ACS Price statistician

Result of Service During the consultancy, the consultant should deliver all the activities / tasks which are listed above under “Duties and responsibilities of the consultant”. The consultant will submit reports on the activities undertaken and on the progress and achievements made for the activities indicated.

Work Location Addis Ababa

Expected duration The duration of the contract is for 9 months and it will be undertaken on a part-time basis. The consultancy will begin upon signature of the contract by the consultant. The consultant will work from his/her country of residence. The honorarium will be in a lump sum of 36,000 USD. The payments will be made in nine installments (4,000 USD each) on a monthly basis, which will be effected upon satisfactory achievement of the activities indicated above.

Duties and Responsibilities Background The African Centre for Statistics of ECA has been undertaking a technical capacity building programme on price statistics for African countries. The programme aims to support the national statistics offices mitigate the adverse impacts of the restrictive measures taken by the countries in their efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. The programme seeks to enable price statistics experts in the application of novel and adaptive solutions with a view to ensuring the continued production of reliable and good quality price statistics. Moreover, the application of alternative methods of price data collection, such as telephone surveys, scanner data and web scrapping assist countries in modernizing their statistical system in general.

Telephone survey is one of the alternative methods on which the African Centre for Statistics, in collaboration with its partners has been working. Telephone interviews have some advantages over face-to-face interviews, including timeliness and cost-effectiveness, amongst others. Furthermore, computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) has been used as alternative to computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. CATI is an interview method where enumerators communicate with respondents in a voice call. In the telephone interviewing approach, enumerators use electronic devices such as computers, tablets, or mobile phone, in order to read the survey script and enter the information collected. The African Centre for Statistics is therefore looking for a consultant who provides technical support to a pilot of African countries in the application of CATI survey to collect prices statistics.

Objective The objective of the project is to provide technical support to a group of about 8 African countries on the use of telephone surveys / CATI to collect price statistics for the compilation of consumer price index (CPI). The price data must be collected using CATI method which could be applicable during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Duties and responsibilities of the consultant Under the supervision of the Chief of the Economic, Infrastructure and Agriculture Statistics Section (EIASS) of the African Centre for Statistics, the consultant will be responsible for the following, with emphasis on price data collection by using CATI surveys:

• Ensure that international standards and recommendations for data collection and compilation for CPI are observed and followed while adopting the new techniques (i.e. phone survey for CPI data collection);
• Identify the goods for which the price statistics could only be collected using face to face interview; and document and advise areas and procedures to ensure and improve the quality of collected data for CPI through CATI/phone survey techniques.
• Liaise with African countries to identify and include the interested countries to be pilot countries of the project;
• Support the CATI/phone survey experts who provide technical assistance to countries in the application of telephone / CATI for price data collection;
• Provide technical support and assistance to the leading organizations during the regional webinars and technical assistance sessions to be conducted in individual countries;
• Prepare documents, presentation slides, webinar report and any other related documents with regards to the webinars in both English and French and participate in the regional webinars; and serve as rapporteur during the regional webinars;

• Performs other duties as assigned.

  Qualifications/special skills Academic Qualifications: Advanced university degree (Master's degree or PhD equivalent) in economics, statistics, finance, or related fields is required. A first-level university degree in combination with additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree. Experience: A minimum of eight years of progressively responsible experience in the collection, compilation, analysis and dissemination of statistical data or in related area. Experience with CPI data collection, focusing on one of the alternative methods (telephone survey, scanner data, web scrapping) is required. Good experience in provision of technical assistance is an asset. Language: English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Fluency in oral and written English or French is required. Knowledge of the other working language is an advantage.

  No Fee THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.