Policy Manager - Labour Markets & Education -J-PAL South Asia

About the Organization:

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (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 1,000 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. J-PAL South Asia (SA) is based at the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR) in India.

J-PAL SA seeks a Policy Manager to contribute to its mission of promoting evidence-informed policy in J-PAL's Labour Markets and Education sectors. In particular, this role will forge and manage research partnerships focussing on multiple themes across education and labour markets: early childhood education and development foundational learning secondary education and school-to-work transition skilling job matching and employment.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design and lead strategy across both sectors:
  • Develop and execute strategy for partnership cultivation and management for both sectors, in close collaboration with senior leadership, Global office and the Sectors academic leadership.
  • Build and maintain relationships with J-PAL affiliated researchers, key partners in governments, NGOs, foundations, and multilateral aid agencies in the region.
  • Identify emerging policy opportunities, design engagement strategies, and lead team's execution of said strategy.
  • Represent J-PAL SA in high-level policy forums and policyworking groups to shape conversations on evidence-based approaches in both sectors.
• Evidence generation: Cultivate partnerships establishing new evaluations with J-PAL affiliated researchers, donors and implementing partners:
  • With governments and NGOs: Build consensus to launch pilots and evaluations of innovations in education.
    • Assess feasibility of implementing randomized evaluations (RCTs) within incoming requests of programme evaluations and establish partnerships where feasible.
    • Identify opportunities for proactive outreach with partners, based on policy priorities and academic interest
  • With funders: Identify and cultivate partnerships with foundations and high-networth individuals to establish portfolios of funding on understudied themes.
  • With J-PAL affiliated researchers: Input on research design, sampling, proposal development and fundraising for new partnerships
• Evidence dissemination and policy advisory:
  • Analyze and contextualize research results from J-PAL's ongoing and completed work for evidence dissemination through customized decks, briefs, reports, and op-eds.
  • Help prepare senior management for meetings with background research and meeting notes/memos.
  • Represent J-PAL SA at policy-relevant events and in meetings with relevant stakeholders, to share and present evidence.
  • Identify and deliver on policy advisory opportunities to inform government, NGO and donor decisions with J-PAL's evidence
  • Identify and deliver on public-facing opportunities to expand the reach and impact of J-PAL SA's work on education and labour markets.
• Fundraising & Strategic Growth:
  • Contribute to fundraising by developing concept notes, proposals, and donor reports in collaboration with senior leadership.
• Additional Responsibilities:
  • 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.

Qualifications:

• Education: Master's degree (preferably in economics, public policy, education, or international development). A strong technical understanding of education policy and/or 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 education policy or program evaluation will be considered favorably.

Skills and Competencies Communication:

• Understanding Randomized Evaluations: Demonstrate a keen understanding of the value of randomized evaluations and their usefulness for policy decisions. In addition, a strong grasp of real-world RCT design within education and labour markets
• Attention to detail and excellent writing and presentation skills for communicating policy lessons from academic papers in ways that policymakers understand.
• Proven ability to multi-task across a number of tasks with varying priority, successfully complete tasks assigned, and meet deadlines
• Strong interest in international development policy, South Asia development, and/or program evaluation as demonstrated by coursework and professional experience.
• Language: Fluency in English (written and oral) Fluency in an Indian language would be favourably considered.