Job Opportunity for Associate – Monitoring Evaluation & Learning at Samhita in Kolkata

About Samhita :

Samhita is a CSR consulting firm that collaborates with companies across India to develop impactful social initiatives. We shape strategies, design programs, facilitate implementation, and assess the impact of sector projects. Samhita also works with international and domestic donor agencies and foundations like The Rockefeller Foundation, Tata Trusts, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and International Finance Corporation to bring multiple stakeholders together to address critical social issues collectively and on a large scale.

Since its establishment, Samhita has created an impact on multiple causes including healthcare, water and sanitation, education, energy access, community empowerment, vocational training, rural livelihoods, and financial literacy. We have worked across the spectrum of sectors and industries – including heavy manufacturing, shipping and logistics, financial services, energy and software, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare. Our extensive grassroots network and strong relationships with social sector organizations across India, enable us to support the effective implementation and management of projects.

About the REVIVE Alliance :

The REVIVE Alliance was started in 2020 with the aim to leverage CSR and philanthropic capital to plug the gap around timely, affordable, and accessible means, through returnable grants, for semi and unskilled workers, entrepreneurs, and micro-enterprises that form the backbone of businesses and the national economy. The provision of grants is complemented by interventions such as job placements, reskilling, and upskilling to find additional income sources and visibility to access further loans.

Innovative and comprehensive monitoring and evaluation is a core feature of the project where we are building research infrastructure to understand the impact of returnable grants and other interventions through robust primary data collection, experimentation, and ongoing monitoring. Alongside this, there is an in-depth third-party evaluator to test the efficacy and fidelity of the program’s impact.

Overview of the role :

– The Associate, MEL at REVIVE will assist in executing the MEL plan for individual REVIVE cohorts from start to finish.

– The Associate will get an opportunity to build and strengthen research skills to tackle complex development challenges.

– We are looking for associates who have an acumen for academic rigor and research and are passionate about contributing to the development sector through learning and insights from the ground.

Responsibilities include :

– Support the development of the overall MEL and knowledge strategy for REVIVE

– Work closely with REVIVE’s implementation to execute the MEL strategy of individual cohorts under the REVIVE program

– Assist in executing research projects end-to-end:

– Designing cohort-specific survey instruments, digitization of survey instruments (SurveyCTO), training of enumerators, testing survey instruments, conducting high-frequency checks

– Cleaning and analysis (STATA, R, Python), creation of insights based on analysis and data visualization

– Conduct qualitative interviews to develop case studies and triangulate findings

– Support the MEL team to design quasi-experiments and test certain hypotheses with respect to returnable grants and other blended finance models.

– Work closely with all stakeholders to implement experiments – hypothesis creation, getting stakeholder buy-in, creating random samples, designing interventions, executing timely data collection, and troubleshooting challenges..

– Engage regularly with different clients that support REVIVE’s individual cohorts with the aim of fulfilling the MEL team’s vision

– Work closely with MEL teams/personnel of REVIVE’s funders – USAID, MSDF, ONI, UNDP, FCDO, to understand their focus areas and incorporate them into REVIVE’s MEL strategy and execution. Provide them with regular updates and thought partner with them to troubleshoot challenges

– Support knowledge creation and dissemination of insights in a regular and innovative manner for a variety of digital platforms, including Samhita’s website, blogs, videos, email newsletters, social media, publications, and more

Relevant Skills Include :

– Bachelor’s or Master’s degree required (economics, statistics, econometrics, public policy, or other related disciplines)

– 1+ years of experience working with on-ground social impact research projects and managing their end-to-end execution (including research design, sampling, tool creation and data collection and analysis)

– Excellent understanding of quantitative and qualitative research methods (econometrics, statistics, and research design)

– Demonstrated experience working on statistics software (Excel, STATA, R, Python, MATLAB, Julia) and data visualization tools (Google Data Studio, Flourish, Tableau)

– Excellent writing and presentation skills

– Fluency and excellent communication skills in English (and fluency in other local Indian languages – Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi desirable)

– A flexible work style – Someone that can work easily with ambiguity in a fast-paced environment with short timelines.

– Emotionally intelligent – Working with a variety of colleagues with empathy, an open mind, and self-awareness.