Call for Applicants: Young Fellowship Program 2020/2021

DFID-World Bank-UNHCR Young Fellowship Program 2020 is offering up to 10 new fellowships for the period July 1st, 2020 – June 30th, 2021.

In 2016, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) partnered with the World Bank and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to establish a research program on forced displacement called “Building the Evidence on Protracted Forced Displacement: A Multi-Stakeholder Partnership”.

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The objective of the program is “to improve the wellbeing of the forcibly displaced and of host communities by improving global knowledge on the effectiveness of policies and programs that target these populations”.

The program is administered by the Fragility, Conflict, and Violence (FCV) department of the World Bank and currently includes 5 pillars:

• Research on global questions related to forced displacement in the education, health, social protection, and jobs sectors;
• Impact evaluations of programs administered to refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs);
• A research program on gender and forced displacement;
• Research on forced displacement on selected topics not covered under pillars 1-3 and
• A Young Fellows program for post-doc scholars interested in research on forced displacement.

The first cycle of the Young Fellows program was launched in June 2018 and saw the participation of 10 African scholars who worked at the World Bank and the UNHCR for a period of 12 months between July 2018 and June 2019. The program proved to be a success as all scholars were able to produce high-quality research and subsequently found employment in international organizations, including the World Bank and the UNHCR. Based on the experience of this first cycle, the DFID-WB-UNHCR research program on forced displacement is now launching a second cycle opened to young scholars globally.

The fellowship consists of a Short-Term Consultancy (STC) contract with the World Bank for 150 days to be used over the period of one fiscal year between July 2020 and June 2021. This is the maximum number of days allowed by the World Bank’s STC rules and does not preclude fellows from holding other positions or consulting contracts with other organizations. Consulting fees are based on education and work experience as established by the World Bank STC regulations.

Fellows will be assigned to a unit in the World Bank or the UNHCR and a supervisor within the unit. The location of the consultancy is agreed between the fellows, supervisor and the program’s administrator. This location can be in World Bank or UNHCR headquarters, field locations or anywhere else provided is agreed with the relevant parties. Each fellow will work with existing data available at the World Bank, UNHCR or elsewhere and is expected to produce two working papers during the course of the fellowship. The topic of the papers is decided jointly by the fellow, supervisor and the program’s administrator and is expected to relate to the World Bank or UNHCR operational work. Good quality papers will be published in the World Bank Policy Research Working Paper series and these papers are expected to be submitted to peer-reviewed journals following publication in the WP series.