Data Science Specialist (Climate & Environment), P-3, Fixed Term, DAPM

Contract

This is a P-3 contract. This kind of contract is known as Professional and Director staff. It is normally internationally recruited only. It's a staff contract. It usually requires 5 years of experience, depending on education.

Salary

The salary for this job should be between 140,639 USD and 184,155 USD.

Please keep in mind that the salary displayed here is an estimation by UN Talent based on the location and the type of contract. It may vary depending on the organization. The recruiter should be able to inform you about the exact salary range. In case the job description contains another salary information, please refer to this one.

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, a future

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.

The Data & Analytics Team (DAT) is located within the Division of Data, Analysis, Planning and Monitoring (DAPM) at UNICEF’s New York headquarters. DAT is the hub of UNICEF’s technical guidance, quality assurance and technical data architecture for programme work on data across the organization. DAT provides leadership, strategic and normative guidance and technical support to UNICEF’s work on generating evidence on the situation of children by supporting the collection, analysis, understanding and use of robust data and statistics, programme data, data science, big data analytics and data literacy.

The Senior Statistics and Monitoring Specialist (WASH) is the UNICEF HQ focal point for WASH data and Chief of the WASH data unit. S/he has overall responsibility for developing WASH data standards, maintaining global databases and analyzing data to inform global programmes and to contribute to global reports on the situation of children. S/he is also overseeing the development of a new data unit on Climate and Environment within the Data & Analytics Team.

Under the direct supervision of the Senior Statistics and Monitoring Specialist (WASH) and overall and technical supervision of the Chief Statistician, the Data Science Specialist (Climate and Environment), will work closely with the P4 Statistics and Monitoring Officer (Climate and Environment) as they develop data standards and estimation methods, integrate data on climate and environmental risks into UNICEF global databases, and generate analyses of data on climate and environmental risks facing children at national, regional and global levels. With a dotted technical reporting line to the Frontier Data & Technology Unit lead, the incumbent will also work closely with colleagues in other units in the Data & Analytics Team, with colleagues in country and regional offices, and with other teams within UNICEF headquarters.

How can you make a difference?

The primary purpose of this post is to serve as UNICEF HQ focal point for spatial data science in support of data and analyses related to climate and environment. The incumbent is responsible for assisting the work of the Statistics and Monitoring Specialist (Climate and Environment) in the development of data standards and estimation methods, the integration of data on climate and environmental risks into UNICEF global databases, and the analysis of data on climate and environmental risks facing children at national, regional and global levels.

The incumbent works closely with other teams within UNICEF headquarters including Programme Group team on Climate Environment Energy and Disaster Risk Reduction (CEED) and Office of Emergency Programmes Risk Analysis and Preparedness Section (EMOPS-RAPS). The incumbent also works closely with country and regional offices to consult with national authorities and to compile reliable data for inclusion in UNICEF’s global databases. The incumbent provides technical support to build the capacity of national stakeholders to collect and analyze data for the purposes of national and global monitoring of climate and environmental risks facing children. The incumbent works closely with other UN agencies, universities, national statistical offices, and other institutions with technical expertise in this area.

1. Data collection and analysis

2. Support UNICEF global, regional and country level collection, preparation and analysis of frontier data (spatial data, remote sensing, data cubes, network data…) relevant to child-related climate and environmental risks, and provide technical guidance as needed.

3. In collaboration with the Statistics and Monitoring Specialist (Climate and Environment), and FDTU’s Principal Researcher, carry out in-depth frontier data tech analysis, contributing to the interpretation of results on climate and environmental risks facing children, including contributions to UNICEF flagship publications and other major reports and the preparation of technical papers including peer reviewed journal articles.
4. Provide technical advice on spatial data technologies and techniques relating to specific climate and environmental risks facing children, including responding to ad hoc requests from senior management, Programme Group, EMOPs, Regional Offices, Country Offices, partner organizations and others

5. Support the visualization and dissemination of data, estimates and other products to maximize their use for advocacy, programming and planning purposes).

6. Development of data standards and methods

7. Provide technical inputs on spatial data science techniques for the methodological development of indicators and standards for measurement and monitoring of adaptation and resilience to climate and environmental risks, in particular causality analysis, estimation, and forecasting.

8. Support with spatial data science the ongoing development and refinement of methods for integrating datasets on child-related risks and vulnerabilities, and for analyzing national, regional and global trends in adaptation and resilience to climate and environmental risks.

9. Contribute to on-going improvements in availability, quality, and accessibility of data for decision making. In collaboration with external partners, modify existing measurement tools and develop new tools where appropriate. Test tools in field situations and help develop guidelines for their use and provide support for implementation at country level.

10. Capacity development and country support

11. Through the Frontier Data Network, contribute towards building the capacity of regional and country offices and national stakeholders to use spatial data science to systematically monitor climate and understand environmental risks facing children.

12. Support in strengthening the Frontier Data Network capacity and its portfolio on climate and environmental risk programming. The incumbent will support the development of training materials, ToRs, resource mobilization proposals and problem definitions; she/he will also help the of Frontier Data community of practice through technical support and advice, hands-on collaborations webinars, and other relevant channels.

13. Contribute to developing capacity within the organization for evidence-based policy, planning, programming and advocacy by supporting the development of new ways to visualize and disseminate climate and environment data.

14. Strategic partnerships, external representation and resource mobilization

    1. Support the Frontier Data Tech Unit to build and maintain data science partnerships with other UN agencies, organizations, institutions and private sector working in relevant areas.
    2. Lead or participate in interagency monitoring groups and partnerships regarding climate and environmental monitoring and spatial data technologies.
    3. Contribute to regular sharing of frontier data and related products with partners at the global, regional, and country levels.
    4. Represent UNICEF at international meetings and other areas of work as required.
    5. Support fundraising activities and reporting to donors.
15. Software and IT tools
    1. Train team on:
    2. Use of Git and GitHub for research
    3. Workflows to automate the creation of reports and research outputs
    4. Advise team on
    5. How to efficiently manage GitHub accounts and repositories
    6. Adoption of cloud software for research tasks
16. Data Workflow Methodologies – from data collection to publication
    1. Guide team on efforts to
    2. Document current data management practices
    3. Develop solutions to current bottlenecks in data workflow
    4. Identify processes that can be improved by
    5. Reducing sources of human errors
    6. Workflow automation
    7. Increasing collaboration and synergy effects through standardization
    8. Promote further discussions within D&A units on processes standardization
    9. Continuously collaborate with D&A units to support and listen to feedback to continuously improve methodologies suggested
    10. 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 economics, public policy, data science, computer science, applied mathematics, physics or another relevant subject with strong quantitative training. PhD is highly desirable.
• A minimum of five (5) years of relevant professional experience in spatial data science, and other areas of applied computational sciences relevant to climate and environmental sciences.
• Experience in the analysis of data from environmental and public health surveillance, meteorological data, climate change data, earth observation data and other relevant sources using spatial data science techniques.
• Experience writing technical reports and/or peer reviewed journal articles.
• Experience delivering presentations and training on spatial data science and related data lifecycle to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong computer skills including data science programming languages and workflows (Python, R, GitHub), spatial analysis, time series analysis and causal inference packages and techniques (e.g. igraph, stars, h3, sf…).
• Experience using spatial data science and geospatial platforms and services such as Carto, ArcGIS, QGis, Kepler.gl, etc.
• Experience with machine learning libraries, frameworks, and platforms such as TensorFlow, Pytorch, AzureML
• Experience with analytics and notebook sharing platforms and components such as Data Bricks, Jupyter, Google Colab, etc.
• Experience working with spatial data science formats, especially H3 and H3 expressions for geospatial processing and analysis is desirable.
• Background in network science and complex systems is desirable.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships (2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness (3) Drive to achieve results for impact (4) Innovates and embraces change (5) Manages ambiguity and complexity (6) Thinks and acts strategically (7) Works collaboratively with others.

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic. We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements. UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

The Division is currently undergoing organizational changes, therefore the exact location of the post is still under consideration. As such, the selected candidate has the option of starting the assignment remotely or should the candidate move to New York, s/he would be expected to relocate to another location as the case may be, during the contractual period.

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.