The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) seeks to recruit a Research Officer II – Actuarial to coordinate scaling of the de-risking component of the risk management for vulnerable populations theme, through design of financial products for extensive and mixed livestock-crop systems. 

ILRI is an international organisation working for better lives and better planet through livestock. ILRI’s mission emphasises the interconnections between people, animals, and the environment, aiming to improve the lives of more than 300 million people in low- and middle-income countries through livestock science that supports equitable and resilient livestock systems, ultimately contributing to food systems transformation with climate and environmental benefits. This mission is delivered through two core strategic objectives: co-designing and deploying sustainable, science-based livestock solutions, and leveraging science to inform and influence policy and investment decisions.

ILRI is a member of the CGIAR, a global research alliance that works to transform food, land and water systems in a climate crisis and is the only CGIAR centre dedicated to addressing multiple development challenges through sustainable livestock solutions.

Key Responsibilities:

• Research for Development
  • Lead the development of innovative insurance and other financial products including bundled solutions for extensive, semi-intensive, and intensive livestock systems.
  • Generate timely index reports for the indexed financial products.
  • Lead and contribute to research on quality improvement of financial products, especially on product pricing and related tools.
  • Manage the data collection process and conduct advanced analysis of complex datasets using geospatial techniques.
  • Lead project report writing and co-author peer review publications.
  • Contribute to the project’s activities on related aspects/ themes under the guidance of the supervisor.
• Partnerships and Stakeholder engagement
  • Contribute towards strengthening existing partnerships and identifying new and innovative partnerships towards sharing and implementation of research findings with different stakeholders.
  • Contribute to the engagement with institutional stakeholders, including private sector actors and high-level government representatives to inform about climate risk financing.
• Capacity Development and Knowledge Management
  • In conjunction with the scientist, plan, survey and coordinate the materials and resources. required to meet the research objectives of the group.
  • Collect, store and curate data generated from the analytics.
  • Review existing course of actions and support in the development of proposals, milestones and implementation of research.
  • Prepare and assure quality of project reports and papers for presentation.
  • Ensure timely delivery of geospatial products for projects as and when assigned.
  • Actively support resource mobilization activities by contributing to proposal writing and creating new opportunities.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in actuarial science, statistics, finance or other related discipline with at least 5 years’ relevant work experience on financial products development and application of remote sensing and GIS on agriculture/ natural resources.
• Advanced analytical techniques for the design of innovative indemnity, indexed, and hybrid financial products, especially related to pricing.
• Experience of statistical analysis and logical development of models.
• Experience with index calculation and reporting for indexed financial products.
• Experience with the geospatial analysis of remotely sensed datasets.
• Experience of working with multi spectral satellites. 
• Proven knowledge of field data collection for geospatial analysis.   
• Has good working knowledge of remote sensing and GIS software, Database and  software such as Arc GIS, ENVI and e-Cognition.
• Substantial experience in scripting such as R/ Python and Google Earth Engine.
• Strong written and oral communication skills in English with the ability to communicate with diverse audiences.
• Proven ability to work in multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams with minimal supervision, and experience working across disciplines and different cultural backgrounds.
• Willingness to travel frequently to rural and remote areas of project sites in different countries.
• Record of publications and experience with resource mobilization and contributing to project proposals would be an asset.
• Communication skills for peer reviewed publications
• Programmming skills using R/ Python/ Stata