National Consultant - IT Architect (based in Amman, Jordan)

Contract

This is a Consultancy contract. More about Consultancy contracts.

Result of Service

• Output 1: Detailed plan of activities and work strategy, specifying key outputs and timelines jointly agreed with DoS, particularly with DoS focal point, and with other partners as needed. The plan will include assessment of existing tools along with verification of IT and statistician’s needs to modernize IT infrastructure to import and store administrative, geospatial, and other innovative data.
• Output 2: Monthly report on the progress of implementation of project activities according to the listed tasks and the workplan.
• Output 3: Monthly report on the progress of implementation of project activities according to the listed tasks and the workplan.
• Output 4: Monthly report on the progress of implementation of project activities according to the listed tasks and the workplan.
• Output 5: Monthly report on the progress of implementation of project activities according to the listed tasks and the workplan.
• Output 6: Final report on the progress of implementation of project activities according to the listed tasks and the workplan.

Work Location

The consultant will be based in Amman, Jordan. The consultancy is home-based with regular phone and web conference meetings with staff members of NSO, UNSD and other Data4Now core partners and stakeholders, as well as in-country visits to partners and government offices if the situation permits.

Expected duration

The consultant will work part-time for a period of 5 months, with possible extension thereafter, depending on availability of funds. Start date as soon as possible.

Duties and Responsibilities

Background There is an urgent need to strengthen the capacity of national statistical systems to leverage the use of administrative and innovative data for statistical purposes, to fill gaps in the data that is available to policy and decision makers to monitor progress and implement the 2030 Agenda and to address emerging challenges. Many countries are still struggling with the lack of modern IT infrastructure and technical skills, along with adequate institutional arrangements, for the efficient integration and processing of data and metadata from administrative and other innovative sources, to produce official statistics.

The UN Statistics Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) is engaged in capacity development efforts aimed to address some of these challenges, including through the “Data for Now” project. It supports various countries in their work to improve and increase the use of innovative and administrative data sources for statistical purposes, with a different area of focus in each country. The learnings and experiences from participating countries will be further shared with other countries to create synergies and multiplicative effects, including through an e-learning course and other cross-cutting guidance materials that will supplement existing thematically focused materials and tools.

Objective The objective of the consultancy is to support the Department of Statistics Jordan (DoS), one of the project countries, to build its internal capacity and modernize its IT architecture based on the DoS’s IT strategy.

Work Assignment The work assignment will be carried out in close collaboration with DoS and UNSD and involve the following: • Prepare a detailed plan of activities, specifying key outputs and timelines, in close consultation with DoS and the UNSD project coordinator. • Work closely with IT and statistical focal points of national statistical offices to gather information on current needs, existing IT systems, while drafting requirements and providing technical advice to modernize them. • Mapping DoS business needs with the DoS IT architecture and formulating the workflows for successful IT interventions by identifying tools and routines for implementation. • Delivery of technical assistance and advice to facilitate the implementation of the technical recommendations for the modernization of IT architecture with focus on data warehouse technologies. • Support in additional activities related to defining data flow of at least 2-3 data sources of different formats. • Provide guidance and training on development of a statistical data warehouse and selection of tools following the assessment of existing and new datasets including the admin data. • Provide recommendation on a data dissemination platform based on feasibility and requirement from DoS. • Provide input and support to other activities related to those above, as per request from DoS and UNSD

Qualifications/special skills

Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in computer science, data science, data engineering, or related field with five (5) years of experience. A bachelor’s degree in combination with seven (7) years of experience may be accepted in lieu of an advanced degree. A minimum of five (5) years of qualified experience in data management, integration, modeling, optimization, dissemination, and other relevant areas is required. Understanding of enterprise data management systems, data warehousing infrastructure, GIS analytics, and cloud-based data storage and data access solutions is desirable. Experience working with National Statistical Offices, providing guidance and training using agile project management is desirable. You are a national of Jordan, legal residential status to work in Jordan is required. Experience working with self-service analytics applications like Microsoft PowerBI, Tableau, Qlik and others for data discovery is desirable Certification of data warehousing infrastructure development will be an asset.

Languages

Full command of spoken and written English and Arabic is required. Knowledge of other UN languages is an advantage.

Additional Information

Not available.

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.