Janaagraha - Associate Manager - Open Works

Associate Manager-Open Works

About Janaagraha

Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy (Janaagraha) is a Bangalore based not for profit having the mission of transforming quality of life in India's cities and towns. It defines quality of life as comprising quality of infrastructure and services and quality of citizenship. Janaagraha, along with its sister organisation Jana Urban Space foundation operates programs all of which are based on a robust City-Systems framework. To achieve its mission, Janaagraha works with both citizens and governments in advocating policy, creating platforms for citizen engagement and forging partnerships to attain scale.

Over its ten year existence, Janaagraha has built a proven track-record in systemic change in city-systems and in catalysing citizen engagement.

Janaagraha was founded by Swati and Ramesh Ramanathan and has a team comprising engineers, management graduates, public policy professionals, urban planners and designers, social science researchers and a military veteran driven by a passion for transformative change. Its staff strength is in excess of one hundred and fifty.

Janaagraha leadership comprises a Management Committee that oversees day to day operations, a stellar Governing Board comprising leaders across business, social sector and community engagement, management consulting and government and a Board of Trustees.

Job Description:

- Janaagraha is looking to on-board a Senior Associate for its Open Works vertical in the ARC (Advocacy, Research and Capacity Building) department.

- The position will be based in Bangalore and will report to Manager-Open Works.

Open Works is an Open Data initiative on Civic Works of Municipal Corporations, Budget Briefs are engagement tools on city budgets for citizens and Councillors and Ward Quality Score is an objective measure of quality of life in cities and towns at a hyper-local level.

- These are currently operational in Bangalore, Bhubaneswar and Pune.

As Senior Associate-Open Works, your role would comprise the following:

- Planning and executing large-scale data intensive projects that involve collection, analysis and presentation of hyper local data on quality of life through extensive field surveys, collection, analysis and presentation of data and metrics on public service delivery and civic infrastructure and works of municipal corporations and other civic agencies through RTIs/other

- Guiding a team of 2-3 members on analysis of municipal budgets at a hyper local level (Budget Briefs)

- Planning and coordinating with team to complete online disclosures and communications of Open Works, Budget Briefs and Ward Quality Score, including achieving convergence with ichangemycity.com.

- Working with the team to create and manage large databases of Open Data

- Designing communication strategies, protocols and channels for engaging with citizens and elected representatives on Open Works, Budget Briefs and Ward Quality Score

- Engaging with citizens, elected representatives and senior administrators on Open Works

Qualifications and Experience:

- A Graduate in Business Management, Finance, Economics or equivalent field

- At least 5 years of professional work experience

- Candidates from alternative academic backgrounds with outstanding academic and career accomplishments and relevant work experience would also be considered.

What we look for in Senior Associate-Open Works:

- High levels of motivation and passion for transparency and accountability in cities, especially Municipal Corporations and other public service delivery agencies in cities;

- Strong quantitative and analytical capabilities, very strong project management skills

- Working knowledge of online tools and practices in respect of data and infographics and basic understanding of design and communications (essentially Open Data practices)

- Good communication skills- both written and verbal

- Ability to work across multi-disciplinary teams within Janaagraha and external vendors, partners etc.

- Willingness to extend oneself to accomplish work objectives with tight deadlines, simultaneously pursuing excellence

- Positive attitude, flexibility and ability to adapt to a dynamic work environment

What Janaagraha Offers:

At Janaagraha, you will be part of a multi-disciplinary team of professionals and passionate citizens who apply cutting-edge technologies and practices aimed at social change in India's cities. Janaagraha offers a dynamic, driven and vibrant work environment for professionals who are passionate about investing their time, skill sets and energy to transform quality of life in India's cities. At work, you will be exposed to a unique combination of policy, practice and platforms and will have abundant opportunities to learn and apply professional skills to social challenges.

More about Janaagraha:

Janaagraha's City-Systems framework is a recognition of the fact that challenges faced by our cities and city-residents- water, housing, roads, traffic and transport, power, pollution, crime etc. - are symptoms of deep-rooted malaise in governance and management of our cities.

- We need to fix our

City-Systems to fix our cities:

The City-Systems framework envisages transformative change in laws, policies, institutional structures and process across its four parts- Urban Planning and Design, Urban Capacities and Resources, Empowered and Legitimate Political Representation and Transparency, Accountability and Participation.

Some of Janaagraha's accomplishments at a city-systems level include

- Catalysing the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), largest urban focussed scheme in India.

- Inclusion of the Public Disclosure Law and Community Participation Law as mandatory reform conditions under the JNNURM.

- Significant contributions to

a) Report of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission- section on Urban Local Bodies

b) Report of the High Powered Expert Committee on Financing Urban Infrastructure

c) Bombay First Report- Urban Governance section

Janaagraha's programs, all of which are located in the above framework are summarised below along with corresponding outcomes achieved in each.

Program Outcome

Urban Planning and Design

-Master Plans - MoU with Union Ministry of Urban Development for developing Master Planning guidelines. Draft NUSPD guidelines unveiled in early April 2013

- Tender S.U.R.E (TS) - Rs 200 crores sanctioned by GoK for 45 TS roads in Bangalore

-Tender SURE- has become part of the official vocabulary on road specifications in Karnataka

Urban Capacities and Resources

- Urban Capacity Building - Destination Organisation Charts for ULBs

- MoU with the IAS Academy in Mussoorie

Empowered and Legitimate Political Representation

- Jaagte Raho! - MoU with Election Commission of India on fixing systemic challenges in urban voter rolls.

Transparency, Accountability and Participation

- P.R.O.O.F - Inclusion of Public Disclosure Law as mandatory reform condition in JNNURM

- Over 20 states have enacted PDL

- Drawing up and subsequently advocating into policy the Service Level Benchmark framework for urban services

- Collaboration with the CAG of India and the ICAI on Performance Reporting Framework for cities

- Ward Quality Score

- An Index of quality of life in neighbourhoods - Requirement of Community Participation Law (CPL), another mandatory reform condition included in JNNURM pursuant to Janaagraha's advocacy

- Over 20 states have enacted the CPL. Hyderabad has implemented the same in spirit by constituting Area Sabhas.

www.ipaidabribe.com

- World's largest crowdsourcing portal on - retail- bribes

www.ichangemycity.com

- Social change network catalysing neighbourhood level citizen engagement on civic issues

- Bala Janaagraha - Practical Civics- classes in 175 schools in 11 cities, impacting over 15,000 students

- Community Policing - MoU with GoK under discussion

MOU-Memorandum of Understanding; NUSPD- National Urban Spatial Planning Development; S.U.R.E- Specifications on Urban Roads Execution; IAS- Indian Administrative Service; P.R.O.O.F- Public Record Of Operations and Finance; CAG- Comptroller and Auditor General; ICAI- Institute of Chartered Accountants of India; GoK- Government of Karnataka. 1 and 2 above run by Jana Urban Space Foundation, a sister organisation of Janaagraha.