Research, Analysis and Monitoring Officer SC8 (plus expert roster creation)

Programme & Policy

WFP encourages female candidates and people with disabilities to apply.

WFP seeks candidates of the highest integrity and professionalism who share our humanitarian principles. Selection of staff is made on a competitive basis. We are committed to promoting diversity and the principle of equal employment opportunity for all our employees and encourage qualified candidates to apply irrespective of religion or belief, ethnic or social background, gender, gender identity and disability.

Job Title: Research, Analysis and Monitoring Officer

Grade: SC8

Type of contract: Service Contract SC8 (National Officer-level equivalent)

Duty Station: Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic

Vacancy Number: 262889

Date of Publication: 6 January 2023

Deadline of Application: 22 January 2023

This vacancy announcement is for Nationals from Kyrgyz Republic

BACKGROUND

WFP’s vision is that people in the Kyrgyz Republic will have substantially increased access to national social protection systems that safeguard and foster their ability to meet their food security, nutrition and associated essential needs, and to manage the risks and shocks they face, with ample opportunity to graduate from poverty and contribute to sustainable food systems, national disaster risk management efforts and social cohesion.

WFP, the second largest UN agency in the Kyrgyz Republic, will support and promote the inclusion of people with diverse and often intersecting vulnerabilities and inequalities, by supporting nationally led social and civil protection systems and programmes (strengthening the government’s ability for anticipatory action and ensuring that no one is left behind) and by modelling new approaches within complementary WFP interventions (which can be adopted or transitioned), leveraging WFP’s global expertise in promoting healthy diets and sustainable food systems, climate risk management, warehousing, food safety, smallholder market access and innovations such as private sector-oriented solutions, micro-insurance and digital public goods.

Derived from the UN Cooperation Framework and national priorities, promoting participatory community engagement and nutrition-sensitive approaches, the 2nd generation Country Strategic Plan (2023-27 EN|RU) continues WFP’s human capital development, capacity building and productive asset creation activities to enhance the resilience and livelihoods of the poor and vulnerable, with a focus on food systems strengthening across three core pillars: (i) Social Protection; (ii) Climate Change Adaption, Disaster Risk Management & Emergency Preparedness; and (iii) Schools as platforms for healthy diets. In addition, a contingent emergency response outcome can be activated in case of need.

PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The Research, Analysis and Monitoring (RAM) team operates segregated from Programme under the supervision of the Deputy Country Director, and functions as a service provider, incl. for management and for external partners, for (not all-inclusive, nor exhaustive):

• Evaluation, Review and Impact Assessment include coordination of monitoring activities, managing or supporting the management of decentralized evaluations, supporting thematic/mid-term reviews and positioning WFP as a reliable partner for governments to build monitoring and evaluation strategies.
• Economic analysis, coupled with nutrition, social, political, gender and environmental analysis, is an indispensable element for a comprehensive and multidimensional understanding of the causes and the effects of hunger. The complex interplay of economic forces operating at the international, national, local and household levels is manifest in economic signals and choices such as prices, production and consumption that can lead to food insecurity and vulnerability.
• Leave-No-One-Behind (LNOB) Assessment and Targeting generates analyses to inform tailored vulnerability and quality needs assessments and related targeting processes across WFP and beyond.
• Climate and Earth Observation undertakes the analysis of remote sensing data across the full range of spatial resolutions. By leveraging satellite data and monitoring from above, our geospatial analysts observe growing seasons, provide climate analyses, assess refugee and IDP camp status, detect land cover changes across regions and countries where WFP operates in.
• Field Monitoring for tracking, collecting and analyzing programme performance to inform decision-making, maintain operational focus on results, and generate data for outcome / impact analyses.
• Market Analyses, including the Market Functionality Index (MFI) package (in collaboration with Supply Chain), labour market and value chain analyses.
• Essential Needs and Nutrition Analyses, covering supply assessments for essential needs or dietary intake (incl. minimum expenditure baskets), as well as the measuring set-up for effective Social Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC).
• Price data collection and price analysis, incl. calculating and using the Alert for Price Spikes (ALPS) Indicator.
• plus other.

With a commitment to strengthen research, assessments, monitoring and evaluation, both internally and in support of national systems, to help ensure that WFP and government programmes target people in vulnerable situations and meet their needs in a holistic, efficient and timely manner, this vacancy for the Data Analytics & Research Coordinator position will also serve to establish a Roster of Experts in Nutrition, (Social) Protection, and other Food Assistance/Behaviour Change related research and data analytics topics and may serve to fill lower-level Associate positions.

Supervision: RAM staff operate independently (are involved in operational activities in an advisory and support function with related analytical work). Under the overall coordination of the Deputy Country Director, the Data Analytics & Research Coordinator reports to the Head of RAM and supervises more junior staff or external contractors and consultants. Where RAM is involved in digital programme activities or in proposal writing and other programme-related tools and analyses, close consultation with the Head of Programme/ Outcome Managers is expected, and close coordination with other units and partners (when data owners) is to be ensured.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive, nor exhaustive):

1. Contribute to the development of RAM projects and activities, plans and processes, ensuring alignment with wider WFP policies and guidance.

2. Support the development of systems and tools for evidence-generation and analytics in line with innovative methodologies and best practice, incl. with data protection and privacy standards.

3. Engage in evidence-generation partnerships, incl. with academia, other UN or development partners, the private sector and government.

4. Provide assistance on the coordination of data gathering and monitoring systems ensuring that rigorous quality standards are maintained.

5. Track and analyse data to provide input into reporting activities and contribute to the preparation of accurate and timely reporting on a broad range of topics (incl. nutrition or social behavior change results) that enables informed decision making and consistency of information presented to stakeholders.

6. Support the capacity building of WFP staff, partners and national government to conduct research and analysis to effectively inform preparedness and response activities and policy advice.

7. Provide support to relevant partners that are focusing on food security and nutrition, markets, resilience and related issues to enable sharing of experience, lessons learned and best practice.

8. Guide and supervise more junior staff, acting as a point of referral and supporting them with analysis and queries.

9. Act in an assigned emergency response capacity as required to meet emergency food assistance needs.

10. Other as required.

OTHER SPECIFIC JOB REQUIREMENTS

Capacity building and team management

11. Provide strong strategic guidance, technical support, advice and direction with respect to evidence-generation on food security and nutrition strategies, policies, programmes and cross-cutting objectives (accountability to affected populations, (social) protection, resilience, diversity inclusion (including disability),…), with special attention to M&E for social behaviour change communication (SBCC).

12. Manage and serve as direct supervisor and coach to a team of national staff and external consultants/ contractors and as technical advisor to programme colleagues and external partners.

13. Create an inclusive work environment through respectful and constructive communication and holding self and other team members accountable for their actions, promoting evidence-based messaging.

Research and knowledge management

14. Coordinate with Programme, RAM and Reporting colleagues (incl. at Regional Bureau/HQ-level) as well as with partners a good frequency of quality publications and reports.

15. Play a key knowledge management role, helping to capture lessons-learned in WFP activities and supported government programmes, facilitating the scaling of effective pilots.

16. Hold regular meetings and/or use other innovative and effective ways to ensure proper information sharing and communication within the country office and with partners and beneficiaries.

17. Support in the development of and ensure proper use of a structured information management and archival system for the RAM team, which links to the greater programme unit system;

18. Participate in inter-agency coordination mechanisms related to digitalization and data management and food/nutrition assistance, supporting the development of intersectoral minimum expenditure or nutrition-informed transfer value or food baskets.

Data Analytics and Management

19. Support the roll-out of tableau-based reporting (or other dashboards) and data anlytics solutions for WFP staff and partners:

- develop interactive and/or customized dashboards on request,

- support rollout of solutions through training of field users and creation of training material.

20. Support conceptual and quantitative analyses informing not only WFP activities but also the Kyrgyz government’s national M&E or SDG monitoring systems.

21. Establish processes for secure data sharing with internal and external partners and ensure implementation of measures for data protection and privacy.

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DESIRED EXPERIENCES FOR ENTRY INTO THE ROLE:

• Experience and exposure to implementation of national/international development programmes, particularly of social protection/ food security/ nutrition related activities.

• Demonstrated proficiency in the use of several statistical tools and methods as well as knowledge of designing and maintaining databases is considered a key requirement, familiarity with national systems for measuring SDG progress as well as of UN information systems is considered an asset.

• Proven track record in conducting or in quality assuring research or publications.

• Developed practical expertise in research and in measuring social behavior change, incl. the design, data collection and analysis.

• Demonstrated technical knowledge and understanding of food security, nutrition, food systems and related subject matter areas where WFP positions as go-to partner for evidence-generation.

• Excellent skills in Office 365 (or equivalent) tools and applications.

• Previous experience in using MS Teams/SharePoint (or equivalent) for knowledge management and for improving internal workflows & communication is desired, incl. experience making dashboards (e.g. Tableau).

• Familiarity with data management and protection best practices and international standards.

Functional Capabilities (Knowledge & Skills):

• Strategic Operational Understanding: Demonstrates understanding of country operations and context to participate in research and analysis to improve the cohesion between analytical findings and programmatic response/ policy positions of WFP and other relevant actors.

• Applying Programme & Policy Standards: Leverages nutrition, food security, (social) protection and other knowledge to construct a sound evidence-base to provide technical and strategic advice to colleagues, governments and other stakeholders to design and implement programmes that follow international and WFP agency standards and guidance.

• Knowledge of Food Systems & Consumer Behavior Change: Ability to analyze how food systems influence the diets of vulnerable groups and identify how and where elements of the food systems may contribute to specific nutrient gaps and other vulnerabilities that WFP programmes aim to address (incl. through behavior change communication).

• Technical Specialized Knowledge (e.g., Economics, Statistics, Public Health, Remote Sensing, GIS, etc.) Provides inputs and technical guidance for designing and conducting analyses, including computation, interpretation, and presentation of results for surveys and key indicators.

• Data and Privacy Management: Applies the principles of data and privacy protection in data processing systems (by design and by default) and organizes data privacy governance and oversight, with ability to coordinate data privacy and data security risk assessments. Data management and programming skills to optimize information flows.

Education: Advanced University degree in Economics, Statistics, Data Science, Public Health/Nutrition, Geography or other related field, or First University degree with additional years of related work experience and/or training/courses.

Language: Fluency (level C) in both oral and written communication in English and proficiency in the duty station’s language(s) (Russian or Kyrgyz, both considered an advantage).

HOW TO APPLY

To be considered, interested candidates are invited to apply via (https://www.wfp.org/careers/job-openings). Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

We want to ensure the recruitment process is fully accessible. Please contact us at jazgul.yusupova@wfp.org to advise us of any accessibility needs you may have.

ABOUT WFP

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organization saving lives and changing lives, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience.

WFP is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce. WFP has zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, abuse of authority or discrimination. All selected candidates will, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

No appointment under any kind of contract will be offered to members of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), FAO Finance Committee, WFP External Auditor, WFP Audit Committee, Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other similar bodies within the United Nations system with oversight responsibilities over WFP, both during their service and within three years of ceasing that service.

All WFP Employees are expected to demonstrate the competencies and standards of behaviour aligned with our core values and defined in **the WFP LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK, namely****:

• Leading by example with integrity,
• Driving results and delivering on commitments,
• Fostering inclusive and collaborative teamwork,
• Applying strategic thinking,
• Building and maintaining sustainable partnerships.

Apply now

Added 1 year ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: wfp.org