Job Opportunity for Engagement Lead at CEEW in New Delhi

Designation offered

Engagement Lead

Reporting to

Fellow and Director, Powering Livelihoods

Team/Focus Area

Energy Transitions (Powering Livelihoods)

Location

New Delhi, India

Purpose

CEEW runs ‘Powering Livelihoods (PL)’, in association with Villgro, catalysing a transformation of India’s rural economy with clean energy solutions. The multi-million dollar initiative provides capital, technical, and sectoral growth support to social impact enterprises deploying clean energy-powered livelihood technologies to enable large-scale commercial deployments.

While Villgro leads the enterprise acceleration under the programme, CEEW leads the sectoral acceleration. Sectoral acceleration includes evidence generation at scale, market research for such solutions, developing insights on financing and business models, and engaging with key stakeholders (investors, financiers, policymakers) to disseminate the evidence and insights, build their confidence and unlock their support. PL has already enabled more than 11,000 technology deployments, supported more than 17,000 livelihoods, and helped increase aggregate annual revenue by 2.7x for the programme enterprises. In short, PL is the sectoral platform to mainstream clean energy for livelihoods.

The programme has recently partnered with State Rural Livelihood Missions (SRLMs) of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to further the objective of the programme and unlock the potential to integrate DRE technologies in all rural productive use applications, especially keeping rural women in focus. PL engagement with SRLMs, focuses on 1) developing and administering a robust information, education, and communication programme for building awareness around DRE-based productive use technologies and 2) providing strategic and technical inputs to them on potential measures to adopt these technologies as part of their livelihood solutions promotion activities including identification of the appropriate locations and conditions/as per the technology, mapping existing intra departmental support available for these technologies, etc. The programme is also expanding the SRLM partnerships to at least four states to impact at least 4,000 livelihoods over a period of the next two years.

In this context, CEEW seeks to hire a dynamic leader for the Powering Livelihoods programme to lead engagements with SRLMs in mainstreaming DRE solutions for Livelihoods, especially for rural women. S/he would be responsible for building, nurturing, and engaging the government partnerships completely. The person will ensure that all the activities and objectives planned are implemented in a timely manner through active liaising with SRLMs to realize the programme’s mission. The person will also take the lead on the research activities pertaining to the SRLM partnerships and qualitatively and quantitatively evaluate and document the impact of the on-ground activities of the programme.

As a Programme Lead – Government Partnerships, the selected candidate will also be the focal point from PL to engage with central ministries and government agencies in mainstreaming DRE solutions for Livelihoods.

Key Responsibilities

Outreach and stakeholder management

• Leading PL’s engagement with SRLMs and other relevant departments/ministries at the central and state levels.
• Forging strong relationships and associations with the relevant central and state departments and civil society stakeholders.
• Building awareness around Powering Livelihoods objectives and other related work programmes of CEEW in the concerned SRLMs.
• Represent PL and CEEW in meetings with policymakers and other stakeholders both at the center and the state level
• Unlock new government engagement opportunities for the PL and CEEW teams.

Research, analysis and evidence

• Using information from recent scientific assessments, primary research and insights from stakeholder consultations to develop a time-bound implementation plan for the adoption and promotion of DRE-powered livelihood solutions.
• Putting in place a robust project management plan to track progress on the agreed actions between different government stakeholders.
• Support the team in evidence generation regarding the impact of the SRLM partnerships. Such as impact on incomes, new livelihoods created, active repayment of loans, servicing of debt, business sustainability, marketing and sales success, etc at the end-user level.
• Support the team on research design, data collection tools and data analysis for insights generation with regard to SRLM partnerships.
• Take the lead on the data collection for need assessment, technology mapping, impact assessment, monitoring and evaluation, etc. for SRLM engagements.
• Collect and document field observations, learnings and recommendations on how to make these partnerships more impactful for all the stakeholders involved.
• Engage with policymakers to disseminate the evidence and unlock support for the sector.
• Prepare concept notes and proposals for inclusion of DRE solutions for livelihoods across various ministries at both central and state levels.
• Developing policy notes/memos/presentations in response to government requests and to unlock government support for the sector.

Partnerships and Programme management

• Build new partnerships and manage existing partnerships including with government departments at the national and sub-national level
• Lead partnerships with the state departments and various central ministries.
• Ensure proactive and regular communication with partners managing expectations and building mutual trust while ensuring transparency.
• Assist in the design of SRLM-specific plans for the promotion of DRE livelihood solutions, in particular co-develop and co-draft proposals with government counterparts.
• Providing technical and administrative support to SRLMs in identifying and implementing appropriate business strategies.
• Ensure the timelines and the commitment under the SRLM partnerships are met on a regular basis.
• Keep a tab on the policy, and technological developments in the clean energy for livelihoods sector within India and Global South.
• Further, CEEW’s public profile while representing CEEW in government meetings.

Management and Leadership

• Take complete ownership of the government engagements.
• Manage and mentor the entire programme team on SRLM partnerships and government engagements
• Lead the team members working on SRLM partnerships at the state level.

Selection Criteria

Qualifications

• Master’s degree with a specialisation in Public Policy, Development Studies, Renewable Energy, Rural Development, Livelihoods, or a related field.
• Understanding relevant ministries and departments and their scheme promoting livelihood and microenterprises in India is desired

Professional Experience

• At least 6-8 years of relevant work experience in the field of government engagements and SRLM partnerships, preferably in the livelihoods and renewable energy domain.
• Should have prior experience in stakeholder engagement, particularly with government agencies at the national and sub-national level
• Candidates with prior experience working on the implementation of government programmes/schemes will be preferred
• Experience in large-scale development project implementation at the central or state level
• Experience in and understanding of the rural economy, livelihoods and value chains, and MSMEs

Main skills

• Strong business acumen, ability to understand key business metrics
• Strong interpersonal skills; ability to engage with senior officials
• Strong oral communication skills with an interest in public speaking
• Good writing skills with the ability to opinion pieces, policy briefs, and reports
• Interest and ability to lead teams, empathise with younger researchers and guide them
• Strong project management skills
• Good understanding of public policy and governance of environmental and development issues

Personality

• Entrepreneurial. Ambitious. Curious. Proactive. Leader. Comfortable with uncertainty.
• Ability to adapt to a new environment and deliver under tight deadlines in a professional environment
• Patience and perseverance for building relationships with new partners and opening doors
• Striving for rigor in research and quality in work output
• Ability to work in an interdisciplinary and multicultural environment

CEEW operates in a dynamic environment, and the candidate will be required to show flexibility in undertaking a variety of tasks.

Compensation

Competitive compensation – commensurate to the experience and matching the best of standards adopted by the industry or other similar organizations for similar roles.

Application Process

CEEW is an equal-opportunity employer and the selection process does not discriminate on the basis of age, gender, caste, ethnicity, religion, or sexuality. Female candidates are encouraged to apply.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Interested applicants are advised to apply at the earliest possible.

Only shortlisted candidates will be notified by us. We appreciate your interest.