Vantaggi
Staff is generally cool and friendly. Direct contact with well-known economists and researchers. Large amounts of independance on the policy side, since you generally work alone imbedded and there are not many policy staff in the regional offices. Work-life balance is good (even this is not often the case for the research side). Large amounts of responsability since there are not many other policy staff in the regional offices.
Svantaggi
Very little support since IPA does little policy work (their core business is data collection and cleaning for RCTs). Few resources available for policy staff in terms of training, procedures, etc. Working on policy in the Abidjan office was similar to working as an independant consultant. Office culture is very work based, few social activities outside of work and people generally work long hours. IPA is very stingy with expenses, so few advantages except health insurance and reimboursement for a couple of work-related expenses (taxis and phone calls). Little to no support for new arrivals, just a very mediocre hotel paid for 2 weeks. IPA is very centralized (Finance, HR, etc. are in the US offices), but the quality of the services of these US-bases offices is quite simply bad. People can wait weeks for responses on important questions (fiscal questions, work computer, recruitement, etc.). It's undoubtedly the largest problem that IPA has today and many people in the organisation are aware of it. Also important note for US expats : your salary (base salary + fiscal allowance) is taxed in both the US and the country you are working in, so you need to evaluate very carefully your net salary and consider whether you will be eligible for the Federal Income Exception.