Debt Management and Innovative Financing Instruments Expert

Result of Service

The ultimate result of the service is to provide a technical guidance paper with relevant matrices that help assessing national capacities and policy recommendations toward improving preparedness of sovereigns for structuring sustainability-linked debt financing instruments.

Outputs/work assignment:
The following outputs are the deliverables of the consultant:
• The technical guidance paper with about 30 pages.
• Excel files having any data, graphs/charts used in the paper need to be in editable format.

Work Location

Remotely

Expected duration

3 months

Duties and Responsibilities

ESCWA is producing The Debt and Fiscal Outlook Report, which presents analysis and tools that can support member states to inform policy particularly in the areas of increasing expenditure efficiency, developing effective borrowing strategy for debt optimization to minimize risks and costs of borrowing, and improving their preparedness for accessing innovative financing instruments to finance climate action and the SDGs. The report supports the overall ESCWA project “Sustainable Debt Financing Strategies to Enhance Fiscal Space, Provide Financing for the SDGs and Address the Repercussions of COVID-19 in the Arab Region”.
This consultancy aims to produce a technical paper in the form of practical guidance for improving national capacity on preparedness for structuring sustainability-linked debt financing instruments, i.e., issuance of green bonds, sustainability-linked bonds, SDG-linked bonds with focus on market access countries in the Arab region. The paper will inform The Debt and Fiscal Outlook Report, and will provide substantive insights, facilitating technical assistance to member States through the project.
The consultant will work in close cooperation with the Project Coordinator and project team at ESCWA. The main duties and responsibilities of the consultant are the following:
• Review and explain the taxonomy of innovative instruments including green bonds, sustainability-linked bonds, SDG-linked bonds, (henceforth these are referred as SLBs) including those issued by countries in recent years.
• Present an economic case for issuance of SLBs for consideration by sovereigns, including costs and benefits of the SLBs, sovereign ratings, ESG relevance, versus other market instruments.
• Discuss the mechanisms for the sovereigns in issuance of SLBs and readiness requirements for the sovereigns including data needs, measurement issues and reporting mechanisms.
• Analyze the unique features of SLBs and consideration for use of SLBs for climate and SDGs financing, loss and damage financing, emergency response financing, debt restructuring, and consequences on impact assessments.
• Assess the opportunities case for selected market access countries in the Arab region in engaging and developing markets for the SLBs, including harnessing funds for credit enhancement from private sector, MDBs, and evolving initiatives of World Bank and IMF.
• Provide policy recommendations and guidance matrix for improving readiness of sovereigns for issuance of SLBs.

Qualifications/special skills

A Master’s degree in economics, public finance, international finance, or any other related area is required.

All candidates must submit a copy of the required educational degree. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed.
a minimum of ten years of work experience in debt management and debt issuance-related research and advisory services to sovereigns is required.
A minimum of ten years of work experience in debt swap and innovative financing instruments-related research and advise to governments and businesses is required.

Languages

Languages English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat; and Arabic is a working language of ESCWA.

For this position, fluency in English language is required. Knowledge of Arabic language is desirable.

Note: “Fluency” equals a rating of ‘fluent’ in all four areas (speak, read, write, and understand) and “Knowledge of” equals a rating of ‘confident’ in two of the four areas.

No Fee

THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.