This position will be hybrid requiring a few days per week in office. You can be based in our office in Washington, DC. Existing work authorization is required at the time of application submission as WRI is unable to sponsor any visa work sponsorship for this position.
About the Program:
WRI’s Global Restoration Initiative informs, enables, and invests in people that restore degraded land. The team’s flagship investment program for locally led enterprises and community non-profits, TerraFund, currently finances, trains, and monitors 200+ growing organizations across Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. The program operates three funding windows: In Africa, TerraFund for AFR100 finances 200+ organizations through grants and low-interest loans, with a focus on the Lake Kivu & Rusizi River Basin in Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda; the Greater Rift Valley of Kenya; and the Ghana Cocoa Belt. In India, Harit Bharat Fund, a new landscape restoration fund focused on India, is funding its first cohort of restoration champions in the states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra. And globally, the Priceless Planet Coalition is financing large-scale restoration projects that benefit the climate, biodiversity, and communities. These portfolios are built through the TerraMatch platform, an end-to-end system that hosts open calls for proposals, connects champions with technical assistance, and tracks the progress of funded projects through a standard monitoring, reporting, and verification protocol. Through its more than 50 core business processes and tested standards, TerraFund shows that targeted investments in locally led champions can build viable restoration economies around the world.
Job Highlight:
Reporting to the Global Restoration Initiative (GRI) lead for research and learning, you will provide research, writing, coordination, and administrative support to deliver support of GRI’s global research and learning strategy. You will be supported by members of the GRI Inform team and TerraFund team.
What will you do:
Research (75%):
- Provide coordination, administrative, research, and writing support to deliver GRI’s research and learning strategy
- In close collaboration with Inform team, support the publication and continuous improvement of the TerraFund Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) framework and Verification Protocol
- Draft MRV protocols and framework sections and coordinate internal and external expert review
- Conduct research as assigned to develop new protocols within the MRV framework in consultation with external experts, literature and WRI staff
- Support the process of submitting and passing the TerraFund MRV framework through WRI Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) review at WRI, including preparing and updating publication plans and timelines, coordinating inputs and revisions from relevant team members, sharing updates with team, and serving as a focal point for RDI
- Support researchers and data analysts across the Global Restoration Initiative in translating their processes and progress into clear writing
- Support convenings and processes for collecting expert input from across GRI team and partners to inform research and learning strategy, priorities, and products
- Provide management and administrative support to track tasks and ensure follow-up, for example through Asana
- Prepare internal memos and support more senior staff on external-facing products with manager guidance
Communications (25%):
- Work with the GRI communications team to write and publish communication products and technical articles on new methods, data and insights
- Perform analysis and create visualizations to communicate research results.
- Work with the GRI communications team to identify key audiences for MRV communications
- Support communications with Restoration Champions through the TerraMatch Help Center to communicate MRV guidance and processes, as well as organize internal and external trainings, as needed.
What will you need:
- Education: You have completed a bachelor’s degree in related field
- Experience: You have a minimum of 2 years of research experience supporting discrete elements of research projects with manager guidance, e.g. systematically reviewing and synthesizing existing literature; collecting, cleaning, organizing, analyzing and visualizing data
- Coordination and management skills to coordinate research contributions from team members and input from internal and external reviewers and keep publication process on track. Use Excel, Word, and PowerPoint
- Ability or willingness to learn how to define research questions, with manager support
- Ability to document the steps they have taken to collect, clean, organize, analyze and visualize data
- Familiarity with how to calculate and interpret basic statistics, e.g. mean, median, variance
- Familiar with how to manage files using the team’s file management tools. o Familiar with WRI’s research standards and guidance
- Experience communicating research approach and findings effectively to internal and external audiences with manager guidance, using compelling presentation and writing skills
- Experience explaining how their research contributes to team outcomes
- Strong writing skills and ability to synthesize complicated materials into understandable summaries
- Experience writing memos, policy briefs, blogposts, or similar products summarizing research findings for general and targeted audiences
- Review and program development
- Support teams in fact checking funding proposals, communication and knowledge products, with oversight from manager
- Languages: Proficient in written and spoken English, with additional fluency in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and/or Hindi preferred
- Requirements: Existing work authorization is required where this position is based. WRI is unable to authorize visa work authorization
Potential Salary: US salary range is between 57K and 62K USD. Salary is commensurate with experience and other compensable factors.
How to Apply: Please submit a resume with a required cover letter by the date of 20 June 2024. We are unable to consider your application without a cover letter.
You must apply through the WRI Careers portal to be considered.
What we offer:
- Access to the WRI global network with the opportunity to exchange with and learn from passionate colleagues working at the cutting edge of their fields across Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the US
- The chance to have an impact and to develop your career within a mission driven organization with access to varied learning and training opportunities.
- A workplace that strives to put diversity and inclusion at the heart of our work
- The opportunity to join and get involved in different working groups and affinity groups to shape the future of WRI
- Commitment to hybrid working model with flexible working hours
- Generous leave days that increase with tenure
About Us:
Founded in 1982, World Resources Institute (WRI) is an independent, nonprofit global research organization that turns big ideas into action at the nexus of environment, economic opportunity, and human well-being. We are working to address seven critical challenges that the world must overcome this decade to secure a sustainable future for people and the planet: climate change, energy, food, forests, water, sustainable cities, and the ocean. WRI has a global staff of over 1,800 people with work spanning 60 countries. We have offices in Africa, Brazil, China, Europe, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Colombia and the United States, as well as a growing presence in other countries and regions.
The foundation of our work is delivering high-quality research, data, maps, and analysis to solve the world’s greatest environment and international development challenges and improve people’s lives. We work with leaders in government, business, and civil society to drive ambitious action and create change on the ground. Equally important, we bring together partners to develop breakthrough ideas and scale-up solutions for far-reaching, enduring impact.
Our mission and values:
WRI’s mission is to move human society to live in ways that protect Earth’s environment and its capacity to provide for the needs and aspirations of current and future generations.
Our values are shared ideals that bind us together: Integrity, Innovation,
Urgency, Independence and Respect.
Our culture:
WRI is committed to advancing gender and social equity for human well-being in our mission and applies this principle to our organizational and programmatic practices. We are committed to providing equal opportunities in employment; we embrace all diversity and encourage women, the LGBTQ+ community, persons with disabilities, Afro-descendants, and Indigenous people to apply. Recognizing our strong commitment to gender equality, WRI has also been awarded EDGE certification.
Our team in Human Resources carefully reviews all applications.
