate human capital gains and empower women by improving their access to education and skills acquisition, sexual and reproductive health services, and employment opportunities. With the influx COVID-19, we are mobilizing financial support and timely analysis and advice to countries across the subregion deal with the pandemic.
- Supporting Climate Change Mitigation and Adaption: In the face of increasing climate-related risks, we are working with African countries to advance efforts to adopt renewable energy, climate-smart agriculture, and green infrastructure. A number of East African countries are currently facing a debilitating Desert Locust infestation, threatening the already precarious food security situation. The Bank has put together a program to help affected countries deal with the scourge.
- Addressing the Drivers of Fragility, Conflict, and Violence: Given the cross-border nature of conflicts in Africa, we are employing an approach that simultaneously focuses on the drivers of fragility while also supporting well-targeted regional initiatives to create opportunities for peace and shared prosperity.
- Building Partnerships and Working across the African Continent: We are scaling up our work on regional integration, taking a holistic view of the continent that covers both North and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Eastern and Southern Africa (AFE) Region: https://en/region/afr/eastern-and-southern-africa
The Planet Department
The Planet Department helps countries tackle their most complex challenges in the areas of Agriculture and Food, Climate Change, Environment, Natural Resources & Blue Economy, and Water.
Agriculture and Food (AGF) Global Practice
Agriculture is an essential pathway to meeting the World Bank Group's (WBG) twin goals-eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 and promoting shared prosperity. Food production must increase by at least 35 percent to meet the needs of the rising global population.Thus, ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity cannot be achieved without more and better investment in agriculture, food security, and nutrition. Meeting today's challenges on the food and agriculture agenda will require major strides in agricultural innovation and climate smart agriculture, efficiency in food production and distribution systems, promoting environmentally and socially sustainable production practices, strengthening agricultural policy and institutions, supporting agribusiness value chains, and joint private- and public- sector action.
The Agriculture and Food Global Practice (GP) of the WBG, working closely with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), supports a Global Vision for Food and Agriculture with agriculture able to feed every person, every day, in every country with a safe, nutritious and affordable diet, and where jobs and income gains in the food system are sufficient to meet poverty reduction targets.
To help the achievement of the twin goals, the strategic focus of the Agriculture and Food GP, as reflected in the Agriculture Action Plan, is to help client countries on the issues mentioned above. Our current work program (150+ operations) consists of engagement in policy dialogue, investment, and forging partnerships across the globe seeking to
(i) raise agricultural productivity,(ii) link farmers to markets and strengthen value chains,
(iii) support rural non-farm income,
(iv) reduce risk, vulnerability, and gender inequality, and
(v) enhance environmental services and sustainability.
AGF and AFE Regional Context
The Agriculture and Food team in the Southern and Eastern Africa (AFE) Region is organized in two teams (SAEA2 and SAEA3) under the umbrella of the AFE Planet Department. The SAEA2 team supports client countries tackle their most complex development challenges, including in the areas of climate smart agriculture, food security and nutrition, public policy and expenditures, digital agriculture data and innovations, and mobilizing private finance for agricultural development.SAEA2's work program covers three Country Management Units (CMUs), which includes 13 countries in the region, and is led by a Practice Manager (PM), and a team of agricultural economists and specialists based at HQ in Washington, DC and across six country offices.
The Unit manages a large operational portfolio and several analytical tasks. Looking ahead, in addition to Investment Project Financing (