WBG Pioneer - SPARC for Conflict-Affected and Reconstruction Contexts Intern

World Bank Group

The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to developing countries. It is the largest and most famous development bank in the world and is an observer at the United Nations Development Group. The bank is based in Washington, D.C. and provided around $61 billion in loans and assistance to "developing" and transition countries in the 2014 fiscal year. The bank's stated mission is to achieve the twin goals of ending extreme poverty and building shared prosperity.

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https://www.worldbank.org/

WBG Pioneer - SPARC for Conflict-Affected and Reconstruction Contexts Intern

Background/Organizational Context

  • The Smart Parcel Atlas for Resilient Cities (SPARC) is a World Bank Group geospatial intelligence initiative that helps task teams and city governments generate and apply parcel-level spatial evidence for urban planning, infrastructure prioritization, land management, disaster risk management, and investment decisions. SPARC combines satellite imagery, global datasets, GeoAI methods, and administrative information to produce decision-ready layers on buildings, parcels, land use, infrastructure access, hazard exposure, population dynamics, and urban growth. The internship will support the thematic expansion of SPARC to conflict-affected and reconstruction contexts (e.g., South Sudan, Sudan, Ukraine), with a focus on how parcel- and neighborhood-level geospatial intelligence can inform remote monitoring, damage and change detection, population and displacement dynamics, service disruption analysis, and operational prioritization for recovery and resilience investments.

Duties and Responsibilities

  • Review SPARC materials, reconstruction, and forced displacement use cases, and good practice on remote monitoring, damage detection, displacement tracking, and urban recovery analytics.
  • Map relevant conflict-specific (including forced displacement) data sources and methods, including satellite imagery, building footprints, road networks, land cover, nighttime lights, population proxies, hazard exposure layers, and administrative datasets.
  • Support definition of SPARC use cases for conflict and post-conflict settings, including reconstruction prioritization, service disruption screening, and remote supervision of recovery investments.
  • Contribute to analytical frameworks, prototype analytics, mock-ups, and concise operational materials for selected contexts, subject to data availability and team priorities.
  • Prepare notes, briefs, slide inputs, and documentation on data quality, uncertainty, limitations, validation needs, ethical considerations, and appropriate use in sensitive FCV contexts.

Selection Criteria

  • Candidates must be currently enrolled in, or in the final year of, a postgraduate master’s or PhD program.
  • Candidates must have 1–6 years of relevant professional experience
  • Academic background in urban planning, geography, geospatial analytics, data science, remote sensing, international development, public policy, disaster risk management, conflict studies, economics, or a related field.
  • Demonstrated interest in applying geospatial data and analytics to urban resilience, reconstruction, FCV, displacement, service delivery, or infrastructure planning.
  • Strong analytical, research, and problem-solving skills, including ability to synthesize technical material for non-specialist audiences.
  • Experience with GIS, remote sensing, spatial data management, Python/R, Google Earth Engine, QGIS or ArcGIS, or related tools.
  • Ability to work effectively in diverse, team-based environments
  • Excellent written and spoken English; knowledge of Arabic, Ukrainian, French, Amharic, Swahili, or other relevant languages is an asset.

Method of application

If you are interested and qualified, kindly submit your application via the link provided below,

https://worldbankgroup.csod.com/ux/ats/careersite/1/home/requisition/37665?c=worldbankgroup&country=ke&utm_source=Jobinkenya

Deadline  8/12/2026 (11:59pm UTC)

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