Job Openings Senior Program Associate - Procurement

About the job Senior Program Associate - Procurement

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. We believe that the most impactful lever for accelerating national development is to improve governance and state capacity to better deliver core public services at scale.

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. CEGISs vision and Theory of Change (ToC) are an outcome of extensive research done by Prof. Karthik Muralidharan (CEGIS Co-Founder and Scientific Director) and outlined in his multiple award-winning, national bestselling book Accelerating India's Development, and enabled by strategic philanthropic support provided by Ashish Dhawan (CEGIS Co-Founder).

CEGIS Approach and Model of Functioning:

CEGISs solutions to enhance governance are co-created with state governments in a state-led way, where we focus on deep partnerships with states using 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. Many of our solutions reflect ideas outlined in the book Accelerating India's Development, and these solutions are constantly refined based on real-time feedback and are designed to both be customized to the contexts we are working in, and to create templates that can provide the starting point for replication across contexts.

Our focus areas reflect evidence that key characteristics of high-performing organisations include (a) measuring outcomes through reliable, high quality data that enables goal setting and progress monitoring; (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 and revenue collection are based on evidence and cost-effectiveness; (d) and creating efficient systems to leverage external actors (including for-profit and nonprofit organisations). CEGIS partners with states to improve capacity by focusing on these pillars of State effectiveness, and aims to also integrate these horizontal governance improvements into integrated sectoral roadmaps to accelerate the achievement of state and national development outcomes.

Internally, CEGIS is organized into solutions teams that lead the design and technical quality control of our research and evidence-backed approaches to improving governance and state capacity; delivery" teams that lead state-facing work to contextualize the solutions, and support governments in implementing them; and enablement teams that enable the organization to function smoothly.

CEGIS@6 to CEGIS@10: Building on momentum to catalyse national development

Since its incorporation in 2019, CEGIS has gained significant momentum in building strong collaborations with state 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 1 state government engagement in 2019, today CEGIS is working across 9 Indian states (Assam, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh). We also partner with union agencies/ministries such as Capacity Building Commission, Ministry of Women & Child Development (MoWCD), and Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) to share insights from our state-level work to inform national-level guidelines and dissemination to other states. Finally, we also take on selected work at the district level to design and test implementation templates.

From a small group of founding members, we have grown to become a team of 150+ members located across the country, and expect to grow to over 200 in the coming year. Led by a former senior civil-servant with deep governance experience; state and solution team leads with decades of domain expertise; and enabling functions led by professionals with considerable corporate experience, the team at CEGIS brings together knowledge and experience that spans various sectors – from development economics, research, governance, management consulting, and social entrepreneurship.

Over the last 6 years, CEGIS has also garnered support for our vision and theory of change from several foundations and philanthropists whose partnership has enabled us to build our organisational capacity as well as continue to experiment and improve our solution design to augment state capacity and governance. With the rapidly growing demand for CEGISs offerings, CEGIS is well-positioned to play a key role in accelerating Indias development.

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.


Overview:

CEGIS work under the theme of State and Market (SAM) focuses on improving state capacity for better management of State interfaces with the larger market, especially in service delivery functions. The focus of the SAM team is to identify points of interaction between the Government and the Private Sector and to support States in reducing the frictions in such transactions. We work with State Governments in three capacities:

  • Procurement: Improving procurement policies, processes, and decisions to improve value for money in public procurement
  • Policy: Development of sectoral policy to incentivize cost effective service delivery, through the most appropriate models
  • Regulation: Assessment of market failures and design and execution of proportionate regulatory interventions to address these

​Of the above, currently the Procurement area dominates the portfolio of the SAM team with strong traction from multiple States. While the above work will be focused on CEGIS core sectors (education, health, nutrition, local governance), some streams like procurement have a broader sectoral coverage. Our projects will involve elements of research and analytics, market efficiency assessment, regulatory capacity assessment, and active support to Finance and line departments in reforms adoption. This will involve both quantitative and qualitative skills. This will, among other things, entail:

  • Conducting market assessments including identification of market failures (information asymmetry, market power, externalities, deadweight losses)
  • Conducting assessment of State capacity on policy, provision and regulation, through benchmarking, assessment of rules, systems and procedures, and primary interactions with key stakeholders
  • Quantitative assessments of cost effectiveness across different models of service delivery, including use of methods such as Value for Money assessments (VfM) and Public Sector Comparator (PSC) analysis
  • Interactions with non-state actors (for Profits and Civil Society Organisations) to assess their offerings, constraints and operating ecosystem.
  • Developing deep understanding of the Procurement Systems and practices across the States in which CEGIS has presence, as well as global/local best practices.

Position Summary:

The Senior Program Associate - SAM is required to play a vital role in executing the CEGIS vision across States. The role will involve working closely with the other team members and the relevant State teams, and collaborating with the other CEGIS teams.

Roles and Responsibilities:

  • Supporting the State Governments in Implementing/Strengthening Digital Tools in Project Planning, Procurement systems, & Contract Management.
  • Work on Projects in improving the Capital Expenditure process of the State Governments
  • Develop understanding of Procurement Acts & Policies in the country
  • Develop understanding on Policy & Regulatory aspects of CEGIS Core Sectors
  • Coordinate with the relevant Government officials for smooth implementation of interventions on which CEGIS is supporting the State Government.

Project Management and Delivery:

  • Understand project requirements, coordinate with internal teams and external partners for delivery excellence.
  • Plan and prioritise work plans, ensuring accountability for set timelines.
  • Assist in altering project goals and outcomes based on stakeholder feedback and project progress, flag project risks.

Data Analysis and Insight Generation:

  • Engage with departments to collect relevant data, develop quantitative and qualitative tools/templates, administer these tools, and support in cleaning and organizing the data.
  • Track and analyze data for accuracy and conduct qualitative and quantitative analysis.
  • Extract important insights from complex datasets relevant to key stakeholders.
  • Prioritize and address data issues promptly to support project progress and decision-making.
  • Ensure compliance with internal data management and security protocols

Research & Documentation:

  • Research on problem statements identified by the State Governments. Independently conduct research and root cause analysis, documenting and presenting insights.
  • Produce comprehensive presentations and documentation to convey critical project insights.
  • Support in development of Knowledge Outputs for SAM and the Company.
  • Support in developing concept notes, policy briefs, and other documentation for stakeholder communication.
  • Create Internal reports/documents for projects under execution for training and reporting purposes as well as to create institutional memory on projects.

Stakeholder Engagement and Communication:

  • Prepare detailed presentations and documents for stakeholders.
  • Assist the project team in collecting critical information and departmental updates by maintaining regular communication with government counterparts, partner organisations, and other relevant stakeholders.
  • Coordinate stakeholder meetings and gather feedback for project progress and decision-making.
  • Foster deep connections with stakeholders and suggest innovative ideas to nurture partnerships.

Collaboration and Partnerships:

  • Build and maintain relationships internally and externally.
  • Collaborate with academics and stakeholders for research adaptation.
  • Work closely with senior academics and government stakeholders to tailor procurement/regulatory/policy design and implementation protocols to local contexts.

Education and Experience:

  • Masters degree or equivalent in economics, statistics, public policy, management, engineering, social science, or related fields from a reputed institution
  • Minimum 3 years of relevant work experience in Government Advisory, Social Impact Sector, including research, basic quantitative analysis, experience of working with Government stakeholders is preferable
  • Experience in at least one of the areas of public procurement or service regulation is highly desirable
  • Knowledge of STATA or R (strongly preferred) or any other data analysis software preferred.
  • Sectoral exposure to one or more of the following - education and skills, healthcare, infrastructure, and local government is desirable.

Required Skills, Characteristics and Qualities:

  • Knowledge of Procurement processes and experience in use of/ advising Public Sector entities in the use of e-procurement platform(s).
  • Fluency in English and basic to intermediate proficiency in one of the South Indian regional languages is an added benefit.
  • Excellent problem-solving and strategic thinking skills, strong research aptitude ability to analyse complex quantitative and qualitative data and formulate solutions.
  • Excellent writing and communication skills (ability to communicate complex ideas in a meaningful way and across different audiences) within and outside the organisation
  • Strong planning and organisational skills, and an ability to be able to set priorities, plan timelines and meet deadlines.
  • Operating style suited to working independently and in a small-organisation setting, where teamwork and resourcefulness are highly valued.
  • High ability to collaborate and actively listen to others, understanding and valuing others views.
  • Versatility to be comfortable taking on different projects and quickly dive into new sectors.

Location and Compensation

Location: The role will be based out of Chennai. Travel to other states may be required.

Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy and social sector pay scales and will depend on the candidates experience levels.

Interested candidates are requested to submit their applications by clicking the apply button below

Note: CEGIS has zero tolerance for 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 for misconduct, appropriate action that may include employment termination would be taken. Please complete the details for self-declaration on the application form.

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