Job Openings at Busara Center

About the role:

• The Senior Associate supports both the advisory and research arms of Busara by leading the execution of Busara projects.
• As the primary project manager and technical lead for all external Busara projects, a Senior Associate quickly gains an expert understanding of the project, challenges, relationships, and research questions and uses best practices and tools, both within and outside Busara to execute to the highest degree, with careful consideration of timelines and budget.  They view research problems with a behavioural lens and have good intuition about potential barriers and levers, while drawing on problem-specific and general behavioral science knowledge.
• The Senior Associate works directly with clients and partners and takes ownership of the overall project and its end products. 
• The Senior Associate directly manages and effectively coordinates other project staff that work on their project as well as liaise with other Busara teams. This includes strong upward management skills to engage the Project Division’s vice presidents on substantive components of the project.
• The Senior Associate works closely with Busara leaders  and  directly with  researchers, clients and partners  to perform a variety of tasks including, but not limited to:

Research Design and Execution:

• Design high-quality qualitative, quantitative and experimental research, which takes into account key sampling, instrument, research integrity and ethics, analysis and interventions considerations on a variety of internal and external projects.
• Incorporate behavioral science into research projects. 
• Leads the design and the iteration of prototypes.
• Execute the core project responsibilities with the highest degree with respect to creativity, rigor, relevance, detail, and timeliness.

Project Oversight and Leadership:

• Maintain an understanding of the high-level engagement, the goals of the clients, partners, and teams within Busara, and continually push the project teams to realign around those goals.
• Manage the most sensitive or complex projects, typically of medium to large-scale research and advisory projects, end to end, with minimal supervision or support.
• Engage the leadership team and align on substantive components of the project
• Lead or support Associates and Analysts to fulfill engagement requirements.
• Develop and manage execution of project plans, budgets, work plans, and task schedules.
• Manage resources, financials, and adhere to the project plan throughout the full project life cycle.
• Monitor, track, and control outcomes to resolve issues, dependencies, and critical path deliverables.
• Manage project kick-off, on-boarding, and off-boarding for knowledge management.
• Responsible for project timelines, deliverables, reports, and staffing.
• Participate in field work for assigned projects as may be required. 
• Monitor and review project team performance.

External Relationship Management:

• Manage higher-level conversations and partnerships with clients and partners.
• Plan, manage and execute external and internal engagements from start to finish with minimal supervisory engagement.
• Serve as a point of contact for clients and partners and effectively manage the needs of stakeholders through proactive communication and troubleshooting.
• Identify opportunities to deepen engagement with clients and partners. 
• Present at conferences, networking events, and client meetings.

People Management and Organizational Engagement:

• Ensure the engagement of direct and indirect reports by driving the development and nurture of Busara’s culture and values and oversee efforts related to their well-being
• Contribute to skills-building for projects’ teams and other teams as required.
• Manage performance and serve as mentors to Associates, Analysts, and Project team members, as required.
• Serve as champions for the projects team, manage the team and bring forward all relevant and actionable requests to the leadership team.
• Maintain team morale and organizational alignment
• Coordinate hiring and onboarding of Analysts, Interns, and new Associates as needed.
• Coordinate across teams to ensure healthy work relationships are maintained.  Mediate and escalate (to supervisors, people or wellness teams) any issues that require attention.
• Communicate across organizational teams to ensure a healthy and functioning organization.
• Contribute to the design, execution, and dissemination of Busara internal research projects and initiatives
• Perform any other duty as may be assigned by the Engagement Director or equivalent.

Knowledge, Skills, and Experience: Minimum Requirements

• A Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Social Sciences, Public Policy, or related fields. 
• Strong qualitative, quantitative, research, and data analytic skills.
• Proficient project management skills.
• Minimum of 5 years’ work experience in the global south, with at least 3 years in project and team management in a related field. 
• Strong academic behavioral science background.
• Extensive experience managing large-scale projects in developing countries.
• Demonstrated ability to manage high-level relationships with partner organizations.
• Excellent management and organizational skills.
• Flexible, self-motivating, able to manage multiple tasks efficiently, and a team player.
• Interest and experience working in a fast-paced working environment.
• Fluency and excellent communication and writing skills with a mastery of English.
• Ability to execute projects while sustaining a global focus and vision for institutional planning and decision making.
• Ability, interest, and willingness to travel to all project locations as assigned which may include in-country, regional, and international locations in the Global South. 

Desired Qualifications:

• A Master’s degree in Economics, Social Sciences, Public Policy, or related fields is strongly preferred.
• Experience managing or mentoring staff.
• Technical understanding and practical experience of randomized controlled trials and/or quasi-experimental designs
• Technical understanding and practical experience of qualitative research techniques.
• Experience in applying behavioral science to real-world problems.
• Proficiency in Stata, R, or Python

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CORE PROJECT RESPONSIBILITIES:

Analysts will work closely with project leads to perform a variety of tasks including, but not limited to:

• Identify, troubleshoot, and resolve inquiries on external and internal research data and act as a research resource person for senior leadership, internal teams, staff, and external parties.
• Work closely, when necessary, with other team members to source, clean, and structure data.
• Support the design of effective quantitative and qualitative survey instruments and coordinate all activities associated with survey development including research, formatting, liaising with survey programming teams, analyzing, summarizing, and presenting results; write reports highlighting key findings and present results.
• Support the design and implementation of capacity strengthening initiatives with targeted stakeholder groups. The support will include: analyzing needs assessment and feedback surveys, organizing virtual and in-person learning events on pre-determined, supporting partner engagements and attending external events.
• Support Associates/Senior Associates in preparing materials such as, but not limited to, training materials, drafts of client reports, experimental designs, literature reviews, proposals, and pitch decks.
• Coordinate external stakeholder engagement using various appropriate channels including but not limited to; written outputs, webinars, in-person events and virtual learning sessions.
• Support multiple large-scale research and advisory projects at a given time as may be required.
• Clarify research requests to identify potential data sources and informational resources; identify, and discuss research needs with Associates and Engagement Directors.
• Carry out general logistics planning for project activities as it relates to content outcomes such as phasing of field activities, coordinating meetings, etc.  Work closely with the Project Operations team and the project team to plan logistics for field operations, knowledge dissemination, capacity strengthening, data collection, and data quality assurance.  
• Participate in field work for assigned projects as may be required. 
• Ensure that all project coordination work is communicated with the relevant teams at Busara to ensure proper roll-out of the engagement.  This includes, but is not limited to, finance, procurement, operations, facilities, and wellness.
• Perform any other duty as may be assigned by the project supervisor.

Knowledge, Skills, and Experience; Minimum Requirements

• A Bachelor’s degree in Public Policy, Economics, Social Sciences, or related fields.
• Experience and interest in working on topics of social cohesion (e.g., identity, trust, governance, conflict resolution, civic engagement etc.)
• Experience in client and partner relationship management
• Experience in developing and disseminating learning materials 
• Understanding of key issues affecting social cohesion in the East African region.  
• High level of self-motivation and energy, an optimistic “can-do” attitude.
• Strong analytical, interpersonal, and communication skills. 
• Qualitative and quantitative research or data analytic skills preferred.
• Excellent organizational skills.
• Flexible, self-motivating, able to manage multiple tasks efficiently, and a team player.
• Interest and experience working in a fast-paced working environment.
• Fluency and excellent communication and writing skills with a mastery of English and (if applicable) at least one other appropriate language for the office in which they will be based.
• Extreme attention to detail while sustaining a global focus and vision for institutional planning and decision making.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team. 
• Ability, interest and willingness to travel to all project locations as assigned which may include in-country, regional and international locations in the Global South. 

Desired Qualifications

• Familiarity with randomized controlled trials preferred.
• Familiarity with behavioral science.
• Familiarity with client and partner relationship management
• Familiarity with developing learning materials and facilitating learning sessions 
• Familiarity with R, STATA, Python, SAS, and/or other programming languages 
• Exposure to large-scale research and consulting projects in countries in which Busara has an office.