Poverty Group Economics 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 teams’ 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 crucial role in this group. You will contribute to work to enhance poverty targeting and measurement in IDB Group projects across Latin America and the Caribbean. Working with a team, you will contribute to developing 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 IDB’s new Institutional Strategy. You will help to develop an analytical agenda. You will be based on the IDB’s Social Sector, but your work will directly influence the IDB more broadly.
What you’ll do:
The selected candidate will implement the following activities:
- Contribute to 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
- Support 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
- Co-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
- Support the development and implementation of 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 meetings and conversations with other organizations analyzing poverty in the region.
- Work with specialists of many disciplines across the Bank to support the measurement of whether projects are poverty targeted
What you'll need
- Education: Master’s degree (PhD preferred) in economics, development studies, econometrics, social sciences or any other related field.
- Experience: At least 4 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 would have a 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.
- Relevant analytical abilities
- 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.
- Work Location: Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
What we offer
The IDB Group provides benefits that respond to the different needs and moments of an employee’s life. These benefits include:
- A competitive compensation package, including an annual base salary expressed on a net-of-tax basis.
- Leaves and vacations: 24 days of paid time off + 8 personal days + sick leave + gender-neutral parental leave.
- Health Insurance: IDB Group provides employees and eligible dependents with a robust medical benefits program that covers medical, dental, vision, preventive care, and prescription drugs.
- Pension plan: defined benefit pension plan that provides financial security and support employees in planning for their future.
- We offer assistance with relocation and visa applications for you and your family when it applies.
- Hybrid and flexible work schedules.
- Health and well-being: Access to our Health Services Center that provides preventive care and health education for employees.
- Development support: We offer tools to boost your professional profile, such as mentoring, 1:1 professional counseling, training and learning opportunities, language classes, mobility options, among others.
- Other perks: Lactation Room, Daycare Center, Gym, Bike Racks, Parking, Spouse Career Program, and others.
Our culture
At the IDB Group, we work so everyone brings their best and authentic selves to work, willing to try new approaches without fear, and where they are accountable and rewarded for their actions. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) are at the center of our organization. We celebrate all dimensions of diversity and encourage women, LGBTQ+ people, persons with disabilities, Afro-descendants, and Indigenous people to apply. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job interview process. If you are a qualified candidate with a disability, please e-mail us at diversity@iadb.org to request reasonable accommodation to complete this application.
Our Human Resources Team reviews carefully every application.
About the IDB Group
The IDB Group, composed of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), IDB Invest, and the IDB Lab offers flexible financing solutions to its member countries to finance economic and social development through lending and grants to public and private entities in Latin America and the Caribbean.
About IDB
The Inter-American Development Bank is devoted to improving lives. Established in 1959, the IDB is a leading source of long-term financing for economic, social and institutional development in Latin America and the Caribbean. The IDB also conducts cutting-edge research and provides policy advice, technical assistance and training to public and private sector clients throughout the region.
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