Senior Geospatial Developer

Organizational Setting

FAO's office for Yemen is responsible for developing, promoting, overseeing, and implementing strategies for addressing countrywide food, agriculture and rural development, and effectively increasing resilience of livelihoods to respond to food and agricultural threats and crises. Through the World Bank funded Food Security Response and Resilience Project (FSRRP) and the EU funded Food Security and Nutrition Information Systems (FSNIS), FAO Yemen will conduct livelihoods analysis and profiling to improve the understanding of livelihood assets, strategies and vulnerabilities. As an initial step, substantial complex spatial analysis will be conducted top produce high resolution detailed maps delineating livelihoods and providing information that will support livelihood mapping and profiling. The analysis will also provide information on climate related or human induced hazards to agricultural production. Additionally, FAO will support the establishment of an Earth Observation (EO) tool for crop monitoring and early warning system for monitoring climate-change-induced hazards to agricultural production, detect and quantify the spatial extent of cultivated cropland and pasture area, assessing crop and pasture productivity (yield), identify potential crop and pasture failure within the growing season, provide early warning information to farmers, line ministries, etc. and overall monitoring of agricultural production.

In doing so, FAO will support in defining medium to longer term interventions aimed at improving household resilience. The information will also strengthen Yemen’s national capacity in evidence-based decision making by providing location-specific evidence on areas with crop and pasture stresses, strengthen agricultural extension and research capabilities, and planning related to food availability that may inform imports decisions as well value chain planning and risk management. Acting early, before a disaster has actually happened, or reached its peak is critical. It can save lives and protect livelihoods from the immediate shocks while increasing the resilience of local communities over time.

Reporting Lines

Under the overall supervision of the FAO representative– Strengthening Evidence-Based Decision Making in Yemen through Improved Food Security, Nutrition and Livelihoods Information and Analysis, the Senior Geospatial Developer will work under the direct supervision of the CTA in close collaboration with the Data Systems & Information Senior Specialist and the Early Warning Unit Team Lead (Spatial Data Specialist).

Technical Focus

Development and implementation of Earth Observation tools for crop monitoring, and early warning system for monitoring climate-change-induced hazards to agricultural production.

Tasks and responsibilities

• Lead the development and coding of the EO tool, including data integration from multiple sources to deliver analysis ready datasets for Earth Observation-based products • Integrate and lead the development of a disaster preparedness early warning public communication system/application • Integrate the development of a national agrometeorological data sharing platform • Ingest datasets from multiple sources via APIs • Contribute to studies that seek to support improved data collection and knowledge management • Perform any other related duties as assigned by the supervisor. • Performs other duties as required

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Earth Observation, Geoinformation Management, Data Science, Geosciences, or related fields. • Technical understanding of the implications of climate change on agriculture is crucial • Overall 10 years' of experience in building GeoSpatial tools and apps, implementation experience in Python and NumPy, experience in using GDAL and building user interfaces with ReactJS • For Consultants working knowledge of English and limited knowledge of another FAO official language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish or Russian) • For PSAs only one language of working knowledge is requested.

FAO Core Competencies

• Results Focus • Teamwork • Communication • Building Effective Relationships • Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement.

Technical/Functional Skills

• Technical experience in translating earth observations data into actionable food, nutrition, and livelihood security early warning information to inform evidence-based programming is an asset • Experience in implementing communication gateways to send and received alerts via SMS, WhatsApp, email or other. • Experience in developing spatial calculation engine to automatically recalculate indices and thresholds • Reliable familiarity with cloud-based spatial data libraries such as those used in AWS, Google Earth Engine, etc. • Depth of knowledge of climatic hazards to agriculture • Ability to operate effectively in a team, contributing positively to team operations and working relationships • Demonstrated experience in the implementation of activities in collaboration with public and private sectors • Quality of oral and written communication skills. • Extensive knowledge of geospatial and EO data formats (GRIB2, NetCDF, HDF5, etc.) • Knowledge new formats to serve large vector datasets over the web (e.g., vector tiling).

SELECTION CRITERIA:

• Evaluation of qualified applicants may include an assessment exercise and a technical / competency-based interview.