Statistician

Organizational Setting

The Statistics Division develops, and advocates for the implementation of, methodologies and standards for data collection, validation, processing and analysis of food and agriculture statistics. In these statistical domains, it also plays a vital role in the compilation, processing and dissemination of internationally comparable data, and provides essential capacity building support to member countries. In addition, the Division produces many publications, working papers and statistical yearbooks, that cover agricultural and food security relevant statistics (including prices, investments, production, trade and agri-environmental statistical data).

Within Statistics Division, the Methodological innovation team is responsible for the development of methods, standards and tools used mainly within the organization with the objective to improve the efficiency of FAO's statistical system and the quality of its output. The team develops improved statistical processes in different domains for the corporate Statistical Working System, as well as new data analysis and validation methods to comply with the corporate Statistical Quality Assurance Framework. The team hosts the Data Lab for Statistical Innovation, which promotes the use of non-conventional data sources and data science in FAO's statistics. The Data Lab implements two parallel work streams on (i) geospatial data science for example to improve for example area and yield estimates, and (ii) big data solutions (web scraping, crowdsourcing, machine learning and text mining) to combine data from structured and unstructured sources to fill in the information gaps.

The post is located in Rome.

Reporting Lines

The Statistician reports to the Senior Statistician, Leader of the Methodological Innovation Team.

Technical Focus

Methodologies and innovations for food and agricultural statistics, and big data solutions for FAO Data Lab for Statistical Innovation.

Key Results

Research and analysis of information, data and statistics, statistical methods, statistical and econometric modelling. Development and maintenance of specialized tools, methodologies, systems and/or databases, and the technical assistance services to support the implementation/delivery and monitoring of the programme of work and related products, projects, publications, and services.

Key Functions

• Collects, reviews, process and/or analyses key social/ economic/ environmental/ indicators, based on both traditional statistical methods/sources or on unstructured sources and data science methods, to support the delivery of economic and social development programmes of work, which can be focused on products, projects, publications or services; • Develops improved/updated technical, statistical and/or analytical tools, systems, databases; • Conducts research, data collection, validation, analysis and/or reporting in support of the development of technical standards, international instruments, innovative tools and methodologies to be used within the Organization or by external stakeholders. • Produces a variety of technical reports and provides input in technical documents, divisional publications and/or web pages; • Provides response to requests and provides technical and/or policy advice, assistance and solutions to Regional, Sub-Regional, and Country Offices including technical backstopping to field projects; • Participates in multi-disciplinary teams, collaborates with other divisional and agencies on work groups and committees and promotes best practices; • Provides capacity development services, including the planning and organization of training workshops and seminars, and in the preparation of related information, materials, on-line tools and information kits; • Participates in multi-disciplinary teams and short term work groups, participates on Divisional teams, participates on Organization-wide committees, project teams, and working groups and provides specialized expertise on international technical networks and or technical policy and standard setting bodies; • Supports the organization, conduct and follow-up of meetings, consultations and conferences, the development/production of required materials and the provision of information and assistance to partners; • Participates in resource mobilization activities in accordance with Corporate strategy and Divisional plans; • Promotes international cooperation and collaboration, advocates best practices, knowledge sharing, increased policy dialogue and provides technical expertise at international meetings and conferences.

Specific Functions

• Researches and analyzes statistical methodologies for producing food and agriculture statistics, including the use of big data, and the use of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and web-scraping techniques; • Identifies and uses new sources of data for statistical use that could fill existing data gaps in food and agricultural statistics; • Supports the development of methods, standards, classifications and approaches for statistical processes aimed at food and agricultural statistics; • Contributes to the development of products, methods and analytics of the Data Lab for Statistical Innovation based on either traditional statistical methods/sources or on unstructured sources including social media and data science methods; • Supports the development and the improvement of statistical processes in particular within FAO's Statistical Working System (SWS).

______________________________________________________________________________________________________ CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• Advanced university degree in statistics, economics, data science, agricultural economics, or a related field; • Five years of relevant experience in the compilation, analysis and methodological development of food and agricultural statistics in national or international organizations; • Working knowledge of English and limited knowledge of another FAO official language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish)

Competencies

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

Technical/Functional Skills

• Work experience in more than one location or area of work, particularly in field positions is desirable • Strong command of statistical methods including: data presentation, analysis and descriptive statistics; main continuous and discrete random variables (binomial, normal, standard normal, log-normal) and their properties; probability distributions; conditional probability, probabilities of intersections of events, Bayes' theorem; correlation and rank correlation; sampling and sample size: simple, stratified, and multistage random sampling; Inference, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing and significance; linear regression (single and multiple) comparison of population means and variances, ANOVA; Chi-square and goodness of fit tests; nonlinear models: maximum likelihood estimation; elements of survey and questionnaire design. • Extent and relevance of experience on innovative methodologies for information detection and retrieval, including scraping and parsing unstructured online information, data mining tools and approaches, and on data visualization and analysis; • Advanced use of statistical programming software, such as R, Python or similar languages