Senior Associate

Position: Senior Program Associate
Reporting to: Senior Program Manager
Location: New Delhi
Experience: 3 - 5 years
About CEGIS:
Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS – pronounced See-Jis) aims to improve lives by helping Indian state governments deliver better development outcomes. We work with the State Governments of India to enable a transformative improvement in the functioning of the Indian state in the coming decade. Informed by cutting-edge research and evidence as well as a practical orientation toward implementable ideas, CEGIS aims to provide Indian states with both an analytical roadmap for governance and expenditure reforms as well as strategic implementation support to deliver on this vision.
The organisation has a sharp focus on improving the quality of public expenditure, personnel and data and through it, develops templates for achieving a step-function improvement in development outcomes across India. We strive to produce high-quality economic analysis to inform state-level policy-making and work closely with top bureaucratic leadership in states. CEGIS possesses world-leading technical expertise across teams and a deep understanding of service delivery in India. Today, CEGIS works across 6 Indian states and 15+ projects across 6 sectors - Education, Nutrition, Local Governance and other sectors.
About Personnel Management Vertical
In a bid to enhance the effectiveness of government work in India, CEGIS' Personnel Management team is pioneering a competency-driven approach to Capacity Building. This shift addresses a significant challenge wherein the existing system tends to prioritise strict adherence to rules linked to specific offices rather than focusing on attaining the desired outcomes. While this can limit the autonomy of frontline staff and managers, potentially hindering accountability for results, the innovative approach actively seeks to empower individuals and cultivate a results-oriented culture. This approach ensures the establishment of a more impactful and accountable government framework.
The competency-driven approach focuses on the skills, knowledge, and attitudes required for specific government roles. By prioritising these competencies, CEGIS aims to bring clarity to the work done by officials and empower them to achieve better results. This translates to a shift in accountability – from simply following processes to delivering tangible outcomes.
The Personnel Management team achieves this through three key workstreams.
Competency-Based Recruitment: Ensuring that the right people are selected for the job, bringing the necessary skills on board from the outset.
Competency-Based Capacity Building (Learning & Development): Equipping government officials with the ongoing training and development they need to excel in their roles.
Revamped Performance Management System: Evaluating and improving individual and team performance based on achieving defined goals, not just by adherence to procedures.
Through these efforts, the Personnel Management team strives to bring a new level of clarity and effectiveness to government work in India. By empowering staff with the right skills and holding them accountable for achieving desired outcomes, CEGIS is paving the way for a more efficient and impactful government service.
Position Summary:
We are seeking an experienced person for our Personnel Management vertical, to lead our efforts related to designing, developing and implementing solutions that contribute to bridging the competency gaps of public officials we are working with. The ideal candidate will possess a strong understanding of assessments and evaluation of the Competencies. He/She should be able to assist in scoping and planning the development of Instrument design and framework for assessments. The ideal candidate must possess good data analytics skills to analyze and interpret assessment data and correlate assessment scores through different statistical tools to relate this in the curation of learning solutions based on competency gaps. The candidate is expected to have a proven track record in managing stakeholders.
Key Responsibilities:
Deliver a range of tasks related to the framework and design of assessments to identify competency-based capacity-building gaps.
Coordinate with specific government departments to plan and support competency-based assessment
Collect data and research on different evaluation processes used globally.
Assist project leaders in identifying instruments, plan dependencies and constraints for plan operationalization.
Partners with other groups to ensure compatibility between processes and/or systems.
Developing new experimentation service capabilities and interfaces.
Analyze the assessment-related data using statistical methods to draw insights and conclusions.
Interpreting the assessment data analysis and presenting it to project leads, government stakeholders, etc
Support relationships with all stakeholders by creating periodic updates through
documents, presentations, etc.
Create high-quality presentations and other collateral as required.
Support with establishing partnership with assessment designers/partners
Required Qualifications, Skills, and Abilities:
Master’s degree or equivalent in Public Policy, Education, Psychology, Management, Social Science, Human Resources, Behavioral Science or related fields.
Prior capacity building and/or institutional strengthening experience in the development sector, preferably with governments.
Demonstrated experience in measuring and evaluating public sector performance, competency mapping, training needs/gap assessment, e-learning and other relevant organisational development practices, and processes.
Project/ program management or implementation roles with governments, multi-laterals, and international development institutions.
Strong understanding of content methodologies used by various large-scale e-learning platforms.
Behavioral Requirements:
The candidate is expected to,
Embrace an open, diverse and positive work environment, bringing energy and enthusiasm to the team.
Be proactive and self-motivated, with the ability to independently manage multiple tasks and prioritize effectively, with an ability to adapt to a fast-paced and dynamic work environment.
Work closely with multiple teams at horizontal and vertical levels in a result-oriented environment.
Note
Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy and social sector pay scales and will depend on the candidate’s experience levels.
Pre-reads for the application process
Please go through the following materials before sending in your application.
CEGIS website
CLOP Initiative website
Karmayogi Bharat website
Concept note on CEGIS
Podcast episodes with Prof. Karthik Muralidharan – one each on education and healthcare in India.
You are also encouraged to read more of Prof. Karthik Muralidharan’s work here .

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