Research Assistant

Research Assistant – Addressing Childhood Stunting Location: Lahore, Pakistan Category: Research Due Date: Jan 6, 2025

Project: Addressing the Childhood Stunting

Key Researchers: Abu S. Shonchoy (Florida International University (FIU), Agha Ali Akram (Mathematica Policy Research), Uzma Afzal (Lahore University of Management Sciences), Takashi Kurosaki (Hitotsubashi University)and Akib Khan (Uppsala University)

Start Date: As soon as possible

Job type: Full-time

Time commitment: At least 12 months

Location: Gulberg IV, Lahore, Pakistan

Our Human Development Program focuses on various themes such as education, health and so on. Enhancing human capabilities through access to health, nutrition, education, clean water and a clean environment is critical to sustainable development, inclusive growth and strengthening democracy. Development that overlooks inequities in access and participation, and inequalities in outcomes is neither sustainable, nor capable of contributing to long-term growth. Effective, efficient and inclusive systems of service provision are key to attaining development goals. The human development program engages with questions of market and government failures in social service delivery, and produces rigorous, multidisciplinary research into overcoming barriers to system reform, particularly in education and health.

Stunting remains a major global health challenge, especially in Pakistan. This technical note describes the findings of a study assessing a nutrition-related intervention in a low-income community in Karachi, Pakistan. Under a program of monthly home visits, locally recruited community health workers implemented the intervention of nutrition counseling and growth monitoring over a six-month period. The results of the study are encouraging: child height increased and stunting decreased as a result of the program. The program is cost-effective and relatively simple to implement, and the program components can potentially be integrated into existing community health worker programs in Pakistan.

A Research Assistant will:

• Undertake background research, including review of literature on key topics within the research program areas and produce write ups
• Undertake analysis on primary and secondary quantitative data sources and produce write ups.
• Assist the PIs in the endline survey, developing and piloting instruments, and undertaking fieldwork.
• Visit the field to monitor endline survey activities.
• Assist the PIs in conducting field work, coordination and managing the data collection process
• Write policy briefs, reports, notes, summaries, abstracts and blogs as required by senior research fellows;
• Responsible for the overall logistics of any seminars, workshops and conferences organized by the research program as required;
• Organize, update and maintain project documents for the team and senior research fellows;
• Offer research and/or administrative support to other research programs as required.

Skills and Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Economics, Sociology, Social Sciences, or any related discipline. Fresh graduates are encouraged to apply.
• Very good data cleaning, analysis and management skills – Intermediate to advanced knowledge of STATA and Excel is necessary requirement.
• Excellent writing skills
• Very good communication skills
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team, demonstrating initiative and reliability.
• Willingness to do fieldwork and travel as required.

Preferred

• Work experience of 1-2 years, preferably in a research environment.
• Experience in cleaning and analyzing quantitative data
• Experience collecting and analyzing qualitative data
• Ability to represent data in useful and creative ways
• Additional local language skills e.g. Punjabi. Sindhi. Sirayki.