Programme Officer, UPGI, BRAC International

Career with BRAC International

BRAC is an award-winning international non-governmental development organisation, with the vision of a world free from all forms of exploitation and discrimination, where everyone has the opportunity to realise their potential. BRAC is a leader in developing and implementing cost-effective, evidence-based programmes to assist poor and disadvantaged communities in low-income countries, including in conflict-prone and post-disaster settings. It is an organisation of and for the people of the Global South, pioneering new development and social enterprise approaches to equip communities to achieve prosperity. As well as being the world’s biggest NGO by number of staff and people directly reached, BRAC has regularly been ranked the number one NGO in the world by the Geneva-based NGO Advisor, an independent organisation committed to highlighting innovation, impact and governance in the non-profit sector. BRAC retained the top spot in 2020 among the top 500 NGOs for the fifth consecutive year.

BRAC was founded in Bangladesh in 1972 by Sir Fazle Hasan Abed. It started its first programme outside of Bangladesh in Afghanistan in 2002, and has since reached millions of people in 11 countries in Asia and Africa. BRAC has a holistic approach to development that uses a wide array of programmes and social enterprises, including in microfinance, education, health, agriculture, gender and human rights. BRAC believes that every person has inherent potential, and when an enabling environment is created and that potential is unleashed, even the poorest can become agents of positive change in their own lives, for their families and their communities.

About the Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative

The Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (“UPGI”) is a global unit of BRAC that was founded in 2016 to build off the success of BRAC’s Ultra-Poor Graduation programme in Bangladesh. BRAC UPGI aims to position the Graduation approach as a key driver to eradicate extreme poverty worldwide. It does this by:

• Advocating for uptake of the Graduation approach by policymakers, national governments, multilateral institutions, and non-governmental organizations; and
• Effective adaptation and implementation of the Graduation approach in countries around the world, supported through technical assistance and capacity strengthening for external stakeholders.

In 2002, BRAC pioneered the Ultra-Poor Graduation (“Graduation”) approach in Bangladesh – a holistic intervention to help people lift themselves from extreme poverty – after recognizing that existing poverty alleviation programme were not reaching the poorest people. Through the provision of livelihood assets, cash transfers, and continued mentoring and training, the Graduation approach addresses participants’ multidimensional needs within the local context and ‘graduates’ people from extreme poverty into sustainable livelihoods.

Graduation is an evidence-based, scalable intervention proven to break the poverty trap for the long term. So far, BRAC’s flagship Graduation programme has impacted over 2 million Bangladeshi households—totaling over 9 million people. To help eradicate extreme poverty, BRAC UPGI is working to scale globally by integrating Graduation into existing government programme and help 21 million more people lift themselves from extreme poverty by 2026.

But BRAC UPGI cannot do it alone. This is beyond the means and capacity of a single organization- no matter how ambitious or innovative. Sustainability and scale demands change at the systems level with active government engagement. BRAC UPGI is committed to creating effective solutions that leverage the available resources and existing programming to achieve the long-term benefits demonstrated by Graduation. The organization is partnering with governments, as well as multilateral institutions, NGOs, and civil society, in countries where BRAC UPGI thinks it can have maximum impact and drive greater uptake for Graduation.

About the Position

BRAC International’s Ultra Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI) is seeking applications to fill an India Programme Officer position. This position will join the UPGI team dedicated to supporting Graduation work in India. Operating under the supervision of the India team lead, this role will work with a wide set of partners and programmes to support Graduation expansion with the government of India. Within the context of the India team under the broad oversight of country lead(s), the Programme Officer will be asked to;

• Participate in external partners engagement and external representation of UPGI.
• Assist in the design of state government graduation programmes, in particular co develop and co draft programme proposals with government counterparts.
• Assist in supervising the implementation of state graduation programmes. This means providing technical guidance and support to key resource persons and staff at the district and block levels who are implementing graduation programmes
• Represent the team in meetings with policy makers and other stakeholders both at the center and the state level and write detailed summaries of visits and meetings
• Assist in managing relations with partners and other stakeholders working with UPGI
• Conduct research on livelihoods and value chain programmes across India
• Author communication material, synthesize field reports, MIS (monitoring and information system) reports, meeting summaries, and research material
• Organize events and meetings in collaboration with government counterparts and civil society organizations. For example, livelihood innovation forums at the district and state levels, quarterly consortium partner meetings, and other such events.
• Develop evaluation, audit, and monitoring proposals for third party evaluators

The position will be based in a major metropolitan area in India with a preference for the New Delhi capital area. Frequent travel to different states and districts at short notice will be required and some modest travel internationally. Applicants need to be team players and must be able to work effectively with central and state level policy makers and manage partnerships with great diplomacy. Daily coordination and reporting to the India lead will be required either in-person or virtually.

Safeguarding Responsibilities

• Ensure the safety of team members from any harm, abuse, neglect, harassment, and exploitation to achieve the programme’s goals of safeguarding implementation.
• Practice, promote and endorse the issues of safeguarding policy among team members and ensure the implementation of safeguarding standards in every course of action.
• Follow the safeguarding reporting procedure in case any reportable incident takes place, and encourage others to do so

Qualifications & Requirements

• Graduate degree in development studies/ social sciences/ policy studies or related field.
• Approximately 10 years’ experience in rural development, poverty alleviation, and programme management in India. Additional knowledge and experience of programmes outside of India is welcome but not required.
• Strong understanding of poverty reduction/alleviation, social protection and/or livelihoods programmes at scale.
• Familiarity with development project implementation at the Indian central or state level
• Experience and proven ability to gain insights on programme implementation from the field level: programme participants, district resource persons, and state officials.
• Experience organizing technical events and meetings, generating technical content in written form and presentations.
• Experience leading research and monitoring activities for programmes.
• Ability to manage time and organize tasks in a virtual or in-person set up.
• Excellent English (written and spoken) communication skills.
• Conversational Hindi (ability to read Hindi or other national languages of India a plus).