International Economist

Asian Development Bank (ADB)

Georgia 🇬🇪

Objective and Purpose of the Assignment

The TA cluster subproject 5 (Strengthening Project Development of the Water and Urban Development Sectors) will support capacity development, policy advice, project identification, and support of project preparation of 2025–2028 pipeline projects.3 It will directly support the country partnership strategy’s objectives to transition to a green and integrated economy, with focus on improving the overall capacity of Georgia’s large water state-owned enterprise; and foster a more resilient and inclusive society through investment projects aimed at enhancing the accessibility and livability of medium and small cities and rural area thus, uplifting these areas’ full economic potential. Output 2 of subproject 5 (Design of urban and water sector programs strengthened) will finance project identification and due diligence activities to help pivot ADB’s urban programs toward more climate action and gender responsiveness. These activities include, though not limited to, strategic assessments on procurement and safeguards, economic and financial sector assessments and/or analysis, and project concept notes. The output will contribute to project readiness of ensuing loans which are innovative in lending modality and technical content.

Scope of Work

The International Economist will conduct country’s economic assessment, provide macroeconomic outlook, sector context and economic rationale for the proposed interventions and assess their sustainability. The consultant will (i) assist in preparing the ADB program documentation including the linked documents for the proposed RBL Program using economic analyses to analyze rural water issues; develop a strong policy dialogue with public and private institutions involved in rural water supply and sanitation development, in order to identify needs and objectives for the development of the sector; (ii) analyze to understand the different sector and macroeconomic scenarios and identifying priority action lines for rural development; prepare studies and institutional analyses of rural-urban economic linkages, rural water supply and sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), at both national and provincial levels; (iii) assess the cost-efficiency of the program including the economic rationale; demands and prioritization criteria; adequacy and cost efficiency of selected technical options; and complementary measures to maximize the investment impact, including the operation and maintenance of the RWSS systems; and (iv) identify constraints, design of policy reforms and technical assistance programs to improve the rural sector water supply and rural development and participate in policy dialogue, in the formulation and negotiation of lending and non-lending activities to introduce innovation to the program.

Detailed Tasks and/or Expected Output

The International Economist will be responsible for the following detailed tasks: (i) Support the rural water supply and sanitation program design and its assessment; (ii) Identify and quantify scope of the government program (including annual budget and expenditure framework), and the proposed RBL program including assistance to delineate the program boundary. (iii) Collect socioeconomic information and prepare baseline data and a socioeconomic feasibility assessment of the program. (iv) Review national policies, strategies, legislations and implementation experience in the sector and identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the institutional arrangements; (v) Assess the cost-efficiency of the rural water supply and sanitation program including economic rationale of the program; (vi) Support preparation of the ADB program documentation and linked documents, focusing on rural water supply and sanitation program, demand assessment, program soundness. (vii) Provide inputs to the integrated risk and mitigation measures document, sector assessment, and other RBL documents, as needed. (viii) Support to prepare the DLIs and validation protocols. (ix) Prepare economic analysis, including but not limited to least cost analysis, calculation of economic internal rate of return, conducting sensitivity analysis and poverty impact analysis for the sample subprojects and the project as a whole following the ADB Guidelines for Economic Analysis of Projects, 2017.

Minimum Qualification Requirements

The International Economist will have (i) a higher level university degree with solid experience in economics and will have a minimum of 10 years of relevant experience in economic analysis for urban and rural planning and water supply projects; (ii) prior experience working with ADB and in particular lending modalities such as RBL, will be an advantage; (iii) good understanding of the development context; and (iv) previous experience in international financing institutions will be useful.

POSITION TYPE

ORGANIZATION TYPE

EXPERIENCE-LEVEL

DEGREE REQUIRED

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