Poverty Group Economics Lead Specialist
Post of duty: Washington DC
The IDB Group is a community of diverse, versatile, and passionate people who come together on a journey to improve lives in Latin America and the Caribbean. Our people find purpose and do what they love in an inclusive, collaborative, agile, and rewarding environment.
About this position:
The new Institutional Strategy of the IDB Group renews its focus on the eradication of extreme poverty and the reduction of poverty overall. To reflect this focus, the IDB Group is creating a Poverty Group to support units in their efforts to reduce poverty. The Poverty Group will provide poverty profiles for countries as inputs for the IDB teamsโ country strategies. It will develop tools to measure how poverty targeted its projects are. It will liaise with other organizations working to reduce poverty in the region to share data and resources. It will develop and support the implementation of a research and operational agenda on poverty reduction.
This role will play a leadership role in this group. You will lead work to enhance poverty targeting and measurement in IDB Group projects across Latin America and the Caribbean. You will lead the development state-of-the-art tools and methodologies to improve the analysis and elimination of poverty in the region. Your work will help ensure that IDB projects (across sectors such as education, health, agriculture, transportation, and institutions) are effectively targeted to benefit the most vulnerable, aligning with IDBโs new Institutional Strategy. You will lead the development of an analytical agenda. You will be based on the IDBโs Social Sector, but your work will directly influence the IDB more broadly.
What youโll do:
The selected candidate will implement the following activities:
Lead the ongoing development of guidance to assess the poverty targeting of IDB projects, creating frameworks that can be applied for diverse project types across various sectors Lead the creation and adaptation of tools to identify the poverty status of likely beneficiaries of projects such as poverty maps and household surveys and other resources Create structures to provide technical guidance for data collection in pilot project rounds, assessing poverty status of beneficiaries to identify opportunities for improvement in measurement methods Develop and implement dissemination activities to train teams across the IDB on the use of poverty measurement tools, ensuring wide-scale adoption. Lead the development and implementation of an analytical agenda to support poverty reduction in the region. Represent the poverty measurement and evaluation work at high-level meetings and strategic conversations with other organizations analyzing poverty in the region (e.g., the World Bank). Manage team and resources effectively Coach and mentor junior staff to build technical expertiseWhat you'll need
Education: At least a Masterโs degree (PhD preferred) in economics, development studies, econometrics, social sciences or any other related field. Experience: At least 8 years of relevant and substantive experience in poverty analysis, international development, or social policy, with strong focus on poverty measurement, poverty reduction strategies and targeting, preferably in Latin America and the Caribbean. The candidate is expected also to have a proven track record of publications related to poverty analysis. Knowledge of statistical packages like Stata and R is an asset. Languages: Proficiency in Spanish and English, spoken and written, is required. Additional knowledge of French and Portuguese is preferable.
Key skills:
Relevant analytical abilities Mentorship and development of junior staff Promote Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Focus on clients Communicate and influence Innovate and try new things
Requirements:
Citizenship: You are a citizen of one of our 48-member countries. We may offer assistance with relocation and visa applications for you and your eligible dependents. Consanguinity: You have no family members (up to the fourth degree of consanguinity and second degree of affinity, including spouse) working at the IDB, IDB Invest, or IDB Lab.Type of contract and duration:
Type of contract: International staff contract, 36 months initially, renewable upon mutual agreement.