Program Manager, Behavioural Insights Unit
(BIU), Bihar

Overview of CSBC
The Centre for Social and Behaviour Change (CSBC), Ashoka University - India’s leading liberal arts University – is funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). The vision of CSBC is to establish an institution, based out of India that is globally reputed for thought leadership and excellence in impactful behaviour change interventions for low-income and marginalised populations. The Centre is focused on bringing new capabilities such as behavioural science, design thinking, advanced data analytics, and responsive feedback to governments, practitioners, and donors to help better design and optimise behaviour change interventions. We work closely with Central and State Governments as well as other stakeholders in the areas of nutrition, sanitation, financial inclusion, maternal and newborn care, data privacy, and agriculture.
Overview of Role

The Behavioural Design & Impact vertical at CSBC is responsible for:

• Establishing a Behavioural Insight Unit network in India, both at the Central and State Government levels.
• Providing Strategic Support and Technical Assistance to improve policy outcomes by generating behavioural solutions across sectors of health, nutrition, education, sanitation, financial inclusion, etc.
• Empirical consulting, for both the government and the private sector, in applying behavioural science.

The Programme Manager would be responsible for leading the establishment of the first-ever Behavioural Insights Unit within the State Government of Bihar to strengthen policy outcomes through the application of behavioural insights across key sectors such as health and nutrition, education, agriculture, water and sanitation, and financial inclusion.

The role would provide comprehensive experience, going from big picture policy challenges to providing specific evidence-led behavioural solutions for strengthening policy outcomes. It would provide an opportunity to work with senior bureaucrats to institutionalise the use of behavioural insights in policy design to drive the long-term success of policy outcomes.
We are seeking a highly entrepreneurial person who has strong strategic thinking and problem-solving capabilities. S/he must be able to function independently and flexibly, solving problems as they arise and should be comfortable juggling multiple competing objectives.

Responsibilities

The Programme Manager would be responsible for overseeing the following deliverables of the State BIU team:

Capacity Building: Provide support and training on behavioural science to identified officials, enabling them to use behavioural insights in their day-to-day work and programmes and apply them to policy priorities. This would be done through:

• Co-executing projects with officials to help them understand and learn the application of behavioural insights.
• Developing and executing a training curriculum that focuses on core technical and behavioural science principles and their applications in the field.

Advisory Services: Provide rapid advisory services to states/districts on the integration of behaviour change components into ongoing programmes.

• Working with the government authorities and bringing in a behavioural lens to solve any specific problems rapidly and responsively.
• Overseeing the conduction of literature reviews and quick gap-filling research through field interviews, as well as through working with experts in the identified sectors.

Generating Behavioural Solutions: Working closely with the CSBC empirics team to run pilot projects to generate behavioural solutions to solve policy challenges.
Working closely with senior officials to identify and align on policy challenges to prioritise. Working with the empirics team to complete the full behaviour change process of diagnosing, designing, and testing solutions.

The Programme Manager would also be responsible for:

• Ensuring timely delivery of high-quality project outputs as per project requirements.
• Overseeing budgets, financial management, grant reporting and contracting requirements related to projects.
• Ensuring strong knowledge management processes of the projects.
• Building strong relations with senior government and partner institutions.
• Supporting and mentoring programme associates for their capacity building and professional growth.

Provide organisational support:

• Bringing innovation and creativity to project approach and processes.
• Ideating and innovating on the application of behavioural insights for addressing policy challenges and for contributing to larger behavioural literature.
• Supporting other organisational growth and needs as required.

Skills Required

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in economics, social sciences, public policy, sociology or related fields.
• A minimum of 4-6 years of work experience in an analytical, consulting or policy role.
• Previous experience in overseeing or leading end-to-end project delivery and of managing 2-3 associates/analysts. Previous experience in working with senior government officials, advocacy and influencing policy decisions.
• Strong understanding of the Indian policy landscape.
• Deep understanding of experimental research, data-driven decision making and behaviour science.
• Ability to manage and respond to varied tasks quickly and efficiently.
• Strong interpersonal and communications skills to be able to develop strong project documents and briefs.
• Self-directed/self-motivating personality, with proven ability to manage multiple work demands. Strong critical and analytical thinking skills.
• Quick to learn, motivated to self-teach and capable of independently translating new knowledge into practice.
• Ability to give and receive constructive feedback.
• Ability to deal with unstructured and changing environments.
• Willingness to travel and stay for an elongated period in field settings (based on existing circumstances).
• Fluency in English and Hindi (Required).

Venue and Days of Work

This role is based in India. Hence, the candidate should have work authorisation in India (preferably Indian citizenship or Overseas Citizenship of India). The role is based in Patna, Bihar.
Though, due to the COVID-19 situation, CSBC has switched to a work-from-home model of operations. Given these circumstances, the role would be on-boarded and executed remotely. The person would need to have their own laptop and access to a functioning internet connection. They would need to be available through regular working calls to virtually join team discussions and to support project requests. But based on the evolving COVID-19 situation, candidates could be asked to come into the office.

Send your application to csbc@ashoka.edu.in

Please mention the position title (Associate, BIU NITI/AV) in the subject line of the email.
Please include your resume and a cover letter highlighting your experience.