International consultant - GIS Specialist

Result of Service The consultant is expected to produce the following outputs: 1. Assessment of relevant geospatial products for the five project countries; 2. First report on assistance provided and summary of work done between 21 February and 30 April 2022 3. Second report on assistance provided and summary of work done between 1 May and 31 July 2022 4. Third report on assistance provided and summary of work done between 1 August and 15 November 2022

Work Location Remotely

Expected duration The duration of the contract will be 60 working days during the period between 21 February 2022 and 15 November 2022.

Duties and Responsibilities Background and objectives

The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) project, “Environmental-Economic Accounting for Evidence-Based Policy in Africa and Asia”, which is funded under the 12th Tranche of the UN Development Account (UNDA), aims to address the technical and institutional barriers to the establishment of routinely produced environmental-economic accounts. The international statistical standard, the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) provides countries with a framework to derive internationally comparable environmental-economic accounts, supporting measurement of progress towards the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Global Biodiversity Framework, and other policy frameworks such as green growth strategies.

The United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) adopted the SEEA Central Framework (SEEA CF) in 2012 as an international statistical standard and encouraged its implementation in countries. In 2018, the UNSC noted the growing importance of the SEEA and urged to scale up implementation, while also noting the strong support for using SEEA in compiling SDG indicators. In 2021, the UNSC adopted the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) as an international statistical standard and encouraged countries to implement the SEEA EA. A global SEEA EA implementation strategy has been developed to rapidly expand the number of countries compiling natural capital accounts based on the SEEA.

As part of the overall implementation strategy, this UNDA project aims to strengthen the institutional and technical capacity of national statistical offices (NSOs) and other relevant agencies to produce SEEA accounts and to strengthen the national capacity of project countries to use environmental-economic accounts for monitoring sustainable development, in five countries –Kenya, Malaysia, Mozambique, the Philippines, and Senegal. The project activities will focus on: (a) building the institutional framework in support of SEEA implementation, taking into consideration policy priorities and existing initiatives and activities; (b) building capacity to compile selected accounts on a regular basis; (c) fostering inter-institutional relationships to promote collaboration and data-sharing in producing the accounts; and (d) promoting the effective communication and use of the accounts for evidence-based policy and the SDGs.

In most of the project countries the implementation is focusing on spatially-explicit accounts, such as land and ecosystem extent accounts, as well as the spatial representation of other SEEA accounts, such as water accounts. The compilation of these accounts is supported with the use of the ARIES for SEEA Explorer – an application developed by the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) that allows users to compile a basic set of ecosystem accounts, anywhere on earth, starting from global data sources and models that can be subsequently improved by using national data sources.

The objective of this consultancy is to support the project countries with implementing selected spatially-explicit accounts, supporting the discussion between the national statistical and geospatial agencies, and acting as a bridge between the project countries and the ARIES for SEEA tool.

Work assignment

Under the supervision of UNSD, the consultant will work with both the national agencies and the ARIES for SEEA tool on implementation of spatially explicit SEEA accounts in the five project countries in order to:

• Provide technical support, capacity building and advice on the use of geospatial tools, analysis and products to the national agencies in project countries, especially the NSO and the national mapping agency;
• Assess existing geospatial products available in the countries to be used for accounting (covering both land cover / use, condition variables, as well as data sets required for ecosystem services modelling);
• Work with the national agencies to ensure the national maps needed to compile spatially-explicit accounts satisfy the requirements to be used in accounting (e.g., re-project data, re-sample data, apply suitable masks, etc.);
• Ensure the national mapping products can be integrated with the ARIES for SEEA tool, which entails developing clear meta-data and semantically annotating existing maps to make them consistent with the ARIES ontology; and

• Use the Global Fundamental Geospatial Data Themes as a possible framework for assessing/categorizing available data and review the Global Statistical Geospatial Framework to inform the project.

  Qualifications/special skills Academic Qualifications: First-level university degree (Bachelor’s degree or equivalent) in statistics, ecology, geography, economics, engineering, cartography or related field. Experience: - A minimum of 3 years of proven experience within the UN system, government administration, non-governmental organization, consultancy services, academia or related organization is required. - Demonstrated experience in the collection, compilation, analysis and dissemination of geospatial data and products, as well as a strong background in computational modelling, along with working knowledge of GIS and OGC standards, is required. - Demonstrated experience in the collection, compilation, analysis and dissemination of official statistics, including environmental-economic accounts, and/or proven track record on environmental analysis and policy research is desirable. - Full proficiency in the use of ArcGIS or QGIS is required. - Technical skills in python and SQL databases are desirable. Language: Fluency in spoken and written English is required. Fluency in French is desirable.

  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.