Job Openings Senior Program Associate

About the job Senior Program Associate

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:

Within CEGIS, the Public Revenue/Taxation/Public Finance teams role is to support institutionalisation of data driven decision making by setting up the required infrastructure and technical capacity with the relevant line departments. High quality data and insights generated are expected to aid the State in goal setting, progress monitoring and strategic decision making. In addition, as a sectoral workstream, specific objectives are furthered by testing and institutionalising interventions in the form of Micro RCTs with the larger goal of improving tax compliance and augmenting revenues.

Position Summary

​​As a Senior Program Associate (SPA) at The Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS), you will play a vital role in various projects across their entire life cycle. This includes handling concept notes, department-level diagnostics, solution identification, pilot development, pilot implementation, and providing support for scale-up initiatives, all while significantly contributing to the analytical aspects of the projects. Typically, these projects shall be anchored with the Departments of Finance and Planning and may involve engagements with frontline service delivery departments (e.g., local governance, nutrition, education etc.). You'll ensure effective governance and public expenditure reforms by meticulously tracking and analyzing data from various sources, conducting independent research and root cause analysis, and presenting insights for effective problem-solving. Additionally, you'll support project planning and implementation, stakeholder engagement, and documentation of project progress and knowledge management under the supervision of respective Project Leads.

Key Result Areas (KRAs):

  • 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 sec
      
  • Research and Documentation:
    • Independently conduct research and root cause analysis, documenting and presenting insights.
    • Produce comprehensive presentations and documentation to convey critical project insights.
    • Collaborate with other teams to jointly develop and implement technical solutions tailored to specific project requirements as is suitable for the states context.
    • Create concept notes, policy briefs, and other documentation for stakeholder communication.
      
  • Stakeholder Engagement and Communication:
    • Evaluate project contingencies and engage with internal and external 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.
      
  • Project Management & Delivery:
    • Understand project requirements, coordinate with internal teams and external partners for delivery excellence.
    • Support comparison and assessment of different strategies, frameworks, and solutions for effective decision-making.
    • 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.
    • Support knowledge management processes to help achieve project and organisational objectives (for example, assisting in maintaining a project-based knowledge repository).

Qualifications:

  • A Masters degree or equivalent preferred in economics, public policy, social science or related fields from a reputed institution, bright graduate applicants may be considered.
  • 3-6 years of experience. Minimum 3 years of work experience in India with organisations working in related fields of work i.e., research agencies, policy think-tanks, government or private sector organisations working on government advisory or consulting
  • 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
  • Report writing and presentations with proficiency in MS Office and other tools

Personal Characteristics and Desired Qualities

  • Fluency in English and proficiency in XXX.
  • Excellent problem-solving skills, with an aptitude for research to formulate solutions
  • Excellent writing and communication skills (ability to communicate complex ideas in a meaningful way and across different audiences)
  • Ability to set priorities, plan timelines and meet deadlines
  • Ability to think creatively, willing to take risks, to experiment with new ideas and to turn ideas into action
  • High ability to collaborate and actively listen to others, understanding and valuing others views
  • Operating style suited to working independently and in a small organization setting, where teamwork and resourcefulness are highly valued

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.

Pre-reads for the application process

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

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