Reports to

Director, CSBC

Location

Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

The Centre for Social and Behaviour Change (CSBC), Ashoka University:

CSBC was founded by and is part of Ashoka University, India's leading liberal arts university, and is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Since our inception, we have been dedicated to expanding and sharing knowledge and underscoring behavioural science’s role in building public policies that directly impact society.

We seek to establish a leading Indian institution driving behavioural change measures for people and communities in need. We advance the science and practice of behaviour changes, harnessing cross-disciplinary expertise to improve outcomes in nutrition, sanitation, maternal health, family planning, and financial services through a mix of behavioural change programmes, foundational research and capability building.

Project Context

The Uttar Pradesh Behavioural Insights Unit (UP BIU) was started in 2021, and currently has a range of exciting projects to strengthen policy outcomes in key sectors such as health and nutrition, maternal and newborn care, gender and financial inclusion. With a current team of seven members at our Lucknow office we are excited to take our existing projects to the next level and expand our work to new projects. This is an exciting team to join with government partners capable of large-scale change.

Roles and Responsibilities

The UP lead will facilitate partner relations and set up and run a portfolio of behavioural science-related projects in the state of Uttar Pradesh; the responsibilities will include:

• Stakeholder management: giving visibility to the value of behavioural science to decision-makers in government and their partners in Uttar Pradesh;
• Ideating and setting up new collaborative projects: working closely with senior government officials, partners and the CSBC team to identify new projects with behavioural solutions and planning the pathway to launch the projects;
• Capacity building of government officials, enabling them to use behavioural insights in their day-to-day work and programmes and apply them to policy priorities;
• Advisory services: Provide rapid advisory services to states/districts on the integration of behaviour change components into ongoing programmes;
• To engage partner organisations to bring in additional expertise for complex projects where there are specific needs;
• A vision for policy change: setting a vision for how behavioural interventions can be part of scale-up plans, and to strengthen structures and systems in government.
• Office management: Manage the UP state office operations and field team based in Lucknow.

Desired Qualifications and Skills

• 15 or more years of work experience with completion of a range of different government/civil society/multilateral organisational implementation programmes;
• An ability to construct a vision and the pathways for getting work done in a complex and changing environment;
• A track record of establishing and managing partner relations for organisations to collaborate;
• Strong communication skills, including official correspondence, presentations, project proposals, and executive reports;
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in economics/social sciences/public policy/public health communications, or MBA.
• Fluency in English and Hindi (required).