(Senior) Program Associate, Human Trafficking

The Human Trafficking Research Initiative (HTRI) at Innovations for Poverty Action is a five-year US Department of State-funded project that brings together implementing organizations, policymakers, and researchers to build the body of evidence on interventions to reduce human trafficking and protect victims and survivors of trafficking. HTRI fosters partnerships between researchers and practitioners; innovates on and improves the research methods for studying human trafficking; initiates formative pilot testing of programs; and conducts large-scale studies on the efforts to prevent trafficking, prosecute crimes, and protect trafficked persons. HTRI is funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor & Combat Trafficking, Program to End Modern Slavery. Cecilia Hyunjung Mo and Guy Grossman serve as academic leads for HTRI.

HTRI seeks a highly motivated and detail-oriented (Senior) Program Associate to support the Director in the smooth administration of HTRI, including grants management and reporting, financial and administrative support, research and technical support, internal and external communications, and policy engagement. The (Senior) Program Associate will assist the Director in soliciting and awarding research grants, developing new relationships and communicating with key research and policy stakeholders, and developing presentations, webinars, policy briefs, white papers, and other outreach to improve the use of rigorous research methods in human trafficking programs. The (Senior) Program Associate will also be responsible for carrying out and updating evidence overviews on key human trafficking topics and leading stakeholder mapping and partnership development for potential new lines of human trafficking research. The (Senior) Program Associate will report to the Program Director and work collaboratively with researchers, IPA country offices, and other global IPA staff.

**Responsibilities**:
Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:
**Grants management, financial tracking, and donor reporting**
- With support from IPA’s Grants and Legal teams, coordinate the management of 15-20 active research sub-awards, including the selection process, development of grant agreements and amendments, and tracking projects’ progress, deliverables, and finances.
- Support donor reporting, including collecting inputs from grantees and IPA staff, drafting quarterly progress reports, and working with finance and grants staff on financial report submissions.
- Review monthly financial transactions and support budget reviews and program financial oversight, with support from IPA’s Grants Finance team.
- Assist with the administration of HTRI projects as needed.

**Project coordination and administration**
- Organize and maintain up-to-date project, partner, donor, and researcher records for HTRI on Salesforce and other platforms.
- Respond to information requests relevant to project development, donor reporting, information dissemination, and policy engagement activities from country office and senior IPA staff.
- Contribute to building systems that improve the efficiency and internal management of HTRI.
- Conduct regular activity site visits to monitor the implementation of HTRI-funded research projects.
- Ensure that HTRI’s procedures are aligned with IPA’s general guidelines and policies by regularly communicating with relevant departments and teams.
- Contribute to the implementation of IPA’s diversity, equality, and inclusion strategy, including tracking HTRI’s progress against organizational metrics.

**Technical and research support, communications, and policy engagement**
- Coordinate and contribute to semi-annual updates to HTRI’s Learning and Research Agenda
- Support external communication activities, including literature reviews, evidence syntheses, policy briefs, program overview documents, blogposts, newsletters, and project summaries.
- Assist the HTRI Director in building a network of affiliated principal investigators that can identify and develop research opportunities that answer key questions in the sector.
- Support IPA country office staff to develop new studies and implement the Initiative’s research and policy objectives in IPA presence countries.
- Schedule and participate in meetings to develop key relationships among relevant parties, including donors, sectoral partners, internal research and policy leadership, and senior academics around the world.
- Coordinate logistics for webinars, conferences, and other events focused on human trafficking.
- Represent IPA at external policy and research functions.
- Engage in stakeholder mapping and interviews to help HTRI develop and support new lines of research.

**Project development**
- Keep track of funding opportunities and support the HTRI Director in project development and fundraising activities, including development of concept notes, evidence reviews, and draft presentations.
- Coordinat