Manager, Knowledge and Communications – Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative

Career with BRAC International

BRAC is an award-winning international non-governmental development organization, with the vision of a world free from all forms of exploitation and discrimination, where everyone has the opportunity to realize their potential. BRAC is a leader in developing and implementing cost-effective, evidence-based programs to assist poor and disadvantaged communities in low-income countries, including in conflict-prone and post-disaster settings. It is an organization 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 the 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 organization 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 program outside of Bangladesh in Afghanistan in 2002 and has since reached more than 6.5 million people in 11 countries in Africa and Asia. BRAC has a holistic approach to development that uses a wide array of programs that include microfinance, education, health, agriculture, gender, and human rights. BRAC invests in communities’ own human and material resources, catalyzing lasting change and creating an ecosystem in which the poor have the chance to seize control of their own lives.

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 program 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 programs 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 program 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 programs 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

The BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI) seeks to hire a Manager of Knowledge and Communications to support BRAC UPGI’s efforts to scale the Graduation approach. The Manager will be a key resource to the whole global UPGI program with ties to the Technical Assistance, Government Systems, Communications and Advocacy Units in the organisation and coordination of global initiatives and events that leverage the Ultra-Poor Graduation Programme in Bangladesh. This will include working on knowledge and insights generation, immersion visits, local or regional events, in addition to other UPGI initiatives as needed and able.

As the position will work with a global team, some of whom are based in East Asia, Africa, Europe and North America, the applicants will be asked to work flexibly on some occasions in ways consistent with being a part of a global operation.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the focal at UPGI to organise, coordinate and prepare key learning content with UPG programme colleagues on immersion visits to UPG programme in Bangladesh.
• Work with Technical Assistance and Government Systems Units to extract and distill operational insights on how BRAC manages UPG programs at scale and develops innovations. This includes writing up and documenting how Graduation programs are managed and distilling both formal and informal systems BRAC has developed to sustain high quality programs at large scale.
• Serve as a resource to help draw out, document, and exchange lessons on best practices between UPGI and UPG programme colleagues, and field knowledge requests from other parts of BRAC as needed;
• Work with Communications and other units to contribute to knowledge products, content for newsletters, reports, promotional materials, knowledge products, policy and program briefs, and talking points for colleagues.
• Work with Global Advocacy Unit to support Asia regional advocacy initiatives which may include partnership development, research on regional policy agendas, and events planning as needed.
• Other duties as assigned.

Safeguarding Responsibilities

• Ensure the safety of team members from any harm, abuse, neglect, harassment, and exploitation to achieve the program’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

• Experience with a range of poverty reduction tools and approaches;
• Commitment to BRAC and UPGI’s mission to see Graduation scaled within government;
• Strong writing ability that is effective at communicating and tailor messages in a compelling way to key audiences and partners;
• Comfortable with academic research, including familiarity with different research methods, and ability to translate academic research papers into clear take-aways;
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively as part of a remote, multicultural team;
• Highly organised with ability to take initiative and effectively manage competing work streams and tight deadlines;
• Diplomatic, with strong interpersonal skills, and a high degree of cultural sensitivity;
• Excellent writing and speaking skills in English and Bangla
• Bachelor’s degree, Masters degree an advantage, with a preference given to candidates with degrees in international development, or public policy or other relevant field
• 5-7 years experience working in international development preferred
• Prior experience with knowledge management an advantage
• Prior work experience in Bangladesh an advantage