Associate Research and Policy Manager  Nigeria

📌 OPPORTUNITY OVERVIEW Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) is actively recruiting for a Associate Research and Policy Manager position in  Nigeria. This is an excellent opportunity for professionals in the Research sector looking to advance their careers in Nigeria's dynamic job market.

🎯 IDEAL CANDIDATE PROFILE We are seeking talented individuals with the following profile: • Experience Level: 5 - 7 years • Educational Background: Master or equivalent • Industry Focus: Research • Location Preference: in  Nigeria

💼 WHY THIS ROLE MATTERS IN NIGERIA The Associate Research and Policy Manager position is an important role within Nigeria's Research sector, offering meaningful career development and professional growth opportunities.

📈 CAREER DEVELOPMENT INSIGHTS This role in Research offers valuable career progression opportunities aligned with your experience level and professional aspirations in Nigeria.

📋 APPLICATION GUIDANCE When applying for this Associate Research and Policy Manager position, ensure your CV highlights: • Relevant experience matching the 5 - 7 years requirement • Educational qualifications in line with Master • Specific achievements in the Research field • Any certifications or specialized training • Proficiency in relevant software and tools

🌍 NIGERIA JOB MARKET CONTEXT The Research sector in Nigeria continues to show strong demand for skilled professionals. With Nigeria's growing economy and increasing foreign investment, this position represents a valuable opportunity in the current job market.

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Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) is a research and policy nonprofit that discovers and promotes effective solutions to global poverty problems. IPA brings together researchers and decision-makers to design, rigorously evaluate, and refine these solutions and their applications, ensuring that the evidence created is used to improve the lives of the world’s poor. We are  recruiting to fill the position below:

 Job Title: Associate Research and Policy Manager

Requisition ID: 1787

Location: Nigeria

Reports to: Associate Director, Policy Job Summary

IPA Nigeria is seeking an Associate Research & Policy Manager to collaborate closely with a broad range of partners to strengthen their capacity to use evidence to improve programs and policies. The role will involve supporting Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) capacity strengthening and working with sector stakeholders to build sustained buy-in for a culture of evidence generation and use. The Associate Research & Policy Manager will engage across institutions to design and implement analytical approaches that inform decision-making and enhance the use of data in policy and program development. This position requires strong data science and analytical expertise, including the ability to manage and analyse large and complex datasets, design analytical frameworks, and develop visual and reporting systems that translate raw data into clear, actionable insights for diverse audiences. The successful candidate will combine technical analytical skills with policy acumen and experience supporting partners to apply evidence in real-world decision-making contexts. 

Collaborate with the partner’s team to develop a shared work plan, ensuring alignment with project goals and effective implementation. Support with other project management tasks, including progress tracking, financial oversight, and internal and donor reporting.

Cultivate relationships with key local top-level decision-makers and ensure the project has their sustained buy-in and input. Coordinate project activities alongside technical staff from the partner in a learning-by-doing approach, fostering active engagement throughout the process. Promote engagement to raise awareness of the lab and encourage collaborative efforts for collective impact.

Lead the co-creation of a policy-driven research agenda for the regulatory partners, and guide the development of analytically rigorous research projects that generate actionable, data-driven insights. Facilitate engagement with local and international academics and technical experts to strengthen our partners’ policy-driven research agendas, including advancing robust analytical methods and data use. Identify and develop opportunities to leverage administrative and other large-scale datasets for policy-relevant research, including structuring data access, preparing datasets for analysis, and connecting local and international researchers to pursue these opportunities. Manage research projects end-to-end: define research objectives and analytical frameworks, develop protocols, oversee data collection and management systems, supervise statistical analysis, and ensure data quality, reproducibility, and methodological rigor at all stages. Provide hands-on technical leadership in collecting, cleaning, structuring, integrating, and analysing large and complex administrative or survey datasets, applying reproducible workflows and best practices in data management. Design and deliver hands-on workshops to build partners’ capacity in data engineering and analytics, including data pipelines, data merging and wrangling, statistical analysis, and dashboard or visual tool development, using platforms such as Power BI, Tableau, Stata, R, or Python. Develop and implement analytical and data-visualisation systems (dashboards) that translate raw data into clear, actionable insights for decision-makers, including automated reporting and interactive dashboards where appropriate. Establish and institutionalise standard operating procedures, documentation, and reproducible analytical workflows so partner staff can independently maintain, update, and scale data systems over time.

Share existing evidence to inform partner’s program design and delivery. Develop user-friendly data dashboards, visualizations, or summaries for top-level decision-makers, ensuring that complex results are accessible and directly inform program design. Produce policy briefs on key policy questions. Work together with the partner, the project team, sector team, global policy and communications teams to lead and/or participate in strategic events for policy purposes, including but not limited to summits, conferences, workshops, technical working groups, and round tables. In collaboration with researchers and in support of the country director, represent IPA locally in policy conversations and at events.

 Engage with the partner’s leadership to explore opportunities to institutionalize the lab for sustainability.

Master’s Degree in International Public Policy, Economics, Statistics, Data science, Social Sciences, or a related field, with 5–7 years of relevant professional experience. Exceptional candidates who do not meet these criteria may be considered. Strong proficiency in statistical and analytical software (e.g., Stata, R, or Python) for data cleaning, management, analysis, and visualisation. Demonstrated experience designing and building dashboards and data visualisation tools using platforms such as Power BI or Tableau, with the ability to translate complex data into actionable insights. Experience working with large and complex administrative datasets, including data integration, structuring, and analysis, and experience building or supporting automated data pipelines or reporting systems. Hands-on experience designing, strengthening, or implementing Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) systems, including data collection, management, and analysis frameworks. Proven ability to manage multiple research or analytical projects simultaneously, including planning timelines, coordinating stakeholders, and managing deliverables and budgets, preferably in a development or public policy context. Strong grounding in quantitative and qualitative research methods, including experience applying rigorous analytical approaches to inform policy or program decisions. Demonstrated ability to train, coach, or mentor others in data analysis, statistics, or MEL systems, including building institutional capacity for data use. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to translate technical analysis into clear, structured, and policy-relevant insights for non-technical audiences. Experience working with government institutions or regulatory agencies is highly desirable. Superior analytical, quantitative, and conceptual thinking skills. Willingness to be a team player and identify connections between work streams. Cultural and political sensitivity and demonstrated ability to work successfully with diverse constituencies. Passion for making data-driven decision-making a reality in the development sector.

Travel: Estimated 20%.  Physical requirements: Yes.  Language requirements: Fluency in English.

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