Innovations for Poverty Action is seeking a senior director to lead its Right-Fit Evidence (RFE) advisory unit, following the internal promotion of its founding Senior Director.

Job Position: Senior Director, Right-Fit Evidence Unit

About the Organization

Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) is a research and policy nonprofit that discovers and promotes effective solutions to global poverty problems. IPA brings together researchers and decision-makers to design, rigorously evaluate, and refine these solutions and their applications, ensuring that the evidence created is used to improve the lives of the world’s poor. In recent decades, trillions of dollars have been spent on programs designed to reduce global poverty, but clear evidence on which programs succeed is rare, and when evidence does exist, decision-makers often do not know about it.

IPA exists to bring together leading researchers and these decision-makers to ensure that the evidence we create leads to tangible impact on the world. Since its founding in 2002, IPA has worked with over 600 leading academics to conduct over 900 evaluations in 52 countries. This research has informed hundreds of successful programs that now impact millions of individuals worldwide.

About IPA’s Right-Fit Evidence Unit

Complementing the well-known work of IPA in the production and use of impact evaluations, IPA’s Right-Fit Evidence unit is a data and evidence advisory team working with funders, implementers, and government agencies in the international development sector. The RFE unit helps our clients and partners develop strategies and approaches to optimize their learning from data and evidence at large.

For funders, this may mean setting learning agendas or lean reporting requirements that allow them to build evidence across their portfolios without overburdening their grantees or discouraging experimentation and iteration. For implementing organizations, this may mean collaboratively developing concrete learning goals, identifying gaps within their current MEL systems, and providing technical support to teams to strengthen internal MEL capabilities.

Since its inception in 2017, the RFE Unit has grown to a team of 30 members worldwide and has worked on 50+ advisory engagements. The team is expected to continue to grow its advisory work, but also to expand its influence on the sector by furthering its contribution to the best practices and debates around M&E, learning, and evidence in general, using the lessons learned over the last five years.

About the role:

You will lead a team of 30+ members, and directly oversee 4 directors and associate directors. The role is primarily a leadership and management role. It will involve strategic leadership, oversight of the development and delivery of advisory engagements, as well as being a champion for RFE’s external communication, internal collaboration, and team strengthening.

The position can be based in New York, NY, Washington, DC or any existing IPA Country Office in Africa or Latin America (remote is also possible for the right candidate in a a number of other US states as well as at least France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, and the UK).

Responsibilities

Lead the development, implementation, and adaptation of the strategy of the RFE Unit

• Coordinate regular strategic planning, and provide oversight and accountability for the implementation of the strategy
• Keep abreast of external trends affecting the work of the unit and lead the adaptation of the strategy and priorities of the unit accordingly

Oversee the development and delivery of high-impact advisory engagements

• Oversee and directly contribute to the business development for various RFE engagements (e.g. donor advisory, learning agenda development, MEL system diagnostics, donor advisory, community of practice facilitation, process evaluations, MEL technical assistance to implementers, etc.), including developing and managing relationships with potential clients/funders, contributing to the engagement design, and reviewing technical and financial proposals
• Support teams of RFE consultants in their delivery of those engagements. For most engagements, at the delivery stage the senior director will primarily act as a coach to the director or associate director leading the engagement. That involvement may be more intense for particularly complex and/or strategic engagements.
• Drive continuous improvement of RFE’s service offering towards high-impact advisory services

Drive IPA’s Right-Fit Evidence visibility and sector influence

• Represent the RFE unit – and more broadly IPA – in various fora, with a wide range of stakeholders, and in particular with global funders
• Lead external communication about the work of the unit, and sector-wide influence activities more broadly
• Oversee and take part in the production of Right-Fit Evidence public resources
• Steward a set of critical funder relationships for IPA as a whole

Champion RFE’s collaboration with other IPA teams

• Facilitate RFE’s collaboration with country offices a well as IPA’s policy and sector teams in the development and delivery of cross-cutting engagements, and work towards an integration of principles and approaches developed by RFE in IPA’s work as a whole
• Provide inputs to IPA’s global strategic directions beyond the RFE Unit

Lead RFE team strengthening and operations

• Coordinate and guide RFE’s management team to build an inclusive and impact-oriented culture, and sound processes supporting it
• In collaboration with IPA’s HR team, drive talent acquisition, talent development and employee experience for the RFE Unit
• Manage the finances of the unit

IPA’s Social Protection Program works with governments and other programs working to move households out of extreme poverty by creating economic opportunities for the poor. The Social Protection Program has a growing body of research on identifying and scaling effective social protection programs, including cash transfers and cash plus programs, graduation programs, job training, and youth employment programs.

We have a large and growing body of work focused on resilience and food security activities supported by USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, with multifaceted programs implemented by leading international NGOs designed to improve income and food security for the poor, as well as an important multi-country evaluation of adaptive social protection programming in the Sahel with the World Bank and national safety net programs.

We are seeking a Program Director to lead the work of the Social Protection Program into its next phase: building on and growing a strong body of evidence to help bring effective programs to scale.

The Program Director will lead on strategic planning, development of policy-relevant projects, and building a team to work across IPA offices to carry out large-scale research projects and share findings with key decision-makers. Working with academic advisors, implementers, and policymakers, the Program Director will identify priority evidence gaps in the sector, and coordinate with research teams (including principal investigators at research universities and multilateral institutions), program staff, and IPA country programs to develop projects addressing those evidence gaps in collaboration with project partners. The Program Director will represent the Social Protection Program internally and externally and share evidence with governments, NGOs, and funders at events.

Responsibilities

• Expand the work of the Social Protection Program into strategic policy areas including safety net design and youth employment
• Lead new project development efforts, including engagement with potential partner organizations, in collaboration with Principal Investigators and IPA Country Offices. Raise funds for new projects
• Grow and maintain the Program’s network of researchers, partners, and funders
• Keep abreast of academic literature in social protection and produce high-quality evidence summaries
• Work with team members to produce research and policy outputs relevant to communicate IPA’s work in this space, including articles, reports, website content (project summaries, etc.), and print materials
• Plan and carry out dissemination events, and present results to policy makers
• Oversee grant reporting and manage budgets and donor relationships

Qualifications

• Advanced degree in Economics, Public Policy, social sciences, or a related field
• At least seven years of relevant work experience (three minimum with a Ph.D.) in research and evaluation and/or policy design and implementation in social protection
• Familiarity with quantitative research, impact evaluations and randomized trials, as well as expertise in one or more areas of social protection, including cash transfers, safety nets, graduation and livelihood development programs, and employment programs
• Strategic thinker with strong vision for how to develop and leverage key partnerships to position IPA as a major voice in the sector
• Excellent communication, client management, and presentation skills
• Demonstrated ability to raise funds; experience in proposal writing essential
• Demonstrated project management skills, including budgeting, and ability to manage a team
• Ability to manage high-level relationships with partner organizations, donors, and government officials
• Flexible, self-motivating, able to manage multiple tasks efficiently
• French or Spanish proficiency a plus