Consultant, Informatics and Data Analist Officer (Brazzaville - AFRO)

1. Background

   The WHO AFRO Member States continue to experience an increase in public health events with negative consequences for human health. Under its constitution and the International Health Regulations, WHO has specific responsibilities and accountabilities during emergencies. Although WHO AFRO experiences the highest number of public health events recorded globally, it does not have the necessary adequate health workforce to effectively and timely respond to all these events. The inadequate surge capacity, especially at the country level, presents a major concern about effective emergency response.

In line with one of the Regional flagship programs, Strengthening and Utilizing Response Groups for Emergencies (SURGE), in each of the 47 countries in the region, the Emergency Preparedness and Response (EPR) cluster will establish a database of health experts for public health response. The aim is to ensure a robust regional surge management system is readily available to respond rapidly to and address the HR surge needs of WHO Country Offices (WCOs) and Member States.

This surge Management system intends to build the capacity of the WHO at Regional, hub and WCO levels, as well as that of Member States (MoH) and partners. Keeping a robust database of public health experts in the region will contribute to rapid deployment for the response.

2. Deliverables

   The incumbent will support the development and management of the emergency database of experts, ensuring coherence with the expected strategy of the EPR cluster and supporting the implementation of preparedness and response activities. The incumbent will develop an interactive user interface or dashboard to effectively search, analyze and review the experts in the SURGE database. The officer will work closely with the Human Resource and Surge management team to guarantee the smooth implementation of activities.

Under the supervision of the Head of Unit, Emergency Management Support, the incumbent will:

1. Design, develop and deploy robust and interoperable data collection tools and protocols at the field data collection level.
2. Develop customized software for efficient analysis and presentation of data;
3. Create an analytic dashboard to be used as a real-time monitoring system
4. Conceptualize, design and develop guidance documents and tools for data validation at all levels.
5. Provide data quality improvement support to different units within the EMR program
6. Develop and maintain a comprehensive database of national and regional repository of experts with all relevant information for deployment to the Member States;
7. Be responsible for the development and implementation of data quality control procedures and activities; including troubleshoot and correcting data submission or retrieval errors
8. Developing protocols and management plans for data access, sharing, privacy, storage and back-up, and ensuring that the SURGE activities meet the requirements of the Data Protection Act;
9. Perform and document procedures for data preparation, including data cleaning, standardization and analysis;
10. Assist in defining and creating data listings, summary table validation, data specifications and process data transfers in preparation for statistical review and data management audit;

11. Perform any other duties that the supervisor may assign

    3. Qualifications, experience, skills and languages

    Educational Qualifications

• *F**irst level university degree in computer science, software engineering, information technology, statistics, health informatics, data science or similar sciences.*
• Desirable: Post Graduating training in any of the above disciplines.

Experience

• At least five years relevant working experience in statistical data collection and validation in public health, harmonization of data and metadata, indicator production, data analysis and visualization, including experience with and management of data from a variety of data sources and multiple dimensions. Experience with the creation of dashboards, working with servers
• Desirable: Experience with implementing and using mobile and web-based data collection systems, user experience and interface design, human resource and recruitment analytics Working with national and international agencies active in the field of health statistics. Experience in WHO or other UN agencies.

Skills/Knowledge

• Good knowledge of the assessment, planning, development and implementation of projects and programmes on health information systems, including project management skills.
• Good knowledge of stakeholder analysis, business requirements gathering and strong communication skills.
• Advanced knowledge of web-based programming languages (JavaScript, D3, JQuery, CSS, HTML), setting up databases, knowledge of SQL, DAX, python, R, shiny app and ability to navigate and understand complementary technologies.
• Good knowledge and use of different data analytic tools, data visualization tools (Power BI development, Tableau, GIS and others), and sound health data management practices. Advanced statistical programming and data management skills to customize databases and other tools and automate data processing.

Languages and level required

• Excellent knowledge of English.

• Desirable: Working knowledge of another WHO official language.

  4. Technical Supervision

  Head of Unit, Emergency Management Support

  5. Location

  Please specify where the consultant will work:

On site: Brazzaville - AFRO

6. Travel - If travel is involved, full medical clearance is required

   A living expense is payable to on-site consultants

   7. Remuneration and budget (travel costs excluded)

   Rate [daily or monthly or for language and publishing services by word count or number of pages]: Band level B

Currency: The remuneration is between USD 7,000 and USD 8,480 per month