Statistics Specialist (Nutrition Database Manager) Vacancy-Job Ref: ECITUNICEF/1002/202491

Statistics Specialist (Nutrition Database Manager) Vacancy-Job Ref: ECITUNICEF/1002/202491

Florence (Italy) United States

JOB DESCRIPTION

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, data

The Division of Data, Analytics, Planning and Monitoring (DAPM) was established in 2019 to drive decision making and organizational learning, improve effectiveness and achievement of results of UNICEF and its partners to realize the rights and improve the life of every child. DAPM promotes the use of data and monitoring to achieve transformative impact on lives of children.

The Division is responsible for driving, shaping and guiding UNICEF’s evidence-informed analysis, strategic planning, programme monitoring and organizational performance management. As such, DAPM enables the organization to deliver on results in a more coherent manner, based on agile and contextualized programming process, and on data, evidence, and analysis, as well as the application of human-rights based and results-based management approaches.

Within DAPM, the Data & Analytics Team (DAT) is the global go-to for data on children. It leads the collection, validation, analysis, use and communication of the most statistically sound, internationally comparable data on the situation of children and women around the world. For this purpose, both traditional and innovative data and analysis – including administrative and household survey data as well as geospatial analysis, big data and machine learning – are used.

DAT provides leadership, strategic and normative guidance and technical support to generate data and evidence on children. The team works together with other teams within UNICEF as well as partner organizations, to support statistical systems strengthening at the country level. DAT is also fostering a data-driven transformation in how UNICEF works internally and together with partners that includes positioning UNICEF as a leader on data for children, protecting children through governance of data and building an organization-wide culture of data.

How can you make a difference?

Under the supervision of the Senior Advisor, Monitoring and Statistics of the Nutrition Unit in DAT, the Statistics Specialist (Nutrition), is responsible for the conceptualization, implementation and management of the team’s overall database structure and processes and specifically responsible for the ongoing maintenance of UNICEF’s multiple global databases related to child anthropometry, micronutrients and diets of young children. Further, the incumbent will work closely with other Unit team members to integrate new nutrition databases on women and school-age children and adolescents, and new databases based on country administrative data into the overall database architecture and undertake or facilitate related analyses.

The incumbent works closely with country and regional offices to consult national authorities and compile data from around the world, and provides technical support to strengthen the capacity of national stakeholders to collect and analyze nutrition data for the purposes of national use and global reporting. Work responsibilities will be performed in close collaboration with all Unit team members as well as other staff in the section and the division, UNICEF’s Programme Division, other UN agencies, organizations and inter-agency groups.

Summary of results-based key functions/accountabilities:

Data collection, analysis, use and quality assurance on issues related to nutrition
Develop and implement strategies for an efficient system to maintain global databases and implement analyses from multiple survey sources across domains.
Support UNICEF global, regional and country level data collection and analysis mainly at the outcome/impact levels of relevant indicators.
Carry out analysis and interpretation of data relevant to nutrition, including contributions to the UNICEF flagship publications, other global and regional reports, internal documents and meetings, as well as the preparation of peer reviewed journal articles.
Support dissemination of data, estimates, analyses and other products to maximize the use for advocacy, programming and planning purpose.
Provide technical support to field offices, countries and partners on data collection, analysis, use and quality assurance
Serve as focal point for cross-sectoral data gathering and validation exercises such as the Country Reporting and Validation Exercise (CRAVE) and support other country consultations as needed related to SDGs and global nutrition targets.
Methodological development
Support the methodological development of indicators for measurement and monitoring of emerging areas and interventions related to nutrition.
Contribute to the on-going improvement in data availability and quality. In collaboration with main partners, modify existing analytical tools and develop new tools where appropriate. Test tools, and support the development of guidelines for their use and provide support for implementation at country level.
Capacity development and country support
Contribute to the capacity development of countries to monitor nutrition and build efficient database systems. The incumbent will develop training materials (and presentations), facilitate/coordinate regional workshops, give presentations at these workshops and provide technical support as applicable
Contribute to developing the capacity within the organization for evidence-based policy, planning, programming and advocacy by developing/presenting materials on nutrition data systems used by the Unit team.
Partnerships and representation
Contribute to regular sharing of data and related products with partners at the global, regional, and country levels
Represent or participate as a member of the UNICEF D&A nutrition team at UN inter-agency meetings, international meetings and other technical meetings as relevant.
Collaborate with various UNICEF colleagues in HQ and across the organization, as needed on joint products or projects.
Data dissemination and advocacy
Develop and regularly update visualizations of nutrition related data to increase the visibility and understanding of the data and analysis internally and externally.
Support the updating of technical content through relevant websites and data portals.
Support innovative, effective and efficient ways to prepare and disseminate products, to make data, codes, analyses findings, publications, and other relevant products accessible and available through a variety of channels that target different audiences.
Software and IT tools
Train team on
Use of Git and GitHub for research
Workflows to automate the creation of reports and research outputs
Advise team on
How to efficiently manage GitHub accounts and repositories
Adoption of cloud software for research tasks
Data Workflow Methodologies – from data collection to publication
Guide team on efforts to
Document current data management practices
Develop solutions to current bottlenecks in data workflow
Identify processes that can be improved by
Reducing sources of human errors
Workflow automation
Increasing collaboration and synergy effects through standardization
Promote further discussions within D&A units on processes standardization
Continuously collaborate with D&A units to support and listen to feedback to continuously improve methodologies suggested
Lead the institutionalization of checks to ensure reproducibility of all results generated

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in public health, nutrition, economics, public policy, epidemiology, statistics, computer sciences or in one of the social sciences with strong quantitative training and experience.
A minimum of five (5) years of relevant professional experience in nutrition, statistics, economics, public policy and specifically child anthropometry or other relevant fields. This should include at least 2 years’ experience in analyzing household survey data (DHS, MICS, LSMS) and other sources.
Experience in database management, data visualization, data analysis, methodological development and other areas of applied statistics, data interpretation and use would be preferred.
Demonstrated experience building databases and conducting statistical analysis.
Experience working with nutrition data, specifically anthropometry data, and familiarity with data visualization tools, would be an asset.
Strong computer skills including Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), databases (Access), statistical programming and statistical analysis software (Stata, SPSS, R).
Strong experience with data visualization tools, i.e. Shiny (preferred), Tableau or PowerBI.
Experience working with GitHub and designing data pipelines and workflows is an asset.
Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

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