Data Manager (Retainer) At UNOPS

Background Information – Job-specific

The Centre for Humanitarian Data is focused on increasing the use and impact of data in the humanitarian sector. It is managed by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and is based in The Hague, the Netherlands. The Centre’s services are available to humanitarian partners and OCHA staff in the field and at headquarters.

The Centre focuses on four areas: data services, data responsibility, data literacy, and predictive analytics. The data services workstream focuses on the management of the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX) platform, the development and use of the Humanitarian Exchange Language (HXL) data standard, and support to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). The data responsibility worksteam focuses on the development and adoption of guidelines and different techniques for the secure management of data, both within OCHA and the broader humanitarian system. The data literacy workstream focuses on improving the data skills of technical and non-technical humanitarians through the delivery of training programmes and sharing of capacity-building material. The predictive analytics workstream focuses on model development, including threshold and trigger design for anticipatory action, and quality assurance of partner models through validation and peer review.

The Centre is looking for a Data Manager to support data-contributor organisations with sharing data on HDX. The role will primarily be responsible for ensuring the quality of data shared on the platform, offering data visualization and standardization support, and maintaining good working relationships with data contributors. We are looking for a candidate who is self-motivated, enjoys working with data and the people who produce it, and can thrive in an international, remote, and multidisciplinary team.
Reporting Relationships

Data Manager will be a part of the Centre’s Data Partnerships Team and will report to the Head of the Data Partnerships Team who is based in Geneva. The Data Manager will be expected to work closely with the rest of the HDX team and with information/data managers at headquarters and field locations.

Functional Responsibilities

The Data Manager will be responsible for the following:

• Work with partner organizations to support their data sharing efforts on HDX.
• Develop data visualizations and analysis for data-sharing organizations.
• Support daily maintenance of HDX by creating new organization pages, reviewing the quality of new datasets, adding gallery items to featured datasets, and archiving out-of-date data.
• Curate the HDX Data Grids by focusing on specific countries or sub categories and helping to increase data completeness in priority humanitarian operations.
• Identify potential data contributors and work to bring new organizations into the HDX community.
• Promote the use of the Humanitarian Exchange Language (HXL) data standard to increase interoperability of data from spreadsheets and systems.
• Work with HDX data contributors and data users to explore opportunities for data integration and backend development; propose improvements to existing processes and systems.
• Provide training to partners on the HDX platform, data cleaning and data visualization tools.
• Attend meetings and workshops to represent HDX and the Centre.
• Participate in team and partner meetings as required.

Education/Experience/Language requirements

*Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply
*Candidates with no United Nations or UNOPS experience are strongly encouraged to apply

Education

• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) preferably in statistics, mathematics, economics, computer science, or related field.
• A first-level university degree in similar fields in combination with two (2) years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Work Experience

Required

• A minimum of 2 years of experience using spreadsheets, statistical software and/or open source tools to analyze, evaluate and visualize data is required.
• Strong interpersonal and networking skills are required.

Desired Experience (The following experiences are optional. Candidates who do not have them are welcome to apply)

• Knowledge of geographic (GIS) data, its analytical procedures and software is desirable
• Knowledge of statistical programming languages (e.g. R, Python / NumPy) is desirable.
• Knowledge of web-development technologies is a plus (e.g. JavaScript, HTML, CSS).
• Experience with humanitarian data and indicators is desirable.

Language:

• Fluency in English (read, write, speak) is required
• Fluency in French (read, write, speak) is required
• Knowledge of another UN official language is an advantage.