Team Assistant

**Team Assistant**

**Job #**:

- req26863**Organization**:

- World Bank**Sector**:

- Administration/Office Support**Grade**:

- GB**Term Duration**:

- 2 years 0 months**Recruitment Type**:

- Local Recruitment**Location**:

- Panama**Required Language(s)**:
**Preferred Language(s)**:
**Closing Date**:

- 4/12/2024 (MM/DD/YYYY) at 11:59pm UTC**Description**

**Regional Context**

The WDG serves 30 client countries in the Latin America and the Caribbean Region (LCR). Clients range from large rapidly growing sophisticated middle-income clients to IDA countries to small Caribbean states to one fragile state. Despite immense resources, dynamic societies, and an average annual per capita income of about $4,000, deep inequalities persist in most LCR countries, with nearly a quarter of the Region's people living in poverty. The last Bank's strategy for LCR focused on three pillars: (a) supporting the foundations for inclusive growth; (b) investing in human capital and protecting the poor; and (c) building resilience. In the aftermath of the COVID19 pandemic, this strategy will need to be adjusted to better support the countries deal with a health crisis without precedents and an economic crisis not seen since modern statistical records started in 1900. Yet, the basic elements of the strategy: accelerating growth (following a projected GDP contraction in 2020 of 7.2%), investing in human capital, including in health (in the most affected region by COVID19), and building resilience appear fully relevant.

**CMU and Country Office Context**

LC2 is the CMU responsible for overseeing the World Bank's program in Central America and the Dominican Republic, including country strategy formulation and implementation, policy dialogue, portfolio management and country relations. The CMU Management Team consists of the Director, Four Program Leaders and the Country Operations Manager, who will be based in Panama; a Country Manager based in El Salvador, who is also the country manager for Costa Rica; and a Resident Representatives based in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The CMU works with a diverse set of clients: two IDA countries (Honduras and Nicaragua), two lower middle income (El Salvador and Guatemala), and two upper middle-income counties (Costa Rica and Panama). Central America has the economy with the fastest growth rate in Latin America (Panama) and one with the biggest growth challenges (El Salvador); countries where poverty tops 25 percent (Honduras), and countries that are close to the 3 percent poverty objective for the Bank twin goals (Panama); countries that have managed to transform its economy entering in high value-added sectors (Costa Rica), and countries where the structural transformation of the economy needs to happen (Nicaragua). Central America has been significantly affected by the COVID pandemic both on the health and the economics front (GDP is projected to contract on average by 4.3% in the Central American countries) and this will have a significant impact on poverty. On top of this, macroeconomic and governance challenges were already an issue in most of the countries before the pandemic.

The World Bank Group is committed to achieving diversity in terms of race, gender, nationality, culture, and educational background. Individuals with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply.

**The role**:
The Team Assistant will provide support to the Panama Country Office, specifically to Sector Coordinators, Visiting Missions as well as support to all office related activities, specifically providing back-up support to other team members and assist in ad-hoc activities.

Responsibilities will involve collaboration with team members in the Panama Office and in other World Bank Group Units, as well as frequent interaction with external counterparts such as consultants, Government officials, international donors, service providers, vendors and members of the private sector and civil society.

**Duties/Accountabilities**
- Support to Sector Coordinators and teams._
- Make arrangements for for meetings, travel, visas and other logistics related to the program as required;
- Assist with the logístical organization and implementation or events related to the their programs in Panama and and other countries as required. This may include compilation, preparation and translation of written materials and arrangements with providers for a range of visual materials; and
- Provide support operations-related matters, including processing of lending or implementation support documents, and seeking out Bank guidelines on processing these documents, including distribution lists, formatting, required documents, etc.
- Support to Visiting Missions:_
- Assist with visiting missions in coordination with Task Team Leaders as needed, including scheduling meetings, and organizing transportation, or other logístical support.
- Follow up with visiting missions through the LC2 Clearance process on