Technical Specialist, GRID3, Project, Population Data for Development, East and Southern Africa Regional Office, Johannesburg

Job Summary

The Technical Specialist GRID³ Project (Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development) post is located in the Evidence, Knowledge and Innovation Unit of the Regional Office of UNFPA in East and Southern Africa (ESARO) Johannesburg.

S/He serves as a regional coordinator, advocate and technical specialist to coordinate and assure the timely and successful implementation of the project in targeted countries. S/He reports directly to the ESARO Technical Advisor for Population Data Policy, who provides overall strategic direction. S/He will work very closely with the GRID³ team in UNFPA Country Offices in project countrides and Headquarters’ Population and Development Branch.

S/He serves as focal point for implementing the project mission in ESARO.

The objectives of the GRID³ project include 1) strengthening national capacity for the production and use of geo-referenced census data; 2) convening political key stakeholders, 3) promoting the conduct of a hybrid census in highly stressed countries, fragile countries, and/or countries without recent census data, 4) leading the micro census activities for such hybrid census and 5) promoting the added value of these data with governments, development and humanitarian partners, United Nations agencies, academia and civil society organizations in East and Southern Africa region.

Education:    

Post-graduate University Degree (at least Masters level) in demography, geographic information sciences, social sciences, public health, or statistics. Management training an asset.

Knowledge and Experience:

• 7 years of increasingly responsible professional and managerial experience in scientific diplomacy, combining strong political exposure and understanding of the ESA region, with relevant technical knowledge in areas of geospatial data and development;
• Proved technical capacity for generation, visualization and analysis of geospatial data, including population data (census, CRVS and household survey data), health data, and other types of development data (e.g. environmental, land use and infrastructure), using ArcGIS/QGIS;
• Proved analytic and modelling skills including knowledge and use of statistical programming languages SAS, SPSS, R and Python;
• Familiarity with remote sensing techniques is an asset;
• Familiarity with Small Area Estimation is an asset;
• Extensive network within the regional academic and development community;
• Knowledge and experience in working in stressed or politically unstable countries is an added advantage;
• Proven ability to work in teams with people specialized in diverse areas to produce demonstrable results;
• Excellent written and oral communication skills;
• Understanding of the UNFPA mandate.