ICT Specialist (Geographic Information System), P-3, Post no. 118963, ICTD New York Headquarters

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 fulfil 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 connected world.

The overarching strategic goal of UNICEF’s Information and Communication Technology Division (ICTD) is to transform and build partnerships with our stakeholders to successfully implement UNICEF programmes globally through innovative technology-enabled solutions.

How can you make a difference?

The ICT Specialist will help coordinate UNICEF’s approach to GIS (Geographic Information System), tools, standards, and processes to enable the agency to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of spatial data sets. The successful candidate will work to foster broader use and adoption across UNICEF of GIS to enhance and enable the agency’s ability to leverage GIS for rapid and geographically detailed data-driven responses to emerging and fast-moving challenges affecting children.

This role reports to the ICT Manager at the P-4 level in ICTD.

Key responsibilities:

1. Support the implementation of ArcGIS enterprise at UNICEF including assisting in promoting the migration of field offices toward a centralized ArcGIS Enterprise platform. • Oversee and validate deployment and maintenance of ArcGIS Enterprise on UNICEF’s Azure infrastructure by external GIS vendor. • Collaborate on validation, acceptance, and review of UNICEF’s ArcGIS enterprise agreement. • Coordinate the creation of an administrative framework to manage ArcGIS licensing. • Support the creation of a change management project that seeks to migrate UNICEF’s currently scattered set of ArcGIS licenses at its field offices into a unified, centralized enterprise agreement.

2. Oversee the implementation, expansion, availability, and use of open-source GIS components as either SaaS offering or hosted on UNICEF’s cloud infrastructure. • Oversee the implementation and use of an open-source stack of GIS technologies using a SaaS model. • Maintain the evolving UNICEF GIS enterprise architecture to ensure it aligns with UNICEF business needs and conforms to UNICEF’s overall IT business strategy. • Support design and implementation of a geo-analytical platform to serve as a corporate solution for multi-dimensional geospatial data analysis.

3. Work to encourage the adoption and use of the standardized GIS solutions made available at UNICEF, to foster a collaborative and efficient internal and external GIS community of practice that maximizes the reuse of component solutions and datasets. • Support development and rollout of the geospatial strategy across the organization. • Assist field offices in their GIS initiatives to ensure they conform to UNICEF’s enterprise architecture and make use of the agency’s evolving set of common enterprise level proprietary and open-source components. • Assist headquarters in fostering shared approaches to GIS solutions by assisting data producers to make their datasets available using UNICEF’s enterprise level GIS solutions. • Support UNICEF data and IT teams in making use of GIS solutions, including eTools, CCRI, and MICS. • Initiate and coordinate collaboration with external partners (e.g. other UN agencies, academia, NGOs) around geospatial data, tools, and talent.

4. Support the implementation and use of a shared GIS repository that permits UNICEF staff to access commonly needed layers, such as administrative units, population, WASH services, educational and health facilities, etc. • Complete and maintain a UNICEF-specific set of global administrative unit layers that conform to the agency’s need for geopolitical shape files that conform to evolving UN standards. • Manage GIS layers of interest to UNICEF in a common repository available to UNICEF staff to support their GIS work, with a view to maximizing comparability and exchangeability. • Liaise with UNICEF colleagues to foster common geocodes across agency datasets whether represented in GIS systems or not, to maximize comparability across datasets.

5. Triage incoming requests for one-off needs coming from UNICEF offices and direct them to appropriate Long Term Agreement (LTA) vendors for execution. • In partnership with country offices and regional Technology for Development colleagues, review field requests for GIS support and draft requests into actionable deliveries for UNICEF GIS LTA vendors. • Review the results of LTA vendor GIS work for quality.

Duration:

This Temporary Assignment is for a duration of 364 days.

To qualify as a champion for every child you will have…

Academic Degrees: • Advanced University degree (Master’s Degree or higher) in geospatial, computer science, software engineering, mathematics, or another relevant technical field is required. A first university degree (Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent) in a relevant area combined with 2 additional years of relevant practical professional work experience may be taken in lieu of advanced university degree.

Required Professional Experience: • A minimum of 5 years of professional experience working with GIS in a large international organization or corporation is required is required, including: • Experience working with both commercial and open-source GIS technologies. • Experience building and documenting GIS data assets for use by a broad user base. • Thorough knowledge and working experience with GIS communities and networks. • Experience understanding non-IT customer requirements with respect to GIS, developing product plans, and executing them to iteratively develop user-oriented GIS tools. • Experience managing and implementing IT and GIS solutions for medium and large-scale organizations, including national statistical offices. • Experience working with cloud-based data platforms (e.g., DataBricks). • Experience programming and scripting for GIS solutions (e.g., Python, ArcPy, developing plugins for QGIS).

Required Technical Skills: • Advanced proficiency designing and implementing web-based GIS solutions using both commercial (e.g., ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Enterprise) and open-source (e.g. GeoServer, PostGIS, GeoNode, Leaflet, Open Layers etc.) GIS tools and frameworks. • Ability to generate and maintain geospatial data using both raster and vector formats. • Proficiency in using ETL processes to convert time-series data and microdata into GIS formats. • Familiarity with statistical data concepts, including SDMX. • Proficiency in using BI tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau, Superset) for geospatial data analysis and visualization. • Proficiency in using desktop GIS tools, both commercial (e.g., ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Pro), as well as open source (e.g., QGIS). • Advanced knowledge of geospatial mobile data collection solutions (e.g., ArcGIS Field Maps, Survey123, ODK / KoBo Collect, QField).

Desirable Skills and Experience: • Project management certification (e.g. Prince2 or ITIL) is an asset. • Experience in a UN organization is an asset.

Language Requirements: • Fluency in English is required. • Knowledge of another official UN language (Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian) is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability and the core competencies as follows: • Builds and maintains partnerships • Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness • Drive to achieve results for impact • Innovates and embraces change • Manages ambiguity and complexity • Thinks and acts strategically • Works collaboratively with others

View our competency framework here.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization. Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

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

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 also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. 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.

UNICEF only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU) / United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed at http://www.whed.net/

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