Senior Associate – West Bengal

Senior Associate – West Bengal

Swaniti Initiative | September 5, 2022 | The Swaniti Blog

Position: Senior Associate

Location: A district of West Bengal

Nature of Position: Implementation and Research

Reporting To: Project Manager

Remuneration: Commensurate with market standard and relevant experience

Overview of the project: 

The project is focused towards the identification of the availability and extent of accessibility of tea workers to government welfare schemes and other entitlements in the state of West Bengal. This will require an assessment of the current state of access and mapping bottlenecks in the delivery of public services under various schemes. The project requires extensive surveying and interviewing of beneficiaries to recognize limitations and opportunities. Following the assessment study, the team will map out a set of actionable recommendations and collaborate with state and district administration to strengthen systems and processes. The capacity-building exercises will be undertaken for a tractable public program delivery mechanism by identifying interventions suited for the local context. The larger vision of the program is to establish a strong bottom-up policy formulation and implementation framework that can be scaled across the State for a larger impact.

Job Summary: 

Swaniti Initiative is looking for an enthusiastic, curious, empathetic, and action-oriented professional, who is eager to contribute to the government system by providing inputs on the basis of extensive primary and secondary research, inter-governmental department liasoning, help implement locally suited interventions that contribute towards improving enrollment and access of social protection schemes for tea garden workers of West Bengal. The work will be centered around a primary survey, need assessment, situation analysis, data analysis, brainstorming with relevant stakeholders, collaborating with the local bodies, and allied departments of the Government of West Bengal. The associate may get an opportunity to make focused interventions in the government systems. The team member will be a resource person to several departments of the government and will report directly to the Project Manager of Swaniti Initiative. The position provides a tremendous opportunity to get exposure to multiple domains while working with the allied departments of the government.

Roles and Responsibilities: 

  • Conduct extensive field surveys, stakeholder interviews/consultations, beneficiary interviews, and meetings with officials of government and non-government organizations.
  • Data analysis, visualization, and summary report generation
  • Mediate and liaison with multiple government departments and officials for paperwork, communication, and coordination, during and after implementation of recommendations ● Conducting and moderating FGDs to assist in baseline surveys
  • Act as a catalyst for the departments of the state government or between non-government agencies ● Create insight papers, reports, or presentations for communication with various internal and external stakeholders
  • Contribute in all the initiatives of the team, as may be requested, in a constructive manner

Eligibility Criteria: 

  • Masters in subjects like Rural Management, Development Studies, Economics, Regulatory Governance, Public Policy, Rural Development/Statistics, etc.
  • Minimum two years of work experience is required. Preference will be given to professionals having work experience with the government
  • Excellent communication skills and writing abilities (in English) to draft policy memos, proposals, and project reports, etc.
  • Prior experience of working with tea garden workers (can be previously involved in primary research or secondary research. Primary research preferred)
  • Prior experience with any field surveys in rural areas
  • Ability to communicate in Hindi, Nepali will be preferred

Skills and aptitude required: 

  • Data management and analysis skills
  • Demonstrated ability to work in teams
  • Knowledge of any quantitative and qualitative software (Stata, Qualtrics, etc) preferred ● Knowledge of MIS preferred
  • Medium to advanced knowledge of Excel (Vlookup, Pivot table, other functions, etc) preferred ● Critical thinking ability
  • Problem Solving skills
  • Documentation skills
  • Presentation skills

Engagement Type: Full time 

Joining date: Immediately