Research Associate, Climate - Precision Development

Location: Ideally in India; remote working option considered

Salary: Commensurate with experience

Position: Full-time

Application deadline: September 21, 2023, 10am EST (applications may be reviewed as they are submitted)

PxD is looking for a driven, creative and independent person to join a high-performing, flexible and non-hierarchical team as Research Associate to support our exciting portfolio of climate change projects aimed to engage with and benefit smallholder farmers in the Global South. The successful candidate will have opportunities to work closely with PxD and affiliated researchers and substantially contribute to PxD's research programs that test new ideas and measure their impacts. The successful candidate must have a strong interest in and commitment to PxD's mission to provide actionable information and other cost-effective, scalable services to people in poverty so that they can sustainably improve their incomes and well-being. 

We are particularly interested in candidates who are located in India to support potential activities on the ground in various states.  

Requirements

A bachelor’s degree in economics, agricultural economics, public policy, statistics, or a closely related field, and experience in the following domains are desired:   

• Strong understanding of economics, econometrics, and familiarity with randomized evaluations.
• Good knowledge of climate change issues that affect smallholder farmers and food systems; experience working on payment for ecosystem services or voluntary carbon credit markets a plus 
• Some experience using Stata or R or similar software for data analysis.
• Experience working on field research in low and middle income countries.
• Excellent organizational skills, detail-oriented, and ability to work both independently and collaboratively.
• Fluency in English. Outstanding writing skills.Ability to work under time pressure and solve problems creatively.
• Willingness to travel domestically and internationally to project sites and conduct field work.
• Self-motivated, ability to quickly absorb new material and collaborate across various levels of seniority

Responsibilities (including but not limited to): 

• Work with PxD Research Managers and affiliated Researchers to support development and implementation of a wide range of evidence-led programs and research projects across geographies.
• Support execution of quantitative and qualitative research activities on the ground, including surveys and focus group discussions.
• Conduct desk research including literature reviews, data analysis, and partner due diligence.
• Support research grant proposal development and associated scoping activities, including supporting data analysis and substantial writing. 
• Assist in partner relations and working with external stakeholders for learning exchanges and implementation of field operations.
• Contribute to internal and external communications to disseminate research findings including briefs, blogs, reports, and presentations.
• Support PxD institutional knowledge management and internal learning efforts.

About PxD:

PxD is a rapidly scaling global non-profit that harnesses the power of technology, data science and behavioral economics to provide targeted information to farmers in low- and middle-income countries. Providing the right information to the right people, in the right way and at the right time, increases incomes, protects the environment and improves well-being. We are evidence-based: we test our interventions with randomized controlled trials to prove our impact and cost effectiveness, to simultaneously learn from and improve our service, and to demonstrate our value to funders and partners. There are few programmes in international development that are as demonstrably cost effective as ours. We currently work in seven countries in Africa, and Asia, and are expanding as more governments and organizations look for innovative ways to use new technologies to empower people across low and middle income countries.

About PxD’s climate change work:

PxD works with partners to support smallholder farmers to increase their resilience to climate shocks and improve productivity and income. Our initiatives help farmers have better information so they can make better production and investment decisions that increase their resilience. Priorities for our climate adaptation activities include: 

• Accelerate the distribution and adoption of proven climate-resilient seeds for staple crops like rice, wheat, maize, and chickpea - developed for tolerance to drought or flood - at scale in partnership with government partners and others.
  • Develop rapid identification, tracking, and alert systems for pest and crop disease outbreaks (one of the top climate-related challenges cited by farmers) using recent advances in technology to crowdsource, aggregate, and disseminate information to avoid crop losses.
• Identify hyper-local forecast providers and incorporate weather forecasts into PxD advisory services. Specifically, monsoon prediction to inform crop choice, medium-range forecasts to inform the timing of agricultural practices, and short-range forecasts to help farmers optimize agricultural activities. 

While smallholder farmers are not responsible for emitting most of the greenhouse gasses causing climate change, they can also benefit from activities that reduce emissions and improve ecosystems. PxD recently partnered with the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development IGSD) to explore evidence-backed climate change mitigation opportunities for smallholder farmers and identified several priority scalable activities. Our priorities include:

• Accelerate the dissemination and adoption of scalable farmer-friendly decision-support tools for Site Specific Nutrient Management (SSNM), like Leaf Color Charts (LCCs) to help farmers reduce the overuse of nitrogen fertilizers. 
• Advance distributive justice of voluntary carbon credit markets, and ensure smallholder farmers equitably tap into their financing potential by working on standard market processes required for these markets to be a realistic pathway for improved livelihoods and credible climate change mitigation.
• Develop an actionable pull financing mechanism to incentivize investment in R&D for climate change mitigation activities with Global South smallholder farmers, with enhanced rock weathering (ERW) as a use case.