Avantages
Very rich learning experience across the research cycle, can gain quite a lot of responsibilities fast, exposure to clients, opportunities for fieldwork. Interesting projects (mostly).
Inconvénients
Unethical to its core: runs on the philosophy of ‘localisation’ and ‘decolonisation’ yet huge disparity between kenyan and foreign staff in terms of salary, treatment, promotion opportunity; people with the actual contextual expertise aren’t listened to, enumerators/ field teams/ respondents not compensated fairly. Hypocrisy and backstabbing are common, culture of fear and distrust. Things you say are constantly taken out of context and distorted. Overwork and intimidation of junior staff, any weakness shown (struggling with workload or other) is used against you. Opaque and vertical management, constant organisational changes to mask the lack of foresight. The high turnover says it all, with no effort made to retain talent. No one in the office seems truly happy.