Research Assistant

Contract

This is a Consultancy contract. More about Consultancy contracts.

Result of Service

The incumbent is responsible to deliver the following: - Increasing the capacity of Member States in both computing multidimensional poverty indices and designing new poverty reduction & optimization strategies. - Improved and updated poverty reduction tools and high quality products for Member States.

Work Location

UN-House ESCWA

Expected duration

4 Months

Duties and Responsibilities

Background: The Sustainable Development Goals have enshrined in Target 1.2 of Goal 1 to, by 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions. In 2015, Member States pledged to leave no one behind in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and promised to reach the furthest behind first. Following several global crises in recent years – including the COVID-19 pandemic, conflicts and climate change, all of which have likely hit the poorest disproportionally more – much of the progress achieved so far in reducing poverty is at risk of being reversed. In most Arab countries, money-metric poverty has been used as the main official reference for poverty measurement and policy interventions. However, several countries in the region have been in the process of developing and institutionalizing national multidimensional poverty indices (MPIs) to complement existing measures of monetary poverty. Tailored to each country’s context, a national MPIs is designed to provide a clearer picture of where and how people are poor, enabling a more efficient allocation of resources, better planning of poverty reduction strategies and enhanced coordination of policies across different sectors. As shown in a few countries already, the new national MPIs allow for targeting sectors and regions that are the most in need of support, in line with the principle of leaving no one behind. Duties and Responsibilities: - To help design, compute, and analyse multidimensional poverty indices (MPIs) for Member States and tailoring tools to country-context. - Support in writing of national reports and policy briefs, including analysis of poverty reduction strategies and policy recommendations. - Maintaining and advancing ESCWA’s MAT and optimization tool using Stata and R. - Support the country support team in their work with Member States. - Provide technical support to ESCWA’s poverty team on ad-hoc basis and deliver high-quality statistical analysis on time and promptly.

Qualifications/special skills

A Master’s degree or equivalent in economics, social sciences or a related area is required. All candidates must submit a copy of the required educational degree. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed. A minimum of 2 years of professional work experience in data analysis, ideally in the field of development economics, is required. At least 1 year of professional experience in using Stata or R for statistical/economic analysis is required. At least 1 year experience in working within a team is required.

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. Knowledge of French is desirable. 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.