Data Extraction Consultant

Contract

This is a International Consultant contract. More about International Consultant contracts.

Background

In June 2020, the UNDP Bahrain and the Bahrain Center for Strategic, International and Energy Studies (Derasat) entered into a partnership to carry out a socio-economic impact assessment that uses rigorous techniques to study the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 in the Kingdom of Bahrain, with inputs from a broad range of additional actors and counterparts, including the UN system, public and private sector entities, academia, and civil society.

The primary questions that this initiative is seeking to answer are assessing the socio-economic impact of COVID-19, and the socio-economic impact of the government’s countermeasures. To answer these questions, the project will encompass large-scale surveys, one-to-one interviews and focus groups, policy evaluation, roundtable discussions, and data extraction and analysis.

Through the completion of this study, the project has the following objectives: (1) Providing rigorous estimates of a selection of the socio-economic effects of COVID-19 and countermeasures in the Kingdom of Bahrain; (2) Establishing a platform that facilitates the delivery of such estimates at regular intervals; (3) Contributing to a wider use of evidence-based policy in the Kingdom of Bahrain; (4) Contributing to the research output of the Kingdom of Bahrain; (5) Improving the Kingdom of Bahrain’s homegrown capacity to conduct socio-economic impact assessments; and (6) Building cooperation between UNDP, Derasat, and other governmental and non-governmental organizations in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Duties and Responsibilities

Deliverables

Two pieces of software:

Software 1: We are looking to extract information from a list of pre-specified online Arabic and English newspapers.

The software allows the user to specify the following:

• A range of dates (start and end date)
• A selection of the newspapers from the pre-specified list
• A Boolean combination of Arabic or English keywords

The software outputs a csv file with the following variables:

• Date
• Newspaper
• Total number of articles published
• Total number of articles published that include the Boolean combination of keywords specified by the user

For example, if I selected Daily News and Daily Bulletin as the newspapers, for the date range 1 Jan 2019 to 2 Jan 2019, with the keyword combination “crisis AND (covid-19 OR coronavirus)”, then it would output a table of the following form.

Date

Newspaper

Total number of articles

Total number of articles that include pre-specified keywords

1/1/2019

Daily News

34

3

2/1/2019

Daily News

27

1

1/1/2019

Daily Bulletin

15

4

2/1/2019

Daily Bulletin

28

3

Software 2: We are looking to extract information from Twitter.

The software allows the user to specify the following:

• A range of dates (start and end date)
• A selection of countries
• A Boolean combination of Arabic or English keywords

The software outputs a csv file with the following variables:

• Date
• Country
• Total number of tweets associated with that country that include the Boolean combination of keywords specified by the user.

Note that “associated with the country” will be determined with the worker hired, depending on the sort of tweet metadata that can be reliably extracted. It might be the declared origin of the person tweeting, as an illustration.

In terms of the output, as an example, if I selected Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, for the date range 3 December 2017 to 4 December 2017 , with the keyword combination “crisis AND (covid-19 OR coronavirus)”, then it would output a table of the following form.

Date

Country

Total number of tweets that include pre-specified keywords

3/12/2017

Bahrain

3

4/12/2017

Bahrain

1

3/12/2017

Saudi Arabia

4

4/12/2017

Saudi Arabia

3

Additional notes

1. The software should have an easy-to-use GUI
2. We are given full ownership of the source code
3. The software should include full markup so that we can easily edit the software in future
4. The software should be fully compatible with both English and Arabic languages

Each software needs to be operational by the end of September

Competencies

Functional competencies:

• Ability to work in a team;
• Strong administrative skills; well-organized, methodical, ability to set priorities and pay attention to detail;
• Willing to work remotely
• Good communications skills
• Strong software skills. Corporate Competencies:
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Demonstration of active values of integrity, ethics and cultural sensitivity;
• Highest standards of integrity, discretion and loyalty.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

* High School Graduate

Language Requirements:

Fluency in written and spoken Arabic and English is required.