Are you a law graduate/ legal professional looking for job opportunities as a Policy Manager- Agriculture and Finance? This opportunity might be of interest to you!
About:
J-PAL is a global research center working to reduce poverty and fight climate change by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of more than 500 top researchers at universities around the world, J-PAL conducts innovative research and builds powerful partnerships to solve the world’s greatest challenges. They build partnerships with governments, NGOs, donors, and others to share this knowledge, scale up effective programs, and advance evidence-informed decision-making.
The Policy vertical at J-PAL South Asia (J-PAL SA) disseminates findings of J-PAL’s research; develops relationships with government, civil society, and academic stakeholders; catalyses scale-ups and replications of effective projects; and assists in conceptualizing new research projects. In line with its mission to create a long-lasting culture of evidence-informed decision-making, over the past decade, J-PAL SA has continuously developed and refined a model of engaging with state governments in India which ensures that they continue to build on evidence generation through rigorous research, and most importantly, enable the translation of research into action.
The Training vertical at J-PAL South Asia (J-PAL SA) works on strengthening monitoring and evaluation capacities and systems and helping implementers, policymakers, and researchers become better producers and users of evidence. They host CLEAR South Asia, the South Asia Regional Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results (CLEAR), an initiative coordinated by the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), and a key implementing partner of the Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI). As host of the South Asia CLEAR center, J-PAL SA at IFMR covers India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka, offering M&E technical assistance and capacity building to governments, civil society, and M&E practitioners to support use of high-quality M&E for evidence-based decision-making.
Role:
Policy Manager- Agriculture and Finance
Location:
India
Qualifications:
- Education: Master’s degree (preferably in economics, public policy, agriculture economics, finance or international development). A strong technical understanding of economics and/or impact evaluation is necessary to ensure that J-PAL SA’s findings are translated into general policy conclusions in a way that is both simple to follow but also accurate and undistorted.
- Experience: This position requires four or more years of relevant experience in addition to a relevant Master’s degree. Demonstrated interest and experience in financial inclusion and/or agriculture will be considered favourably.
- Understanding Randomized Evaluations: Demonstrate a keen understanding of the value of randomized evaluations and their usefulness for policy decisions
Skills and Competencies:
- Communication: Attention to detail and excellent writing and presentation skills for communicating policy lessons from academic papers in ways that policymakers understand. This requires clear, precise, non-technical writing, and creativity in presentation.
- Proven ability to handle several different projects/tasks at one time, successfully complete tasks assigned, and meet deadlines;
- High level of attention to detail;
- Strong interest in international development policy, South Asia development, and/or programme evaluation as demonstrated by coursework and professional experience.
- Language: Fluency in English (written and oral).
Responsibilities:
Policy
Lead activities to promote evidence-informed policy in the Agriculture and Finance sectors:
This will entail understanding, summarizing and supporting the dissemination of J-PAL evidence in the two sectors; coordinating and communicating with the global policy lead for the sectors; and working with government, civil society partners, private sector and donors to promote the production and use of rigorous evidence in the sectors:
- Support J-PAL’s Policy Team in its mission of institutionalisation of evidence-use within governments: The Policy Manager will work closely on J-PAL South Asia’s government partnerships across multiple states and/or central government agencies, with the aim of institutionalising a data and evidence-based approach to policy decisions.
- Support J-PAL’s Policy team in expanding its government partnership model to new states by conducting background research, communicating with senior government officials, and internal coordination within the policy team.
- Engage with government officials to support the generation, dissemination, synthesis and scale-up of rigorous evidence-based policies in concerned states.
- Support cross-vertical activities and internal coordination with Research, Training, and Admin & Finance verticals across J-PAL South Asia’s government partnerships.
- Evidence Generation: Lead networking and follow-up with relevant government partners, civil society partners, donors and media to understand their policy priorities and promote the use and production of rigorous evidence.
- Catalyse new randomized evaluation research by matching innovative projects in the region with J-PAL affiliated professors in the sectors.
- Secure buy-in from governments and other organizations to launch pilots and evaluations of innovations.
- Evidence Synthesis and Dissemination: Draft external and internal notes summarizing evidence from J-PAL evaluations related to the sectors (e.g., evidence summaries, briefs, policy memos, concept notes, letters, presentations).
- Write about J-PAL’s evaluations in relevant documents with clear, accurate, and non-technical language. Analyse and contextualize research results from J-PAL’s ongoing and completed sector work for evidence dissemination through customized presentations, briefs, reports and op-eds.
- Represent J-PAL SA at policy-relevant events and in meetings with relevant stakeholders, to share and present evidence.
- Track policy developments in the space and communicate these developments internally to the team.
- Conduct research and analysis for policy memos, presentations, concept notes and other high level deliverables as requested by J-PAL SA senior staff and affiliates;
- Help prepare senior management for meetings with background research and meeting notes/memos.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Build and maintain relationships with key partners in governments, NGOs, foundations, private sector and multilateral aid agencies in the region
- Additional cross-sectoral support as needed.
Miscellaneous
- Provide additional support to the P&T teams as needed.
- People Management: Manage and mentor P&T Associates and/ or Sr. P&T Associates, giving them support to perform better and prioritizing their learning and skill development.
- Cross-vertical collaboration: Participate in cross-vertical collaboration opportunities such as providing systematic support to an ongoing research project, capacity building of internal staff, etc.
How to Apply:
Interested candidates can Apply here (click here)
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