Inter-American Development Bank

Position Title/Short Description

Full Text of JOE Listing:

Are you passionate about advancing knowledge of crime and development? Do you want phenomenal opportunities to analyze the impact of ground-breaking interventions to help governments answer unresolved questions? Are you looking to bridge the gap between academics and policy-makers to improve government performance?

We are looking for you!

Background: The Citizen Security and Justice (CSJ) team (IFD/ICS) is advancing the sector’s knowledge agenda with the most rigorous analyses possible to inform and improve public policies in the sector. To lead this effort, we are looking for a social scientist with strong quantitative skills who is passionate about conducting academic research that has an impact, and has an interest in crime and development. This is a full-time staff position.

The team: The CSJ team’s main areas of work are social prevention, police reform, and criminal justice and rehabilitation. Some of our main research questions include: how to improve police performance to reduce crime, how to manage justice systems more efficiently to deliver efficient trials, which are the most promising interventions to prevent violence against women, and which are the prison rehabilitation/reinsertion programs that are most effective in reducing recidivism?

What you’ll do:
• Conduct research to further the knowledge agenda, directly and/or with the extended team.
• Oversee, promote and implement impact evaluations of cutting-edge interventions currently implemented in more than 20 Latin America and Caribbean countries
• Advise and mentor Bank specialists on the design of research projects and of evidence-based interventions, as well as ensure quality of our analytical work.
• Promote the Bank’s added value in external networks, particularly translating academic findings into policy-relevant recommendations for our borrowing countries.
• Foster strategic alliances and promote innovation in research, with a focus on the use of digital technologies, big data analytics, and machine learning.

Skills you’ll need:

Education: Master’s degree (PhD preferred) in the social sciences, preferably in economics or political science.

Experience: Minimum of 4 years of relevant experience. Track record of sole- or co-authored academic research. Well versed in empirical methods (e.g. econometrics and/or randomized control trials).

Languages: Proficiency in English and Spanish.

Opportunity Summary:

Type of contract: Staff
Location: Washington, DC
Requirements: You are a citizen of one of the IDB’s 48 member countries and have no family members currently working at the bank.

Our culture: Working with us you will be surrounded by a diverse group of people who have years of experience in all types of development fields, including transportation, health, gender and diversity, communications and much more.

About us: At the Inter-American Development Bank, we’re devoted to improving lives. Since 1959, we’ve been a leading source of long-term financing for economic, social, and institutional development in Latin America and the Caribbean. We do more than lending though. We partner with our 48 member countries to provide Latin America and the Caribbean with cutting-edge research about relevant development issues, policy advice to inform their decisions, and technical assistance to improve on the planning and execution of projects. For this, we need people who not only have the right skills, but also are passionate about improving lives.

The IDB offers a competitive benefits and compensation package.

The IDB is committed to diversity and inclusion and to providing equal opportunities in employment. We embrace diversity on the basis of gender, age, education, national origin, ethnic origin, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, and HIV/AIDs status. We encourage women, Afro-descendants and persons of indigenous origins to apply.