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- FAO is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality, background and culture.
- Qualified female applicants, qualified nationals of non-and under-represented Members and person with disabilities are encouraged to apply;
- Everyone who works for FAO is required to adhere to the highest standards of integrity and professional conduct, and to uphold FAO's values
- FAO, as a Specialized Agency of the United Nations, has a zero-tolerance policy for conduct that is incompatible with its status, objectives and mandate, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination
- All selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks
- All applications will be treated with the strictest confidentiality
Organizational Setting
The Regional Office for the Near East and North Africa (RNE) leads FAO’s support to countries in the Region in transforming their agri-food systems to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It identifies regional priorities for food security, agriculture and rural development and ensures the planning and implementation of FAO’s strategic response in the region through a multi-disciplinary approach. It implements approved programmes and projects, monitors programme implementation, and ensures that they contribute to addressing regional priorities.
RNE supports regional policy dialogues, facilitates the emergence of regional partnerships, and supports knowledge exchange, capacity development and resource mobilization for food security, agriculture and rural development in the region. It develops and maintains relations with region-wide institutions including the Regional Economic Integration Organizations (REIOs).
FAO RNE is supporting the member countries in developing their capacities for evidence-based policy design and implementation. In particular, through provision of timely and tailored data and analytics. The incumbent will help FAORNE in designing these data models and dashboards, using the existing data and tools of the FAO.
Reporting Lines
The incumbents will report to the RNE Senior economist, under the overall supervision of the Assistant Director-General.
Technical Focus
The Data Specialists will support the regional programme in general, with specific assignments to support the strategy and policy related work for the member states and analytical outputs of the FAO regional office.
Tasks and responsibilities
- Liaise with FAORNE Regional Priorities to interpret, apply and, as necessary, translate econometric models and other economic and social models to computing code designs to maintain and validate the results relating to determination of trends, patterns, relationships, and analysis on the effects of alternative policies and assumptions as per the original econometric/economic/social models;
- Design, through working with FAO statistics division and data analysts on building data products, such as intelligent visualizations, data models, big data solutions, and/or AI/ML algorithms for initial simulations or prototypes and subsequent ingestion into mainstream software applications;
- Review various data sources and data quality issues for relevant data-driven projects on economic and social portals with the aim of validating relevance of data sources and automating the data pipeline for all data pipes in the portal;
- Work with data engineers to collate and clean data from various entities leveraging ETL capabilities for later use by Data Scientists and other data stakeholders/users;
- In close collaboration with FAO statistical division and FAO-RNE, design databases and dashboards for an information system based on FAOSTAT, tailored to FAO-RNE needs, producing outputs helping the country and FAO-RNE to model trends, patterns, and relationships in analyzing alternative policies.
- Design an information system that should be flexible, feasible, and applicable to the country and efficient, using FAO resources and other national and international sources suitable for the tasks.
- With the help of national and FAO data engineers, and following the guidelines of FAO-RNE, design, compute, interpret and validate the model.
- With the help of national and FAO data engineers, review data sources, select, clean, and make them ready for automatized pipeline, in collaboration with the relevant national officials, when applicable.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING
Minimum Requirements
• A university degree in Econometrics/Economics, Engineering, Data Science, Computer Science, Information Management, Statistics, or a related field is required;
• For Advanced degree at least 3 years of experience in economics/econometrics, statistics, data science, data analytics, applied mathematics, information management or related area is required, of which at least one year closely related to humanitarian assessments;
• For University degree at least 5 years of experience in economics/econometrics, statistics, data science, data analytics, applied mathematics, information management or related area is required, of which at least one year closely related to humanitarian assessments;
• Working knowledge (level C) of English, and limited knowledge (level B) of one of the other official FAO languages (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish). Working knowledge of only one language might be required for PSA.SBS.
FAO Core Competencies
• Results Focus
• Teamwork
• Communication
• Building Effective Relationships
• Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement
Technical/Functional Skills
• Experience with econometric and economic modelling software i.e. STATA, eViews, GAMS, etc. is desirable.
• Experience with data visualization tools such as Tableau or Power BI is desirable.
• Experience with statistical analysis using modern programming tools (such as R or Python) is desirable.
• Experience with SQL and database design is desirable.
• Experience with the development of digital economic portals/products aimed at supporting national and international policy making is desirable.
• Experience is the use of technologies supporting data science solutions relevant to economic and social issues is desirable.
• Experience in devising and overseeing data-centred projects is desirable.
• Experience working with the United Nations system or in a social science field is an asset.
• A Masters or Doctorate degree would be preferred.
Please note that all candidates should adhere to FAO Values of Commitment to FAO, Respect for All and Integrity and Transparency
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
- FAO does not charge any fee at any stage of the recruitment process (application, interview, processing)
- Please note that FAO will only consider academic credentials or degrees obtained from an educational institution recognized in the IAU/UNESCO list
- Please note that FAO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU) / United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed at http://www.whed.net/
- For more information, visit the FAO employment website
- Appointment will be subject to certification that the candidate is medically fit for appointment, accreditation, any residency or visa requirements, and security clearances.
HOW TO APPLY
• To apply, visit the recruitment website at Jobs at FAO and complete your online profile. We strongly recommend that your profile is accurate, complete and includes your employment records, academic qualifications, and language skills
• Candidates are requested to attach a letter of motivation to the online profile
• Once your profile is completed, please apply, and submit your application
• Candidates may be requested to provide performance assessments and authorization to conduct verification checks of past and present work, character, education, military and police records to ascertain any and all information which may be pertinent to the employment qualifications
• Incomplete applications will not be considered
• Personal information provided on your application may be shared within FAO and with other companies acting on FAO’s behalf to provide employment support services such as pre-screening of applications, assessment tests, background checks and other related services. You will be asked to provide your consent before submitting your application. You may withdraw consent at any time, by withdrawing your application, in such case FAO will no longer be able to consider your application
• Only applications received through the FAO recruitment portal will be considered
• Your application will be screened based on the information provided in your online profile
• We encourage applicants to submit the application well before the deadline date.
If you need help, or have queries, please contact: Careers@fao.org
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