Data Scientist (Retainer Contract)

Data Scientist (Retainer Contract)

Background

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations System efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

Afghanistan is one of the world’s most complex emergencies, and the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. Afghan people are grappling with the impact of conflict, poverty, economic decline, and natural disasters. In this context, Afghan women and girls face unique vulnerabilities and require urgent support as gender inequality is interwoven with conflict dynamics and humanitarian needs. It is essential that Afghan women and girls can continue to shape the development of their country, and that their gains are protected. UN Women remains fully committed to supporting Afghan women and girls and to putting them at the center of the global response to the crisis in Afghanistan.

UN Women has been in Afghanistan for two decades. UN Women’s programming approach is informed by analysis of the political, economic and humanitarian situation, risks to and capacities of partner organizations, and needs of Afghan women and girls. UN Women Afghanistan currently has four key programme priorities: (1) Gender in Humanitarian Action, (2) Ending Violence Against Women, (3) Women’s Economic Empowerment, and (4) Women, Peace and Security.

Objective of the Assignment:

The main objective of the assignment is to develop, analyse, and present gender data and statistics to build a comprehensive evidence base on gender equality and women’s rights in Afghanistan. The assignment aims to address the limited availability of accessible knowledge and analysis on the gender dynamics of Afghanistan and ensure that decision-makers have the data and analysis they need to make gender-responsive policy and programming choices. The consultant will report to the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Manager at UN Women Afghanistan and may be drawn on by other teams/thematic areas.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the direct supervision of the WPS Programme Manager, the consultant will be responsible to leverage the use of statistical, administrative and innovative data, for helping to build an evidence base of high-quality gender data and statistics, in line with UN Women strategic objectives. Gender data and statistics will contribute to documentation and understanding of the situation of women in Afghanistan and support advocacy and programming on gender equality and women’s rights. The consultant will identify data and knowledge gaps, and develop strategies for data collection from various sources, efficiently integrate and process data and metadata for social computing and statistical analysis, and communication using a wide range of methods.

Scope of the Assignment:

• Identify strategic gaps and opportunities for data collection and data driven solutions in line with UN Women’s strategic priorities in Afghanistan;
• Other data and analysis needs, as identified by the UN Women Afghanistan;
• Generate data-informed insights and communicate these narratives through analysis and visualisations to a range of technical and non-technical colleagues;
• Build data sets with high-quality gender data and statistics using internationally agreed gender equality indicators – aimed at informing the efforts by national and international stakeholders on gender equality and women’s rights;
• Identify data sources to fill the data gaps, utilize data engineering skills to integrate and process metadata from various sources; Analyse existing and produced data-sets to identify gender-related differences and trends using data science concepts and statistical modeling;

Competencies

Core Values

• Professionalism.
• Integrity;
• Respect for Diversity;

Core Competencies

• Stakeholder Engagement;
• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
• Leading by Example.
• Accountability;
• Creative Problem Solving;
• Effective Communication;
• Inclusive Collaboration;

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf

Functional Competencies

• Strong analytical skills and experience in data analysis, statistical analysis and visualization using tools such as STATA, R, Python, SQL, Tableau, Power BI.
• Understanding of gender data and gender-sensitive statistical analysis.
• Ability to share learning within a team to train and build skills among other team members, providing mentorship and technical guidance.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, including the ability to effectively communicate complex data analysis to non-technical stakeholders and decision-makers.
• Ability to work collaboratively with other team members to find solutions to complex issues.
• Ability to gather, clean, and preprocess large datasets from multiple sources.
• Ability to develop statistical models to analyze and forecast trends related to gender equality.
• Ability to work independently and deliver quality results within tight deadlines.
• Knowledge of data warehousing concepts and database management systems.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in the above disciplines with two years of additional relevant experience may be considered in lieu of a master’s degree.
• Master's degree in a relevant field such as computer science, data science, data engineering, or a related field.

Experience:

• Demonstrable experience in areas such as data warehousing infrastructure, big data analytics, GIS analytics, social media network analysis, etc.
• With master's degree in a quantitative field, at least 7 years of progressively responsible work experience as a data scientist/statistics specialist.
• Previous relevant experience with UN Agencies, international organisations or donors would be a strong advantage.
• Excellent analytical and technical skills in quantitative and qualitative data analysis and visualization, and statistical modelling.
• Any relevant certifications, such as a Certified Data Scientist (CDS) or a Certified Analytics Professional (CAP), would be an asset.
• Strong understanding of gender data and statistics related to gender equality and women’s rights would be a strong advantage.
• Demonstrable experience in generating data-informed insights, reports, and visualisations to communicate narratives with data to a range of technical and non-technical colleagues to influence decision-making.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in written and spoken English is required.
• Knowledge of the other UN official working language is an asset.
• Knowledge of Dari and/or Pashto is an asset.

Other Information:

• Each payment is subject to timely submission and acceptance by UN Women Afghanistan Country Office of the respective deliverables in the required quality.
• Payment will be made in instalments using the daily fee rate and will be based on the actual number of work days completed for each specific assignment (numbers of days for each deliverable will be agreed in advance with UN Women Afghanistan).
• Consultant might be engaged by multiple business units/COs under this contract for a maximum of 75 work days (cumulatively; a contract amendment will be undertaken – in consultation with the selected contractor - if the level of effort and/or scope of work shifts).
• The Chart of Accounts (COAs) to be charged will be provided by the business units/COs utilizing the services for each individual assignment under this contract.

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology: Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for the financial evaluation.

Criteria Weight Technical: 70% (70 points)

• Criteria 4: Experience working in the Afghan context and/or analysing language data in Dari and/or Pashto (15 points)
• Criteria 2: Excellent analytical and technical skills in quantitative and qualitative data analysis, including big data and unstructured data (such as text data, social media data, etc) as well as structured large datasets, related to gender equality and women’s rights (15 points)
• Criteria 3: Demonstrable experience in generating data-informed insights, reports, and visualisations and statistical modelling to communicate narratives with data to a range of technical and non-technical colleagues to influence decision-making (20 points)
• Criteria 1: Education and experience (master's degree in a relevant field such as data science, data engineering, computer science, and at least 7 years of progressively responsible work experience as a data scientist) (20 points)

Financial: Lowest Financial Proposal: 30% (30 points)

The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula:

• Contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combined score (financial and technical);
• The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula: (Lowest Bid Offered*)/ (Bid of the Consultant)
• X 30;

Interested Individual Consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• A cover letter with a brief presentation of your consultancy explaining your suitability for the work and link to portfolio of work (if available);
• UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment;
• Personal CV.

The above-mentioned documents should be merged in a standalone file including all them, since the online application submission does only permit to upload one file per application. Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification.

Lowest Bid Offered' refers to the lowest price offered by Offerors scoring at least 49 points in the technical evaluation.

Application:

• All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from Application and recruitment process | About us: Careers at UN Women | UN Women – Headquarters Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality, and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW, and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.

Inclusion Statement:

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits employ, trains, compensates and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity, and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority, and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)