Associate in Research for Public Works Programs Research Initiative

Duke University

Department of Political Science

1. Overview

The Associate in Research position will support the Multi-Country Public Works Program (PWP) research initiative, as part of the NIH-funded project, “Effects of parents' participation in public work programs on children's health and education in select low-and middle-income countries.” The project leverages existing data from six large scale PWP experiments conducted by the PI in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa regions to estimate the short-run and medium-run effects of these programs on a wide range of outcomes. It will collect new data to examine the long-run impacts of households’ exposures to PWPs during important childhood life-cycle stages on child outcomes broadly defined to include physical health, education, labor, among others.

2. Tasks and accountabilities

The assignment will focus on three main work areas:

1/ Conducting extensive literature review of labor market interventions (both demand-side and supply-side) in fragile states and low-income countries, with a particular focus and anchoring on PWPs, and drafting academic chapters and sections for various publication needs. Part of this review will focus on the broader literature on the link between employment opportunities and social stability outcomes in fragile states and low-income countries. The other important piece of the research here will focus on the relationship between employment opportunities and child outcomes to inform the next phase of fieldwork and write-ups.

2/ Supporting the harmonization of survey instruments (household-, community leader-, and child survey instruments) and the development of new measurement tools

for the Tunisia fieldwork and supporting the Research Team in the rollout of the fieldwork, as needed. The NIH-funded project will be implemented across five sites, but of these only the Tunisia site will come through the pipeline in year 1 of the project. Part of the assignment here will be to streamline the Tunisia main survey instruments to ensure all the key survey questions and measurements for the study have been adequately captured. The other part will be to help develop a new, child-focused survey module and specific measures of important outcomes. The RA will be expected to support the Research Team in conducting some research on measurement techniques from other studies as well as drafting measurement tools and other research protocols (e.g., training and implementation/field manuals, etc.) S/he will also be expected to assist the Project Manager in liaising across the different members of the Core Research Team and Country-based Teams in, for example, setting up Team meetings, taking notes, and following up with individual teams/team members, on agreed up on action items. In addition, you will be expected to support the Research Team and local implementation partners (i.e., academic institutions and survey firms) in all of the stages of fieldwork preparation and rollout, including the development of pretesting and piloting of survey instruments and other research tools, liaising with local partners to ensure the PI and the Research Team are appraised of any implementation issues as they come up, as well as supporting the quality control process during survey implementation. S/she will also help with some data analysis or paper editing, as needed.

3/ Supporting the Project Manager and the Grant Manager in the Office of Research Support at Duke’s Central Office in preparing Progress Reports and fulfilling other administrative tasks or requests from the Sponsor, as needed. Such tasks are typically related to grant management and reporting requirements from the University or the Sponsor. While the Project Manager and Grant Manager and myself (as the PI) will be responsible for preparing formal reports or updates, we will need to collect from time-to-time specific information about project management and implementation processes and outcomes from across the different country sites and the RA will be expected to play a role in gathering the information from the different country partners and supporting preparation of progress reports and other administrative needs.

3. Tasks and accountabilities

The candidate is expected to meet the following requirements: