Economic Specialist

Contract

This is a Consultancy contract. More about Consultancy contracts.

Result of Service

The individual contractor should provide the required research and reporting support in a timely manner. The individual contractor should also help finalize and coordinate the content and layout of the outputs of the project.

Work Location

UN-House ESCWA

Expected duration

3 Months

Duties and Responsibilities

Background: The Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) is mandated by a number of resolutions to enhance its support to the Palestinian people and their institutions to achieve national development goals, namely the National Development Plan 2021-2023 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In this context, ESCWA seeks to enhance Palestinian institutional capacity to plan and implement development strategies, policies and programs to attain sustainable development, mitigate the impact of the Israeli practices and policies thereon, as well as to achieve economic disengagement from the Israeli occupation. Furthermore, during its sixth meeting held in Marrakech, Morocco, on 15 and 16 June 2019, the ESCWA Executive Committee recommended working to “develop a trust fund at ESCWA to support Palestine, aimed at increasing resources within the ESCWA secretariat to supporting the Palestinian people and institutions in achieving sustainable development, building their capacity and empowering them to realize their inalienable rights, and communicating with member States to urge them to finance the fund”. Accordingly, the ESCWA secretariat established the Palestine Program of the ESCWA Resource Platform for Technical Cooperation, which aims to provide funding to strengthen and increase the activities undertaken by ESCWA to support the Palestinian people, in a manner that is integrated with activities financed from the regular budget. The platform will finance activities and programmes that support Palestinian institutions in upgrading service provision, attaining sustainable development, achieving economic disengagement from the Israel, and mitigating the impact of Israeli policies and practices on the living conditions of Palestinians. Further, the platform also seeks to support the efforts of the Palestinian people and their institutions to achieve their inalienable rights, including the right to development and the right to self-determination. Along these lines, ESCWA seeks to support the Palestinian National Team for Sustainable Development in fulfilling its mandates. It has thus initiated a series of activities to support enhance the capacities of the team and their abilities, including providing an assessment on the alignment of the National Development Plan 2021-2023 of the State of Palestine with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and identifying its technical needs with the aim of developing capacity building programs and recommendations to address these needs. Duties and Responsibilities: Under the supervision of the Cluster Leader of the Governance and Conflict Prevention cluster and the project coordinator, the Economic Specialist will be responsible for the following duties: • Assist cluster leader and project coordinator in the preparation of background research for the production of technical material and publications in areas relevant to human development and impact of conflict and occupation on development. • Support in preparing database on human development in occupied Palestine complied and regularly updated from different datasets and brief analyses of the results of the datasets including regional comparisons. • Assists in identifying and monitoring substantive aspect of the work of the Unit in various regions/countries. • Selects and evaluates a variety of documents, summarize pertinent material, collects and analyses data and prepares background materials for assessment papers, studies, briefs and reports. • Systematically follows through and retrieves, highlights and compiles information from a wide variety of information sources; prepares input for the electronic database. • Assembles and examines original statistical material to ensure accuracy, clarity and validity; makes appropriate adjustments. • Designs, prepares and maintains a country profile for Palestine. • Prepares and contribute to a variety of reports, presentations, tables, lists, charts, data sets, and/or diagrams for information in order to facilitate the in-depth analysis of the retrieved information by the supervisor and other users. • Participates in the substantive and policy discussions of the team and cluster. • Prepares, maintains and updates files (electronic and paper) and internal databases; designs and generates a variety of periodic and ad hoc reports, statistical tables, charts, graphs, and other background materials/notes on the impact of occupation to facilitate inspection and other reviews. • Drafts programme/project summaries, co-ordinates review and clearance process and co-ordinates with editor, translation services, etc., on finalization and publication of reports in multiple languages. • Identifies the organizational requirements for conferences and meetings and assists in the preparation of documentation and reports for these meetings. • Attends a variety of meetings to follow discussions, takes notes and prepares summary report, notes for the file, correspondence, etc. • Any other related tasks as may be required or assigned by the supervisor.

Qualifications/special skills

A Bachelor's degree in Economics or related social sciences is required. Masters in the field is desirable. A minimum of 4 years of research in areas related to human development (economic development, employment, health, education or environmental sustainability, gender equality and women empowerment, etc) is required. Knowledge of excel and Stata (or other statistical softwares) is required Accuracy and professionalism in document production and editing is desirable. Solid overall computer literacy, including proficiency in various MS Office applications (Excel, Word, etc.) and email/internet; familiarity with database management; and office technology equipment is desirable.

Languages

English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat; and Arabic is a working language of ESCWA. For this position, fluency in English and Arabic is required. Note: “Fluency” equals a rating of ‘fluent’ in all four areas (speak, read, write, and understand) and “Knowledge of” equals a rating of ‘confident’ in two of the four areas.

Additional Information

Recruitment for this position is on a local basis. The incumbent is required to have the legal right to live and work in the specified working location.

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.