Senior Program Associate

Position: Senior Program Associate

Location: Lucknow

About Us

Foundation for Economic Development (FED) is a Delhi-based non-profit organisation that aims to bring about a sustained and broad-based economic growth of over 10% in India.

The evidence clearly shows that economic growth is the best tool to lift people out of poverty and improve the quality of life for everyone. Until 1991, Indias poverty rate remained unchanged at ~50%. Post reforms, poverty reduced from ~50% to ~20% with 35 crore (350 million) fewer people living in abject poverty. Since 2010, sustaining fast growth has been challenging as the easy gains have been realised. It is critical for India to maintain a growth rate of over 10% for long periods of time if we want Indians quality of life to improve rapidly and sustainably.

FED will identify select sectors of the economy which have the highest potential for generating incremental growth and jobs and then work with policymakers to make it happen.

The organisation has Dr Aravind Panagariya, Naushad Forbes, Gurcharan Das, Jerry Rao and Ashish Dhawan on its advisory board who are helping shape the thinking and execution.

Our Work

FED has identified Export-Led Labour Intensive Manufacturing as the highest opportunity sectors for generating incremental growth through aggressive reforms over the next few years. Immediate focus is largely on labour-intensive manufacturing as this is an area of the highest upside if the right reforms can be brought about around critical factors of production like labour, land, utilities and logistics.

Meet Our Leaders:

Piyush Doshi (Operating Partner)

Rahul Ahluwalia (Founding Director)

Vinay Ramesh (Chief Operating Officer)

Our Approach

FED work streams are divided into three primary areas.

Research and Strategy: Deep dive into identified sectors, speak to relevant stakeholders, study practices from other countries and build data-backed evidence for change

Communication and Outreach: Build salience for opportunity in target sectors and the need for reforms through op-eds in relevant channels, and social media as well as one-on-one engagement with key bureaucrats and policymakers.

Implementation Support: Work with select state governments in helping implement specific actions to promote the target sectors. The team is currently working closely with the UP Government on its Mission Trillion Dollar economy. The team is also working with Telangana and Tamil Nadu governments on their economic growth agenda.

Position Summary

The FED team works with internal and external stakeholders on cross functional projects. The associate should have demonstrated capabilities in project and stakeholder management, as well as excellent oral & written communication skills. The ideal candidate is a self-starter with a bias towards action and the ability to work with ambiguous requirements. The associate will have a steep learning curve and would be expected to hit the ground running on live projects with Government institutions. This is a rotational role and you may be assigned to contribute towards the success of multiple work-streams.

The Manager will:

• Prepare structured documents and other collaterals (including presentations, excel sheets etc.) as per the requirements for the project
• Prepare progress reports from time-to-time for internal and external reviews
• Project manage and coordinate with stakeholders concerned with various projects
• Analyze publicly available data/ information and provide relevant insights.

Required Qualifications, Skills and Abilities:

• Bachelors or equivalent degree, preferably in Economics, required
• 1-3 years of relevant experience
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Comfortable managing and working with large spreadsheets of dataAbility to work independently and proactively, with minimal supervision
• Can-do attitude and openness to learn in ambiguous situations.

Discover more about us on our Careers Page

You can also find the link to our publications here.

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