E T Consultant

Job #: req12601

Organization: World Bank

Sector: Economics

Grade: EC2

Term Duration: 1 year 0 months

Recruitment Type: Local Recruitment

Location: Washington, DC,United States

Required Language(s): English

Preferred Language(s): Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish

Closing Date: 7/30/2021 (MM/DD/YYYY) at 11:59pm UTC

Description

The Platform for Collaboration on Tax (PCT) is a joint initiative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations (UN), and the World Bank Group (WBG) to strengthen collaboration on domestic resource mobilization (DRM).

PCT provides coordination of Domestic Revenue Mobilization capacity building activities and helps developing countries access knowledge, experience, and best practices in tax policy and administration. As part of these efforts, PCT Partners equally undertake analytical work to provide developing countries with clear, coherent, and practical tools as well as consistent guidance to address a range of contemporary tax issues. This analytical work includes a workstream on “Tax and the SDGs”, which in turn includes a new workstream on environmental taxation.

The work is coordinated by the PCT Secretariat, which is housed in the World Bank Group’s Fiscal Policy & Sustainable Growth Unit within the Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment Global Practice.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

To support the creation and technical substantiation of the new environmental taxation workstream, PCT is hiring an environmental tax specialist as Extended Term Consultant. The specialist will work directly with four focal points for environmental taxation by the four Partner organizations and be the central link in deepening the technical collaboration of Partners in this topic area.

The focal points have agreed on the following tasks for the specialist.

• Analyze the existing carbon pricing tools and databases of the Partners, and produce a short paper comparing the approaches, and suggest possible ways of coordination for improved transparency and possibility of more detailed and country level metrics of carbon prices
• Produce a short paper explaining the interlinkages between taxation and environment including carbon pricing, trends in global practices and the urgency of adopting green fiscal policies
• Conduct a pilot study on tax expenditures under PIT, CIT and VAT systems that undermine climate-related excise taxes, to raise awareness about the counteractive effects of such tax expenditures on mitigation efforts, with a focus on data sources and methodologies for quantifying these tax expenditures
• Produce a scoping note for possible joint work on benchmarking environmental taxes vis-a-vis conventional taxes in respect of fiscal and social objectives (e.g., robustness against informality, evasion, fiscal multiplier effects, equity)
• Support curating relevant tax and environment resources, mainly of PCT Partners, for the resource tab on the PCT website.
• Support drafting of a joint PCT blog on the role of environmental taxation in supporting a greener and sustainable recovery.
• Produce a short paper, to serve as the basis for internal discussion within the PCT, identifying and comparing options to address leakage and competitiveness concerns deriving from carbon pricing and other measures aimed at decarbonizing the economy, with particular attention to developing countries’ situations and perspectives
• Organize a public webinar with stakeholders, particularly national governments, to stimulate discussion among developing countries and share successful country experiences and discuss about the role of environmental taxation in NDCs. The scope of the webinar would be to better shape future demand-driven work by the PCT; (Q 4 2021, possibly as a side event to the COP 26)
• Organize a bi-annual internal roundtable of Partner staff for exchange of views on Partner activities, tools, databases and steps to improve coordination of Partner efforts including those under fora such as the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action (CFMCA), Green Fiscal Policy Network (GFPN).

In developing these outputs, the consultant will consider, where possible, the broader sustainable development agenda, including the effects of relevant fiscal policies on climate change as well as broader environmental protection, including oceans, marine wildlife and terrestrial biodiversity conservation.

Selection Criteria

Minimum Education/Experience

Advanced degree in Economics or a closely related subject and at least Five years of relevant professional experience. A doctorate in climate economics and further work experience are strongly preferred.

Required Competencies

• Expertise in environmental tax policy – an advanced understanding of the both the literature on policy design and the quantitative literature on economic impacts of carbon taxation is required.

Other Selection Criteria

• Experience working in developing countries and with ministries of finance/economy is a strong plus.
• Strong communications skills, including the ability to present complex analyses to non-specialist audiences;
• Ability to work flexibly on a range of assignments and adjust to a variety of complex evolving tasks to meet tight deadlines;
• Integrative capacity including the ability to situate sectoral issues within a broader development framework;
• Strong client-orientation and diplomatic skills combined with candor and courage of opinion;
• Strong interpersonal skills and the capacity to work in teams across organizational boundaries within a multi-cultural environment
• Willingness to global travel;
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English is required; knowledge of other languages widely spoken in developing countries, especially Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish, is a strong plus.

Do you meet the following selection criteria? If so, we encourage you to apply:

Core competencies

For information about WBG Core Competencies, please visit: https://bit.ly/2kbIA7O.

For information about Managerial Competencies, please visit: https://bit.ly/37qPbPC.

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