Fellowship Opportunity – CEEW Young Professionals Programme at CEEW in Lucknow

Designation Offered: 

Young Professional

Reporting to: 

Programme Associate/Programme Lead – Powering Livelihoods

Duration:

One year with a possibility to convert into a full-time job offer at CEEW

Team:

Powering Livelihoods

Location: 

Allotted district headquarters in Uttar Pradesh (UP) 

Purpose

CEEW Young Professionals programme equips young early-career aspirants with the skills and experience of action-research to further public policy and its implementation. Launching for the first time as a part of the CEEW-Villgro Powering Livelihoods initiative, the programme will provide a first-hand opportunity to be exposed to the inner functioning of the government institutions, policy drafting and advocacy, promoting large-scale sustainable technology adoption and supporting state rural livelihood generation programmes. 

Powering Livelihoods is a joint initiative between CEEW and Villgro that works to catalyse the transformation of India’s rural economy with clean energy solutions. It works with enterprises, financiers, investors, state governments and distribution channel partners to develop and mainstream the ecosystem for clean energy-powered livelihood solutions with an explicit gender lens integration.

Powering Livelihoods has recently partnered with Uttar Pradesh State Rural Livelihoods Mission (UPSRLM)  to mainstream Decentralised Renewable Energy (DRE) technologies in all rural productive use applications, with gender-inclusion at its core. Our engagement with UPSRLM especially focuses on 1) Developing and administering a robust information, education and communication (IEC) programme for building capacity and awareness around DRE technologies and 2) Providing strategic and technical inputs to UPSRLM to mainstream these technologies, such as  demand mapping, sales and marketing strategy, supply chain management, etc.

Selected YPPs would critically contribute to operationalise this partnership and lead key district-level engagements. YPPs will be ensuring that all the activities and objectives planned are implemented in a timely manner in their allocated region and actively liaison with these different stakeholders to advocate for the programme vision. YPPs will also lead the research activities pertaining to their allocated region including qualitative and quantitative evaluations and documentation of the on-ground impact.

The fellowship will act as a perfect springboard towards a career in the development sector. YPPs would also receive mentoring support on an on-going basis. 

Key Responsibilities 

Research and analysis 

• Support the team in developing a time-bound district level (building up to state level) implementation plan for the adoption and promotion of DRE-powered livelihood solutions.
• Support the team in developing a robust monitoring and evaluation system, KYC Collection and MIS system for this partnership and overall Prerna Ojas company’s growth.
• Support the team on research design, data collection tools and data analysis for insights generation
• Taking a lead on the data collection in the allotted regions for need assessment, technology mapping, impact assessment, monitoring and evaluation etc.
• Identifying relevant use cases, business potential and case study stories of DRE livelihood appliances with a focus on impact on incomes, new livelihoods created, active repayment of loans, business sustainability, marketing and sales success etc.
• Collecting and documenting field observations, learnings and recommendations on how to make this partnership more impactful for all the stakeholders involved (UPSRLM, PL, Prerna Ojas, End users, Civil Society, Financiers etc).
• Keep a tab on the sectoral development, new findings, research pieces etc in the DRE livelihood space and plug it into the work we do. 

Programme Management 

• Support the team in managing the progress, challenges and new opportunities in the state on a proactive basis.
• Ensure proactive communication, and transparency, and manage expectations of key local stakeholders including partners, enterprises, policymakers, and ecosystem stakeholders. 
• Lead the district-level engagement with the UPSRLM team, Prerna Ojas team and PL-supported enterprise partners ensuring that DRE livelihood technologies are being sufficiently deployed in the target region.
• Ensure the timelines and the commitment under the partnership with UPSRLM and Prerna Ojas are met on a regular basis.
• Providing technical and administrative support to UPSRLM, Prerna Ojas in designing, identifying and implementing appropriate strategies required to meet the goals and overall objective of our partnership
• Support Powering Livelihood DRE Enterprises in mitigating the challenges they face in reaching, converting, delivering to and servicing end customers in the region.
• Leverage the on-ground presence to deepen CEEW’s engagement across other work programmes at CEEW.  

Outreach and stakeholder management

• Supporting the CEEW’s Powering Livelihoods team’s engagement with the UPSRLM, Prerna Ojas, UPNEDA and other relevant departments at the district and state levels.
• Forging strong relationships and associations with the relevant district heads of the state departments and civil society stakeholders.
• Building awareness around Powering Livelihoods objectives and other related work programmes of CEEW in their allocated region.
• Organising public and closed-door stakeholder meetings and consultations to facilitate improved coordination between government and civil society stakeholders.
• Unlock new engagement opportunities for the CEEW team.
• Connecting the dots between CEEW’s research and policy developments with the work happening in the state and disseminating their findings in appropriate settings.
• Developing policy notes/memos/presentations in response to government requests.
• Present relevant research in a coherent manner that can be understood by a wide range of audiences.

Selection Criteria

Education

• Bachelors or a Master’s degree preferably with a specialisation in Public Policy, Renewable Energy, Rural Development, Livelihoods or related field.
• Exposure to productive use of energy, rural development (women beneficiaries), and gender lens is a plus.
• Understanding relevant state departments and their scheme promoting livelihood and microenterprises is desirable

Work experience

• 0-2 years of relevant work experience in the field of programme implementation and project management, preferably in the livelihoods and renewable energy domain.
• Candidates with prior experience in working on the implementation of government programmes/schemes will be preferred
• Some research experience preferably in the energy access/livelihood domain will be preferred. 

Key skills and personality traits

• Coherent thinking with excellent communication and presentation skills
• Good writing skills; YPs are expected to write public pieces regularly
• Strong networking and interpersonal skills with an ability to strike conversations.
• Strong project management skills
• Ability to use MS Office application suite including MS Excel
• Strong analytical and research skills
• Ability to adapt to the new environment and deliver under tight deadlines
• Patience and perseverance for building relationships with new partners
• Ability to effectively work in a team while being able to independently drive deliverables with minimum assistance
• Ability to dig deeper into details, while keeping a sense of the broader objectives
• Willingness to learn, grow and develop on the personal and professional front, at a rapid pace with a steep learning curve

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

Compensation and benefits 

CEEW offers competitive compensation commensurate with the experience and matches the best standards adopted by industry or other similar organisations for similar roles. For the YP’s programme, there is a fixed limit of INR 40,000/month. 

CEEW Mentorship, especially for the Young Professionals Programme: The selected YPs will have  assigned mentors from the senior team members at CEEW.  Mentors will provide advice on various topics ranging from research and project management skills to identifying career opportunities throughout the YP experience. 

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. We will review applications on a rolling basis, so we advise interested applicants to apply at the earliest possible. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. We appreciate your interest.