Information Management Officer (IMO) – Francophone Africa and Arab States regions

Background

Instructions to Applicants: Click on the "Apply now" button. Input your information in the appropriate Sections: personal information, language proficiency, education, resume and motivation. Upon completion of the first page, please hit "submit application" tab at the end of the page. Please ensure that CV or P11 and the Cover letter are combined in one file.

Personal CV or P11, indicating all past positions held and their main underlying functions, their durations (month/year), the qualifications, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate, and at least three (3) the most recent professional references of previous supervisors.

A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page) indicating why the candidate considers himself/herself to be suitable for the position.

One sample of research produced, report written, knowledge product, publication(s) and/ or other relevant materials.

Travel:

UNDP will cover the cost of travel of the individual to the duty station, as well as their return to their home upon completion of their services. Travel costs are covered only in the event that the function will be undertaken physically in the duty station and excludes working from home arrangements.

Office/Unit/Project Description  

Background 

UNDP is the knowledge frontier organization for sustainable development in the UN Development System and serves as the integrator for collective action to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UNDP’s policy work carried out at HQ, Regional and Country Office levels, forms a contiguous spectrum of deep local knowledge to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy. In this context, UNDP invests in the Global Policy Network (GPN), a network of field-based and global technical expertise across a wide range of knowledge domains and in support of the signature solutions and organizational capabilities envisioned in the Strategic Plan. Within the GPN, the Crisis Bureau (CB) guides UNDP’s corporate crisis-related strategies and vision for crisis prevention, response and recovery and lead corporate support in response to crisis. To fulfill its mandate, the CB is committed to investing in developing reliable capacities that can be rapidly deployed to COs. 

Within the CB, support to country operations is coordinated by the Country Support Management Team (CSMT), working closely with other teams within the GPN. The overall goal of the CSMT is to ensure strong, coherent and coordinated support to country offices (COs), as it relates to crisis and fragility, within the full spectrum of the GPN’s service offer. The CSMT steers the effective interaction of GPN Teams, Regional Bureau/Regional Hub and CO counterparts for integrated country support. It ensures that UNDP corporate support is provided before, during and after crises. It also supports and coordinates the GPN crisis response capacity and takes the lead in a UNDP-wide approach to strengthen UNDP capacity in preventing, preparing for, responding to and recovering from crisis.

Since 2006, the SURGE mechanism has been the CB’s signature solution to supporting COs through crisis situations, by providing the right expertise at the right time. Throughout the years, SURGE has solidified its brand within the organization, and it has improved its service offer through a combination of systems and tools. It is recognized as not only an important resource for COs, but an experiential learning mechanism for crisis personnel in UNDP.

In the face of new and complex challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and in response to increasing frequency of disaster events worldwide, the CSMT Rapid Response Team has developed transformational digital assessment solutions by which countries can harness technology to enhance their analytical capacities. Encompassed under the SURGE Data Hub, these Integrated Digital Assessment toolkits support authorities in crisis-affected countries to conduct end-to-end digital, rapid and in-depth assessments and inform policymaking processes.  The offer currently comprised two toolkits. 

- The Household and Building Damage Assessment (HBDA) originally developed with the support of IMPACT Initiatives to facilitate the assessment of buildings and infrastructure affected by crises, as well as assess a series of basic socio-economic indicators in Health, Food Security, Education, and WASH at the household level and allows prompt collection of digital and georeferenced data on damages in order to inform government prioritization for recovery planning. Based on the past experiences of UNDP implementing Household Building Damage Assessment, (HBDA) implemented in natural disasters contexts in the Caribbean and in Albania, UNDP and Impact developed a digital assessment toolbox to serve in diverse contexts. 

- The Digital Socio-Economic Impact Assessment (SEIA) was originated by adapting the HBDA toolkit to respond to the rapid geographic and demographic spread of the COVID 19 worldwide and to assess the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 on households and micro and small enterprises. Similarly, to the HBDA, the SEIA tool uses Kobo Toolbox, an open source for digital data collection, and Microsoft Power BI to analyze and visualize the data from the assessment. The SEIA uses also Microsoft Teams and other MS Office Products such us (MS Excel) for logistics, operations and team management. These assessments are implemented in multiple UNDP country offices in close coordination with national and international partners. This offer of the CSMT is adapting to cover Rapid SEIAs that could be rollout in different crisis context as well as integrate with other existing methodologies in the sector such as the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment. These assessments are important for governments to identify urgent and medium to long-term measures to mitigate the impact and support early recovery, as well as to inform deep and long-term assessments.

The Crisis Bureau Country Support Management Team (CSMT) has setup a SURGE Data Hub Support Team with multidisciplinary experts, organized with a regional approach, that can provide remote technical support to UNDP country offices and partners in setting up and implementing digital assessments. The Team includes experts on rapid crisis assessments, methodology and survey design, economics, statistics, information management, digital data collection tools (e.g. Kobo toolbox), data analysis and visualization, assessment design, GIS, among others. 

Institutional Arrangement

The Information Management Officer will report to the Programme Specialist in the Country Support Management Team (CSMT), Crisis Bureau UNDP.

 

Duties and Responsibilities

The Information Management Officer will be part of the SURGE Data Hub Regional tandem teams providing technical advice to country offices in the African (focusing in francophone countries) and Arab States regions in designing and implementing SEIAs, HBDAS and other early recovery assessments, producing data plans and information management solutions for rapid needs assessments, and facilitating capacity building programmes for UNDP staff and partners. This includes creation and management of data collection tools in Kobo, data cleaning and management techniques, and lead data visualization and GIS tasks. 

The officer will take over the already developed tools and documents, promote knowledge, tools and best-practices on digital assessments and will support the coordination and management of capacity building activities, including training design, development and delivery of training and learning material on digital rapid needs assessments in collaboration with other SDH experts and the UNDP Surge Academy.

The IMO will produce technical notes and briefs for the use of CSMT and CB and, when relevant, for fruition of UNDP internal partners (e.g. CB technical and policy teams, Surge Academy, BPPS teams, Accelerator Labs, CDO Team, etc.) as well as UNDP external partners.  

As needed, the officer will also support the work on the methodological integration of digital HBDA and SEIA with other humanitarian and recovery assessments (including the PDNA and RPBA methodologies) and will provide overall expert advice to practically enable the integration of digital solutions in rapid response and early recovery needs assessments. 

The IMO will be integrated in SURGE Data Hub Regional Tandem teams under the overall supervision of the Programme Specialist in the Country Support Management Team (CSMT) of the Crisis Bureau and will be coordinated by the SURGE Data Hub Project Manager in the CSMT. The Tandem Team have team members mainly working from home. 

The officer will advise the team and engage in the following tasks in support of UNDP country offices in the RBA and RBAS region, under the direct supervision of the Project Manager for SURGE Data Hub:

• Provide dedicated technical advice for designing and implementing integrated and comprehensive HBDAs, SEIAs,early recovery needs assessments, including leading when required field deployment of a digital assessment team;

• Provide capacity-building related to digital assessments, including enumerator training, to UNDP Country Offices in selected regions and their implementing partners;

• Take part in inter-agency assessment working groups during emergency response in Africa and Arab States countries, including OCHA's Assessment and Analysis Cell;

• Operate on data export, conversion, cleaning and export in different data formats, including CSV, Excel-based data, and shapefiles;

• Ensure technical standardization (e.g. promotion of CODs and data standards), including evaluation of UID logic and any potential linkages to pre-existing infrastructure data;

• Design of data collection tools, especially for mobile data collection, sampling frameworks, data storage systems, and analytical products;

• Monitor quality of data collected, perform data cleaning activities, log any changes to the dataset on the cleaning log, and ensure regular updates on data quality in collaboration with the Assessment Officer;

• Generate data visualization products, including dashboards, infographics, and maps, especially using Power BI;

• Perform GIS/Satellite imagery analysis, identify map information needs, ensure accurate linkages between spatial databases and assessment data, and produce GIS-based information products;

• Assist on preparing the data reports to hand over data, methodology, logistics arrangement to the government and any other national or international partner involved in the assessment;

• Provide quick turnaround information management assistance to clients from UNDP country offices concerning the design and implementation of digital assessments;

• Coordinate technical support on digital assessments for UNDP country offices in regions covered in the assignment;

• Support training development and delivery on Socio-Economic Impact Assessment (SEIA) and Household and Building Damage Assessment (HBDA) toolkits;

• Support the development of communication materials, including blog posts and social media posts, with the objective of highlighting the digital assessment experience of Country Offices in RBA and RBAS;

• Promote the use of digital assessment tools at the national, regional, and global level;

• Provide assistance to the Partnerships team in identifying, scoping, and facilitating partnerships;

• Support country offices in designing and implementing HBDAs in close collaboration with UNDP thematic leads at the regional and global level.

• Any other tasks as required by the CSMT at Crisis Bureau.

The assignment might require field missions to assist UNDP country offices and/or counterparts.

Competencies

UN CORE VALUES AND COMPETENCIES

Professionalism: Shows pride in work and achievements; demonstrates professional competence and mastery of subject matter; is conscientious and efficient in meeting commitments, observing deadlines and achieving results; is motivated by professional rather than personal concerns; shows persistence when faced with difficult problems or challenges; remains calm in stressful situations. Takes responsibility for incorporating gender perspectives and ensuring the equal participation of women and men in all areas of work.

Communication:Speaks and writes clearly and effectively; Listens to others, correctly interprets messages from others and responds appropriately; Asks questions to clarify and exhibits interest in having two-way communication; Tailors language, tone, style and format to match the audience; Demonstrates openness in sharing information and keeping people informed.

Client Orientation: Considers all those to whom services are provided to be "clients " and seeks to see things from clients' point of view; Establishes and maintains productive partnerships with clients by gaining their trust and respect; Identifies clients' needs and matches them to appropriate solutions; Monitors ongoing developments inside and outside the clients' environment to keep informed and anticipate problems; Keeps clients informed of progress or setbacks in projects; Meets timeline for delivery of products or services to client.

Required Skills and Experience

Min. Academic Education	Advanced university degree (master’s degree or equivalent) on Information Technology, Geography/GIS or related disciplines.
Min. years of relevant Work experience	A minimum of two years of experience on information management for assessment design, implementation, data analysis and visualization;
Required  skills and competencies	Experience in the use of KoBo Toolbox or similar digital data collection/assessment tools.Experience in GIS applied to humanitarian and development contexts.
Desired additional skills and competencies	Experience in post-disaster/conflict contexts.Experience in information management and coordination of assessments in the regions of interest.
Required Language(s) (at working level)	Fluency in written and spoken English is required. Proficiency in French is required. Arabic is an advantage.
Professional Certificates	NA