WBG Pioneer - Regulatory Efficiency and Subnational Business Environment Assessments

The WBG Pioneers Internship Program offers undergraduate and postgraduate students a high impact learning experience at the heart of global development. The internship supports DECRE’s core pipeline of Subnational B-READY and related business environment assessments, including legal and regulatory research, expert-based data collection, data validation, and preparation of analytical outputs for client-facing and knowledge products.

Responsibilities

• Conduct desk research and legal/regulatory analysis on selected business environment topics, including business entry, business location, utility services, international trade, taxation, dispute resolution, market competition, and business insolvency.
• Support preparation, customization, administration, tracking, and quality checks of expert questionnaires and data collection instruments for subnational assessments.
• Assist with identifying relevant private sector experts, public sector counterparts, and institutional sources, and maintain organized trackers for outreach, responses, and follow-up.
• Help code, clean, compare, and validate questionnaire responses against laws, regulations, public websites, administrative data, and other secondary evidence.
• Support process mapping and preparation of short analytical notes, tables, charts, presentations, and background inputs for reports, briefings, blogs, and dissemination materials.
• Provide operational and research support to task teams, including meeting notes, source organization, document management, and other project needs under tight deadlines.

Requirements

• Currently enrolled in a postgraduate program (master’s or PhD) in law, economics, public policy, international development, public administration, urban/regional development, data analytics, or a related field; strong final-year undergraduate candidates may be considered if operationally appropriate.
• 0–6 years of relevant professional experience and demonstrated interest in development work, private sector development, regulatory reform, and the World Bank Group’s mission.
• Strong analytical, legal research, writing, and problem-solving skills, with attention to detail and ability to synthesize complex regulatory information clearly.
• Excellent command of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Experience with Stata, R, Python, data visualization, survey tools, or structured data cleaning is an advantage.
• Proficiency in English is required.
• Professional fluency in one or more additional languages, including Arabic, French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, German, Serbian, or other project-relevant languages, is an asset.
• Ability to work effectively in diverse teams, manage multiple priorities, maintain confidentiality, and deliver high-quality work within agreed deadlines.
• Must meet No-Fee Internship Eligibility criteria as specified by the World Bank Group.

Skills

• Regulation Reform
• Legal Research
• Data Analysis
• Economic Development
• Policy Analysis
• Private Sector Development
• Regulatory Information Synthesis
• MS Word
• MS Excel
• MS PowerPoint
• STATA
• R Programming
• Python Programming
• Data Visualization
• Survey Tools
• Structured Data Cleaning

Languages

English, Arabic, French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, German, Serbian