Research and Policy Coordinator at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)

Job Description

• Work closely with IPA’s policy team to identify government stakeholders’ policy priorities;
• Work in close coordination with government and operational partners to design strategies key to project scale-ups;
• Coordinate with IPA Ghana’s research team to ensure that research findings are properly incorporated into scale-up strategies; and
• Work closely with IPA Ghana’s Right-Fit Evidence (RFE) Manager to ensure that scale-up strategies include strong and relevant monitoring systems.
• Ensure that lessons about implementation design are collected, synthesized, utilized, and communicated effectively;
• Provide technical support to relevant stakeholders to develop detailed workplans, regularly assess performance, and make course corrections as necessary to keep scale-up efforts on schedule;
• Provide input and support in the development of program materials such as program documents (policy framework, scale-up concept notes, Monitoring and & Evaluation tools);
• Represent IPA Ghana in meetings and communication with relevant stakeholders;
• Develop high-quality program reports as required;
• Conduct detailed literature reviews of robust IPA and J-PAL studies that could potentially address policy needs in Ghana and may be relevant to test here;
• Work in close coordination with government and operational partners to select and adapt programs for replication in Ghana;
• Coordinate with IPA’s research teams to ensure that replication research design is grounded in academic findings;
• Pro-actively reach out to interested academics to lead replication studies in Ghana; and
• Work closely with the IPA Ghana Project Development team to identify potential funding opportunities and implementing partners for replication studies.

Requirement/Skills

• Master’s degree in international public policy, education, social science, or related fields.
• 3-5 years of relevant work experience
• Demonstrated leadership experience;
• Highly proficient in complex work planning and project management;
• Strong critical thinking and judgment to quickly identify problems and devise solutions as well as escalate matters as needed;
• Skilled at building relationships with senior leaders and government officials and presenting technical opinions in an objective manner;
• Ability to work independently and pro-actively with minimum oversight;
• Proven ability to handle multiple diverse assignments at one time successfully complete assigned tasks and meet deadlines while conducting high-quality work;
• Experience working in the education sector of a developing country, ideally in close interaction with government stakeholders
• Ability to present information in a structured and insightful way, both in writing and orally
• Passion for making data-driven decision a reality in the development sector
• Good understanding of the education literature and education programs;
• Experience in quantitative and qualitative data collection, management and analysis;
• Experience in Ghana’s education sector;
• Experience writing research proposals and fundraising