Position Name: Senior Program Associate - OM (Raipur)

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Location:

Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India

Organization Name:

Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS)

Job Description

About CEGIS

Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS pronounced See-Jis) aims to

improve lives by helping Indian state governments deliver better development outcomes.

The four key characteristics of any high-performing organisation are (a) measuring outcomes through reliable, high quality data that enables goal setting and monitoring progress towards these goals; (b) strategic use of personnel competency based hiring and training, skilling, and performance appraisals to determine job assignments, pay, and promotions to achieve the goals above; (c) strategic budgeting where resource allocation is based on evidence and cost-effectiveness; (d) and creating efficient systems to leverage external actors (including for-profit and nonprofit organisations). The Indian State needs to perform better on all four fronts above, by enhancing its capacity. CEGIS partners with states to improve this capacity by focusing on these four pillars of the State.

Informed by cutting-edge research and evidence as well as a practical orientation toward implementable ideas, CEGIS works with State Governments in India to enable a transformative improvement in their functioning. This vision and Theory of Change (ToC) is an outcome of extensive research done by Prof. Karthik Muralidharan (CEGIS Co-Founder and Scientific Director) and strategic philanthropic support provided by Mr. Ashish Dhawan (CEGIS Co-Founder).

Prof. Karthik Muralidharan is the Tata Chancellors Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego. Over the past two decades, he has led extensive research projects in India across education, health, and social welfare. His book, Accelerating Indias Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Effective Governance, systematically analyses Indias governance challenges and provides actionable, evidence-based strategies, emphasising state-level reforms as critical for Indias advancement.

Ashish Dhawan is a leading Indian philanthropist and the Founder-CEO of The Convergence Foundation (TCF). He is also the Founding Chairperson of Ashoka University and the Central Square Foundation, and is a governing board member of the Gates Foundation. Before his second career as a philanthropist, Ashish was among Indias most successful private equity investors.

CEGIS Approach and Model of Functioning

Our solutions to enhance governance are co-created with state governments in a state-led way, where we focus on deep partnerships with states with an iterative cycle of think-demonstrate-document-transfer. We work closely with the top bureaucratic leadership, front-line workers and public officials in Finance, Planning, Human Resources and a few other priority line departments.

In alignment with our four principles or pillars of change - outcome measurement, personnel management, strategic public finance, states and markets, CEGIS is currently working with the governments of Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, NCT of Delhi, Assam, and a few Government of India entities like the NITI Aayog and Capacity Building Commission (CBC) across a range of projects and sectors. Through CEGIS flagship offering, the KPI (Key Performance Indicators) Survey, we are helping enable state governments we are working with to collect better quality citizen level data, make informed, evidence-based decisions, and institutionalise this process of securing periodic citizen-level feedback. We are setting up a Financial Analytics Unit (FAU) to enhance analytical capacity and increase the effectiveness of budgetary allocations of the Finance Department in another state. In alignment with our personnel management workstream, we are also working with the HR/Administrative Reforms & Training Department to set up and institutionalise an in-house Capacity Building Unit (CBU) that aids the adoption of competency-based Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Performance Management Systems (PMS) with a few of these entities. Similarly, to improve the value of public money, we are working at the interface of states and markets which encompasses procurement, regulation, and policy formulation. Our solutions are constantly being refined based on real-time feedback and are designed to be customised and replicated across contexts.

CEGIS@5: A Journey of Learning & Building Capacity

Since its incorporation in 2019, despite the enormous challenges posed by COVID, CEGIS has gained significant momentum in building strong collaborations with the government(s) as a trusted partner who can provide both thought leadership and implementation support on key governance reforms. CEGIS position as a non-profit that does not take any funding from the government (other than in-kind contributions of office space/staff) has been a key enabler in earning this trust.

Beginning with 2 state government engagements in the first 2 years of its inception, today CEGIS is working across several Indian states with 15+ projects across several sectors, including education, nutrition and local governance. From a small group of founding members, we have grown by leaps and bounds to become a team of 150+ members located across the country. Helmed by a former bureaucrat with invaluable governance experience, state and solution team leads with decades of domain expertise, and enabling functions led by professionals with considerable corporate careers, the team at CEGIS brings together knowledge and experience that spans various sectors - from developmental economics, research, and governance to management consulting and social entrepreneurship.

Over the last 5 years, we have also been able to garner support for our vision and theory of change from a diverse range of foundations and philanthropists whose partnership has enabled us to build our own organisational capacity as well as continue to experiment and improve our solution design to augment state capacity and governance. We believe that this approach will gradually enable all government officials to achieve their goals more effectively, thereby improving the ability of the State to deliver services to all Indian citizens in the decades to come.

To explore what the mission of CEGIS is and the impact we hope to have, please take a look at this video of our CEO, Dr Vijay Pingale.

Funding Partners:

Overview:

Within CEGIS, the Outcome Measurement (OM) teams role is to support institutionalisation of data driven decision making by setting up the required infrastructure and technical capacity with the Planning department and relevant line departments in the State. High quality data and insights generated through this facility are expected to provide assistance to the State in goal setting, progress monitoring and strategic decision making for personnel and budget/ finance management.

Specifically, this will, among other things, entail:

  • Conducting independent household level outcome measurement across various sectors such as school education, health, child nutrition, water & sanitation, jobs & unemployment, public safety and agriculture etc. to assist the government in goal setting and progress monitoring
  • Measuring integrity of administrative data gathered and managed by the state machinery and suggest ways of improving its quality
  • Conducting high-frequency measurement of outcomes and monitoring (of key programs and schemes) using various tools and techniques
  • Generating learning notes to document project milestones and lessons for the future, and share generalizable knowledge with the wider team.

The Senior Program Associate (SPA)- Outcome Measurement will play an important role in contextualising and executing the CEGIS vision in a select state. The role will work closely with the Outcome Measurement technical team and project delivery teams in the respective State team. The Senior Program Associate will be directly reporting to the Program Manager, Outcome Measurement in the state.

Responsibilities:

Data Collection and Organization:

  • Collect, organize, and monitor data from various sources ensuring accuracy and completeness.
  • Validate data sources and conduct verification checks for data reliability.
  • Design and administer questionnaires for data collection.

Data Maintenance and Quality Control:

  • Monitor and maintain secure data repositories ensuring data integrity.
  • Prioritize and address data issues promptly to support project progress.
  • Maintain records of data quality control processes and identify areas for enhancement.
  • Evaluate data quality, analyze trends, and interpret findings to generate critical insights.

Alignment with Project Objectives:

  • Collaborate with project teams and stakeholders to align data diagnostics and analysis plans with project objectives.
  • Support creation of technical notes and analysis protocols.
  • Assist in defining metrics and drafting project diagnostics reports.
  • Communicate project updates, findings, and recommendations to stakeholders.

Engagement and Relationship Management:

  • Support managers in developing and implementing effective engagement strategies with external stakeholders.
  • Share learnings and insights with government officials.
  • Manage relationships with senior officials in relevant departments.
  • Communicate project objectives and requirements to government counterparts.

Project Management and Leadership:

  • Perform assigned tasks with minimal supervision.
  • Independently create and prioritize work plans, ensuring accountability for set timelines.
  • Maintain proactiveness and self-motivation while delivering project requirements.
  • Manage a portion of Project Associates' time and support their onboarding and capacity building.
  • Focus on self-development and deepening expertise.
  • Collaborate with team members to compile and document insights and best practices.
  • Create knowledge products and documents by synthesizing information from different perspectives and participate in knowledge sharing.
  • Identify potential project opportunities and conduct preliminary feasibility assessments.

Qualifications:

  • 3 - 6 years of experience with a Masters degree or equivalent in economics, public policy, social science or related fields from a reputed institution
  • Proven experience in project management and analytical contributions.
  • Strong communication, collaboration, and leadership skills.
  • Experience with data cleaning and analysis of large and complex data sets and econometric analysis
  • Knowledge of STATA or R (strongly preferred) or any other data analysis software preferred
  • Experience in client servicing/government projects would be preferred
  • Commitment to CEGIS's mission and values.

Note: CEGIS has zero tolerance to sexual harassment. We therefore expect each applicant to self-declare related to the same. CEGIS could, if required, initiate a prevention of sexual harassment-based background verification. If an applicant is reported of misconduct, appropriate action that may include employment termination would be taken. Please Click the link for self declaration.

Pre-reads for the application process:

Please go through the following materials before sending in your application: