Research Associate at Laterite

Job description

Are you passionate about rigorous development research and helping organizations use evidence to make decisions? If so, Laterite's Research Associate role is a perfect opportunity to hone your leadership and technical skills, working at the intersection of impactful research and large-scale programming across Africa. You will be embedded within a dynamic, multi-disciplinary team working to move the needle on gender and nutrition outcomes in Africa.

Key Responsibilities

• The Research Associate, with support from the Laterite team, will lead the working level e engagement with all project stakeholders across multiple countries from a ME&L perspective.
• Lead the delivery of an Embedded Research Advisory service. You will build the trust of the partner organizations and help the program learn about what is working and why.
• You will champion an open and inquisitive culture. You will be the go-to person for all the ME&L activities - ensuring clear communication and that work is completed on time.
• Collaborate with leading academics, private sector experts and government officials. You will build trust, encourage smooth collaboration and get the best out of their expertise.
• Deliver timely and high-quality research. You will be involved in a wide variety of research activities to build a rigorous body of evidence from literature reviews, quasi-experimental studies to experimental impact evaluations.
• You will contribute to all steps of such studies, including research design, sampling strategy, instrument development and testing, data collection quality assurance, data cleaning, technical analysis, and generating final client deliverables.
• Project Management & Coordination
  • Develop and manage tasks and timelines and report to senior management on progress, issues, and potential causes of delay
  • Convene internal team meetings with Laterite and relevant stakeholders to review and coordinate the implementation of ME&L activities
  • Meet one-on-one with clients to supervise activities or gather insights from the implementation process and share findings with the team
  • Provide administrative support, as needed, to the management team – including financial, budgetary, HR and related tasks
• Technical
  • Synthesize information from existing evidence, secondary data and government policies
  • Provide technical support to strengthen client's internal M&E systems and capabilities
  • Contribute to all steps of monitoring and evaluation activities, from research design to final analysis and write-ups of quantitative and qualitative research
  • Supervise data collection and implement a variety of quality checks to ensure that the highest data quality standards are met
  • Document tools, processes and best practices to facilitate the accumulation and dissemination of ME&L knowledge
  • Draft reports and project deliverables to communicate findings. Contribute to writing policy briefs, reports, blog posts, and academic articles

Does this sound like you?

• Strong attention to detail, ability to manage multiple tasks efficiently, and a motivated self-starter who will thrive in a start-up environment by taking ownership and initiative
• Strong statistical skills and knowledge of related tools/software (STATA, R or Python)
• Experience working with at least one ODK-based platform (like SurveyCTO, ODK, CommCare, etc.)
• At least 3 years of experience working on development projects, impact evaluations or other research studies - especially ones related to agriculture, gender or nutrition
• Master’s degree in Economics, Statistics, Public Policy, International Development, Engineering or a related field
• Strong oral and written communication skills in English; Swahili is a plus
• Experience living and working in diverse cultural settings; time spent in sub-Sahara Africa or other developing countries strongly preferred
• Knowledge of program and impact evaluation methodologies, including experimental and quasi-experimental designs