National Consultant on Statistics

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FAO seeks gender, geographical and linguistic diversity in its staff and international consultants in order to best serve FAO Members in all regions.
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Qualified female applicants and qualified nationals of non-and under-represented member countries are encouraged to apply.

Persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply.

All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.
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Organizational Setting

The main aim of the FAO country offices, which are headed by an FAO Representative, is to assist governments to develop policies, programmes and projects to achieve food security and to reduce hunger and malnutrition, to help develop the agricultural, fisheries and forestry sectors, and to use their environmental and natural resources in a sustainable manner.

Reporting Lines

The national consultant will be working under the overall supervision of the Budget Holder, in close collaboration with the Social Statistics Team of ESS, the technical supervision of the REU Statistician, Lead Technical Officer and National Team Leader of the project.

Technical Focus

FAO is currently implementing in Albania a UNSDG Acceleration Fund project in response to the earthquake of November 2019 titled “Earthquake recovery support through the UN SDG Acceleration Fund in Albania (UNJP/ALB/018/UNJ)”. The project aims to meet the recovery needs of the affected farmers/agro-processors and address underlying vulnerabilities. Farmers and agro-processors who were affected by the earthquake will get support through grants aimed at rehabilitation of livelihoods and strengthening resilience to future shocks. The implementation of the grants component will take into consideration existing context, specifically previous damage and loss assessments.

One of the key outputs of this project is strengthened technical capacities of Ministry of Defense (Directorate of Civil Emergencies-Sendai framework Implementation), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and National Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) and relevant agencies involved in the assessment of damages and losses caused by natural hazards/disasters to the agriculture sector. A National Consultant on Statistics will be required to assist project implementation.

Tasks and responsibilities

• Review and conduct a thorough assessment of the state-of-play of the existing national D&L information systems and its relation to the FAO D&L methodology;
• Get acquainted with FAO Methodology for Damage and Loss Assessment in Agriculture and Sendai and SDG frameworks reporting requirements;
• Conduct thorough research and fact-finding activities on disaster D&L data availability and data quality in each stakeholder institution in relation to the data needs for the FAO D&L methodology;
• Participate in ESS/REU scoping mission (virtual or in presence) to define the potential of institutionalization of the FAO D&L methodology into Albania’s relevant data collection tools and statistics systems;
• Liaise with technical focal points in each stakeholder agency (Ministry of Defense, MARD, INSTAT and other main stakeholder agencies as necessary) to better understand the roles and interaction among the different institutions in terms of data collection, validation, compilation, dissemination and coordination of both baseline agricultural data and D&L data in agriculture;
• Support the organization of a national training workshop on the FAO methodology to assess the direct loss attributed to disasters in Agriculture, forestry and fishery;
• Assess the gaps and opportunities in the existing information systems in Albania on D&L assessment in agriculture in relation to FAO D&L methodology;
• Conduct a national consultation workshop to present the assessment report and suggest strategic solutions to the identified issues given opportunities towards institutionalization of the FAO D&L methodology in Albania government and
• Perform any other duties deemed necessary for the successful execution of the project.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• University degree in finance, economics, agricultural economics, or related fields
• 7 years of professional experience in the field of statistics and agricultural finance
• Excellent written and oral working knowledge in English
• National Consultants are either nationals of Albania or have necessary residence permits/visas to reside in Albania

FAO Core Competencies

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

Selection Criteria

Candidates will be assessed against the following criteria:

• Relevance, length and scope of experience in economics and agricultural finance, especially in the field of statistics;
• Previous experience collaborating with relevant stakeholders and agriculture development projects in Albania would be a plus;
• Initiative, judgment, organisational ability, excellent communication skills and ability to write concise technical reports.

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Please note that all candidates should adhere to FAO Values of Commitment to FAO, Respect for All and Integrity and Transparency.