economist (UNOPS)

Hardship Level (not applicable for home-based)

BFamilyUNOPS LICA102024-10-09November 5, 20241. General Background
Framed by the Global Compact for Refugees (GCR) and UNHCR’s mission to find solutions to refugee situations, strengthened cooperation with development and private sector partners is essential. The increasing number of refugees and internally displaced persons in protracted displacement situations, together with the increasing scale of irregular migration, large-scale refugee movements, and costs of responding to humanitarian situations, have placed forced displacement high on the global agenda. These elements have further driven the realisation that humanitarian support must be complemented by development and private sector actors to lift displaced populations out of poverty, enable solutions, and encourage an area-based approach to poverty reduction.

Within UNHCR, the Economist works in line with relevant units to address these challenges, in part by broadening strategic partnerships with key actors in these areas, including, importantly, the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, and, in so doing, aligning approaches by Government. Supporting investments by development actors in area-based approaches, including forcibly displaced and their hosts, requires better data and standardised information about refugees and host community households, particularly in relation to their socio-economic status or multidimensional poverty status. Accurate data on welfare conditions is also needed for UNHCR and partner operational needs, including cash, livelihoods, education programming, welfare targeting and monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals. Finally, comparable information for both refugees and host community members is a pre-requisite for measuring changes in welfare required to inform medium-term programming with development partners and national governments. UNHCR’s Division of Resilience and Solutions (DRS), together with the World Bank Poverty Global Practice supported by the UNHCR-World Bank Joint Data Centre manage the partnership and play the global coordination role for the institution in working with National Statistics Offices to include forcibly displaced into National Poverty Assessments.


The Government of Kenya, in line with the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) and its Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), in collaboration with its partners has taken concrete steps through number of initiatives to improve the socioeconomic conditions and inclusion for refugees, and support building resilience of host communities. These include enactment of Refugees Act of 2021, Refugee Regulations, and importantly the Shirika Plan (one of the pioneering innovative approaches globally for Refugee inclusion) and its building blocks of Garissa and Kalobeyei Integrated Socioeconomic Development Plans (GISEDP and KISEDP) aligned with the County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs), the Kenya’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA), its Medium-Term Plan (MTP, 2023-2207), and Vision 2030.

UNHCR Kenya’s multiyear strategy focuses on a sustainable programming approach to transition from subsistence programming and ensuring international protection of refugees through evidence-informed enabling policy regime and program design. UNHCR Kenya supports the government of Kenya in the adoption and operationalisation of a new refugee management approach to build resilience and sustainable socioeconomic development by transforming refugee camps into integrated municipalities, envisioned under the proposed Shirika Plan and Kalobeyei Integrated Socioeconomic Development Program (KISDEP-II) and Garissa Integrated Socioeconomic Development Program (GISDEP). Research and joint evidence generation in partnership with the World Bank, Academia including University of Nairobi and Immigration Policy Lab of Stanford University, measurement of the socioeconomic impact of grant of citizenship to stateless communities, integration of refugees into Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey (KIHBS) in partnership with Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), the World Bank and UNHCR-World Bank Joint Data Centre (JDC), and policy dialogues and engagement of Kenyan academia and research community through Refugee Resource Centre are major initiatives. The Economist reports to the Strategic Partnership Adviser and works closely with sector colleagues at the Country Office and Sub-Offices, Data, Identity Management and Analysis (DIMA) Unit, the World Banks’ Poverty and Equity Global Practice team, Refugee Resource Centre and the University of Nairobi, Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, Senior Economists at Regional Bureau of EHAGL and at Division of Resilience and Solution (DRS).

2. Purpose and Scope of Assignment
     
Data collection and economic analysis and coordination
• Facilitate collaboration with the World Bank, the Joint Data Centre (JDC), Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), academia and other stakeholders on a range of bespoke economic analyses, such as economic impact assessments, poverty and welfare measurement, socioeconomic profiling and country economic trend analysis. This includes serving as focal point between UNHCR and these institutions when collaborating on producing socioeconomic data on refugees.
• Contribute to innovative area-based approaches to solutions and strategies for refugee inclusion, for example, using socioeconomic analysis to inform the Shirika Plan, KISEDP, GISEDP and UNHCR’s annual reporting and planning cycles.
• Provide oversight, vision, and guidance on the collection of raw primary and secondary datasets and the preparation of final datasets for analysis.
• Facilitate development and operationalisation of roadmap for Refugee Resource Centre (RRC).
• Contribute relevant socioeconomic data inputs to corporate and country reports, such as the Global Compact Indicator Report, COMPASS, and Multi-Year Strategic Plans.
• Provide technical guidance to research teams and UNHCR sector colleagues and sub-offices (Kakuma, Dadaab) on (i) research design, (ii) data analysis plans, (iii) the preparation of descriptive statistics and regression analysis, and (iv) the preparation of various outputs such as briefs, presentations and academic papers.

Preparation of economic briefs and policy notes
• Prepare presentations, technical reports and non-technical reports to communicate the findings of economic analyses from socioeconomic research such as the Kenya Analytical Program on Forced Displacement (KAP-FD).
• Translate technical products into products and approaches (e.g., knowledge briefs, blogs, talking points, launch events) to communicate research findings clearly and simply for non-technical audiences.
• Prepare cutting edge economic briefs and policy notes on various topics relevant to the provision of asylum, the protection of persons we serve and the pursuit of durable solutions in line with the GCR and the Shirika Plan.

Learning and knowledge management
• Leverage and enable the academic research community in Kenya.
• Generate in-depth knowledge products from socio-economic data for PoCs and their hosts, such as the Kenya Longitudinal Socioeconomic Study of Refugees and Host Communities (K-LSRH), relevant for programming and policy for both humanitarian and development actors.
• Identify new research opportunities and contribute to proposals for research partnerships and funding.
• Participate in official missions and deliver capacity-building and training activities for UNHCR, partners and governments.

3. Monitoring and Progress Controls

Measurable Outputs
• Number of economic analyses completed: This indicator tracks the Economist's completion of various analyses such as economic impact assessments, poverty and welfare measurements, socioeconomic profiling, and country economic trend analysis.
• Datasets prepared: This metric monitors the Economist's progress in overseeing and guiding the collection and preparation of raw primary and secondary datasets, ultimately contributing to final datasets ready for analysis.
• Knowledge products generated: This measure assesses the creation of in-depth knowledge products derived from socioeconomic data, including resources like the Kenya Longitudinal Socioeconomic Study of Refugees and Host Communities (K-LSRH), useful for informing programming and policy decisions for both humanitarian and development stakeholders.
• Economic briefs and policy notes produced: This metric tracks the number of presentations, technical reports, non-technical reports, briefs, blogs, talking points, and other materials completed.
• Research proposals and funding applications: Monitoring the number of research proposals and funding applications, reflecting contributions to identifying new research opportunities and partnerships.
Milestones
• Operational roadmap for Refugee Resource Centre (RRC): Development and implementation of this roadmap signifies a significant milestone in leveraging the academic research community within Kenya.
• Integration of refugees into Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey (KIHBS): Successful integration, achieved through partnerships with the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), the World Bank, and the UNHCR-World Bank Joint Data Centre (JDC), marks a crucial step towards comprehensive data collection.
• Regular contributions to reports: Timely submissions of relevant socioeconomic data to corporate and country reports, including the Global Compact Indicator Report, COMPASS, and Multi-Year Strategic Plans, demonstrate ongoing progress.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Quality of economic analyses: Measured through peer reviews, stakeholder feedback, and the impact of findings on policy and programs.
• Timeliness of data collection and analysis: Evaluated based on adherence to project timelines and the ability to provide timely insights for decision-making.
• Utilisation of research findings: Tracked by the adoption of recommendations from economic analyses in UNHCR and partner programming.
• Level of stakeholder engagement: Assessed through the strength of partnerships with organisations such as the World Bank, KNBS, academia, and other relevant stakeholders.
• Effectiveness of capacity-building initiatives: Measured through feedback from training participants and the observable improvement in the capacity of UNHCR staff, partners, and government officials to utilise socioeconomic data.
Reporting Requirements
• Regular progress reports: Submitted to the Strategic Partnership Adviser, outlining key activities, achievements, challenges, and future plans.
• Presentations to stakeholders: Sharing key findings of economic analyses with relevant audiences, including UNHCR senior management, government officials, and partner organisations.
• Contributions to UNHCR publications: Providing inputs for articles, reports, and other publications that highlight the importance of socioeconomic data in understanding and responding to forced displacement situations.

4. Qualifications and Experience

A. Education (Level and area of required and/or preferred education)
     
Six (6) years relevant experience with and undergraduate degree, or five (5) years’ relevant experience with a graduate degree, or four (4) years’ relevant experience with a doctorate degree in Economics, Statistics, or a relevant area.

B. Work Experience

Essential     
At least six (6) years of demonstrated experience in economics, analysing data and conducting research. Familiarity with processes of the World Bank, the African Development Bank or other international financial institutions, bilateral development agencies or research institutions.

Desirable
Familiarity with displacement and development issues. Experience of working with the private sector. Experience working in applied development economics. Experience in poverty modelling. Experience leading primary data collection efforts and data analysis. Experience of working with synergies between the humanitarian-development nexus. Demonstrated skills and experience with measuring welfare through socio-economic profiling. Demonstrated experience with analysis of large datasets. Demonstrated expertise in the utilisation of relevant statistical software (R, Stata). Ability to work independently with limited supervision and deliver high-quality products. Demonstrated ability to think creatively and to explore, harness and translate innovative concepts into relevant practical approaches for programming, policy, and advocacy purposes. Demonstrated ability to think creatively and to explore, harness and translate innovative concepts into relevant practical approaches for programming, policy, and advocacy purposes.

C. Key Competencies
     
• Drafting, documentation data presentation
• Networking
• Project management
• Statistical software (e.g., SPSS, Stata, CSPRO etc.)
• Statistical analysis
• Data collection and analysis

 

Standard Job Description

Economist

Organizational Setting and Work Relationships
Framed by the Global Compact for Refugees (GCR) and UNHCR's mission to find solutions to refugee situations, strengthened cooperation with development and private sector partners is essential. The increasing number of refugees and internally displaced persons in protracted displacement situations, together with the increasing scale of irregular migration, large-scale refugee movements, and costs of responding to humanitarian situations, have placed forced displacement high on the global agenda. These elements have further driven the realization that humanitarian support must be complemented by development and private sector actors to lift displaced populations out of poverty, enable solutions, and encourage an area based approach to poverty reduction.

Within UNHCR, the Division of Resilience and Solutions (DRS) was formed to address these challenges, in part by broadening strategic partnerships with key actors in these areas, including importantly the World Bank and other multilateral development banks and in so doing aligning approaches by Government. To support investments by development actors in area based approaches including both forcibly displaced and their hosts, requires better data and standardized information about refugees and host community households, particularly in relation to their socio-economic status or multidimensional poverty status. Accurate data on welfare conditions is also needed UNHCR and partner operational needs including cash, livelihoods, and education programming, welfare targeting and monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals. Finally, comparable information for both refugees and host community member is a pre-requisite for measuring changes in welfare required to inform medium-term programming with development partners and national governments. DRS together with the World Bank Poverty Global Practice supported by the UNHCR World Bank Joint Data Center manage the partnership and play the global coordination role for the institution in working with National Statistics Offices to include forcibly displaced into National Poverty Assessments.

The Economist will contribute to the Global Compact for Refugees (GCR) objectives 1 and 2- Ease the pressures on host countries and Enhance refugee self-reliance. Concretely the Economist will contribute to the indicators measuring the success of the Global Compact for Refugees and particularly the Proportion of refugees living below the national poverty line in the host country. Depending on where the Economist is based the reporting lines will differ. If the Economist is based in Headquarters it will map to the DRS Partnership Analytics Research and Knowledge (PARK) section. If the Economist is based in a country or regional office, the Economist will report to either the Representative or Deputy Representative Programme, or in some cases Head of Sub-Office or Senior Operations Officer. In all cases a dotted line will be to DRS PARK for technical functional clearance of candidates and for technical oversight of economics products. The Economist will work closely with Programme and Protection colleagues in addition to Senior Management in the operation as well as Bureaux and technical unit key external stakeholders and development agencies, including the World Bank, government agencies, national statistical agencies, and other operational partners.

All UNHCR staff members are accountable to perform their duties as reflected in their job description. They do so within their delegated authorities, in line with the regulatory framework of UNHCR which includes the UN Charter, UN Staff Regulations and Rules, UNHCR Policies and Administrative Instructions as well as relevant accountability frameworks. In addition, staff members are required to discharge their responsibilities in a manner consistent with the core, functional, cross-functional and managerial competencies and UNHCR's core values of professionalism, integrity and respect for diversity.

Duties

Project Management
- Lead the design and implementation of assessments and other data-driven products related to the socio-economic welfare of refugees, forcibly displaced persons and host communities, wherever possible through coordination with the National Bureau of Statistics and World Bank Country Economist in inclusion of forcibly displaced into National Poverty Assessment.
- Successfully manage all partnerships and activities in the collection of comparable socio-economic (poverty) data on forcibly displaced
- Contribute to defining and promoting a vision for the use of socio-economic data, particularly in planning, programming and advocacy at the country, regional and headquarters levels.
- Maintain a strong understanding of the state of literature on poverty analysis for forcibly displaced.
- Manage data collection activities, as appropriate. This may take place at all stages of data collection (preparation, survey design, sampling, onsite data collection oversight and supervision and quality assurance, data analysis and report writing).
- Conduct data analysis using econometric programs (R, Stata).

Data Collection and Analysis
- Consolidate raw primary and secondary datasets into final datasets to be used for analysis, as needed. This will involve creating and merging various sources of data and may require programming matching algorithms, linking up with field staff for additional information, and performing manual matching.
- Clean all datasets and create all necessary indicators. Work with the research team to design a thorough plan for data analysis and carry out the coding to perform this analysis. Common analytical tasks include production of descriptive statistics and regression analysis for various outputs such as briefs, presentations and academic papers.
- For any field survey, assist in programming the instrument and developing protocols to ensure high quality data.
- Properly prepare and document relevant datasets for archiving on the UNHCR Microdata Library.
- Lead the preparation of research papers including formatting and creating tables, graphs, and related analysis.
- Engage with country operation, partners and government, as appropriate, in the design and implementation of data collection and research projects.

Coordination
- Ensure good communication and coordination among members of the country team, Governments, researchers and partners, serving as a link between these parties.
- Lead drafting and writing of presentations, analytical reports and research and policy briefs.
- Participate in official missions and deliver capacity building and training activities for partners and governments.
- Identify research opportunities and contribute to proposals for research partnerships and funding.
- Reflect UNHCR's positions on policy, advocacy and programming issues as they relate to the protection, resilience and solutions of refugees with medium-term economic and social development programmes.
- Represent UNHCR in negotiations and meetings relating to socio-economic profiling of forcibly displaced and wider partners research in country.
- Represent UNHCR in technical capacity with external actors.

- Support the identification and management of risks and seek to seize opportunities impacting objectives in the area of responsibility. Ensure decision making in risk based in the functional area of work. Raise risks, issues and concerns to a supervisor or to relevant functional colleague(s).
- Perform other related duties as required.

Minimum Qualifications

Years of Experience / Degree Level
For P3/NOC - 6 years relevant experience with Undergraduate degree; or 5 years relevant experience with Graduate degree; or 4 years relevant experience with Doctorate degree

Field(s) of Education
Economics, Statistics, or related field(s).

Certificates and/or Licenses
Not specified.

Relevant Job Experience
Essential
At least six (6) years of demonstrated experience in economics, analysing data and conducting research. Familiarity with processes of the World Bank, the African Development Bank or other international financial institutions, bilateral development agencies or research institutions.

Desirable
Familiarity with displacement and development issues. Experience of working with the private sector. Experience working in applied development economics. Experience in poverty modelling. Experience leading primary data collection effort and data analysis. Experience of working with synergies between the humanitarian-development nexus. Demonstrated skills and experience with measuring welfare through socio-economic profiling. Demonstrated experience with analysis of large datasets. Demonstrated expertise in utilization of relevant statistical software (R, Stata). Ability to work independently with limited supervision and deliver high quality products . Demonstrated ability to think creatively, and to explore, harness and translate innovative concepts into relevant practical approaches for programming, policy, and advocacy purposes. Demonstrated ability to think creatively, and to explore, harness and translate innovative concepts into relevant practical approaches for programming, policy, and advocacy purposes.

Functional Skills
CO-Drafting and Documentation
MG-Project Management
EC-Statistical and modelling software
IM-Statistics Analysis
DM-Data Collection and Analysis
(Functional Skills marked with an asterisk* are essential)

Language Requirements
For International Professional and Field Service jobs: Knowledge of English and UN working language of the duty station if not English.
For National Professional jobs: Knowledge of English and UN working language of the duty station if not English and local language.

All UNHCR workforce members must individually and collectively, contribute towards a working environment where each person feels safe, and empowered to perform their duties. This includes by demonstrating no tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse, harassment including sexual harassment, sexism, gender inequality, discrimination and abuse of power.

As individuals and as managers, all must be proactive in preventing and responding to inappropriate conduct, support ongoing dialogue on these matters and speaking up and seeking guidance and support from relevant UNHCR resources when these issues arise.

This is a Standard Job Description for all UNHCR jobs with this job title and grade level. The Operational Context may contain additional essential and/or desirable qualifications relating to the specific operation and/or position. Any such requirements are incorporated by reference in this Job Description and will be considered for the screening, shortlisting and selection of candidates.

Required Languages

,

,

Desired Languages

,

,

Additional Qualifications

Skills

CO-Drafting and Documentation, DM-Data Collection and Analysis, EC-Statistical and modelling software, IM-Statistics Analysis, MG-Project Management

Education

Bachelor of Arts (BA): Economics, Bachelor of Arts (BA): Statistics

Certifications

Other information

This position requires Functional Clearance

Home-Based

No