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UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

For every child, hope

Vacancy Announcement: Consultant

Consultancy Title: Data Engineering Consultant

Section/Division/Duty Station: Data & Analytics Team, DAPM NYHQ

Duration: 1 February 2025 to 31 January 2026

Home/ Office Based: Florence / Remote

About UNICEF 

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND

Purpose of Activity/ Assignment:

UNICEF requires the services of an external consultant to support the development and maintenance of spatial and other data discovery, harmonization, validation, curation and analytics in several areas, especially the Wash Insecurity Analysis (WIA), and also including Children in Conflict (CIC) and Children’s Climate and Disaster Risk Model (CCDRM), deployed to multiple platforms including GeoSight and its Indicator Data Warehouse.

All work performed shall create maintainable, automated processes over the data lifecycle, also accommodating the addition of new streams of data as and when they become available.

The WIA work shall be performed iteratively in coordination with the Global WASH Cluster (GWC), PG-WASH  and Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) team, beginning with the current set of 2024 focus countries, delivering on the 2025 set of focus countries as they are determined. Working with the GWC, PG-WASH and JMP team and a regular part of virtual and physical team meetings, the consultant will also work to identify novel frontier data technology approaches as an innovation workstream.

The consultancy shall also assist in further testing, validation, and refinement of spatial data assets and indicator data in GeoRepo and the Indicator Data Warehouse, development and production launch of a new dynamic CIC data pipeline and dashboard, continue to support the data management needs of CCDRM with respect to the Indicator Data Warehouse, and assist the Data and Analytics section in further automating its data lifecycle.

Finally, the consultancy will support the Frontier Data Network as it continues to enable new data and technology capabilities at Frontier Data Nodes and with other UNICEF data science teams including leveraging big data assets with spatial analytics, machine learning, and other AI approaches.

Scope of Work:

Coordinate with relevant stakeholders (e.g., UNICEF staff, other agencies, national government, private sector partners) to identify relevant spatial and other data sources at subnational level for analytic needs.

Working with WASH analysts and the Frontier Data and Technology Unit (FDTU), design data structures to hold data sources, maximizing reuse of available reference data standards.

Undertake data preparation, including data identification, data compilation from different sources, cleaning, standardization, and validation. Create reusable scripts in R or Python to harmonize data from multiple sources into common data structures, including sources from dynamic APIs, managing those scripts in UNICEF’s common analytics environment, Data Bricks and in its GitHub repository.

Store data in agreed upon data warehouse and spatial platforms (such as ArcGIS Online/Enterprise, Indicator Data Warehouse, GeoSight, GeoRepo) using scripts and available APIs.

Collaborate through the Frontier Data Network team with Frontier Data Nodes in Regional Offices, and other UNICEF data science teams (Giga, Supply Division, OoI) in supporting big data sources, new spatial analytics methods, new machine learning models, and other AI approaches.

Document work and methodologies used, including the documentation of custom scripts, any harmonization strategy implemented, newly identified data sources, and any analytics, and data processing work.

Terms of Reference / Key Deliverables:

1. Identify additional relevant geospatial, indicator and other data sources at subnational level for WIA, Children in Conflict, and other Frontier Data analytic needs by 31 March 2025

• Data sources for WIA
• Data sources for Children in Conflict

2. Manage the ETL (extract, transform, load) process for WIA and other analytics projects including structuring, cleaning, standardizing, and validating multiple sources into common data structures, including from dynamic APIs, and managing these scripts in UNICEF’s common analytics environment, Data Bricks and Github by 31 May 2025

• Data structures to hold new data sources.
• Reusable Python and R ETL  Pipelines for data sources
• R and Python Validation scripts

3. Store WIA and other data in agreed upon data warehouse and geospatial platforms including ArcGIS Online/Enterprise, Indicator Data Warehouse, GeoRepo, and GeoSight using scripts and available APIs by 31 July 2025

• WIA data stored
• CCDRM data stored
• Children in Conflict data stored

4. Collaborate through the Frontier Data Network team with Frontier Data Nodes in Regional Offices, and other UNICEF data science teams (Giga, Supply Division, OoI) in supporting big data sources, new spatial analytics methods, new machine learning models, and other AI approaches, with one deliverable specifically focused on frontier data technology innovation for WIA by 30 September 2025

• Novel data sources and methods used to enhance the WIA for one pilot country.
• Two frontier data technology initiatives supported and documented, including data, models, code, methodology

5. Support version three of the Children in Conflict project, including data wrangling, methodology, and dashboard design by 30 November 2025

• Children in Conflict live on data.unicef.org
• Methodology and report published

6. Document code scripts, analytic methods, harmonization strategies, and newly identified data sources by 31 January 2026

• Documentation available on Data Bricks, GitHub, data.unicef.org

7. Travel

• WASH Insecurity Analysis conference
• Frontier Data Technology Unit Retrospectives (2) Frontier Data Node user meeting

Qualifications

Education:

• Master’s Degree
• Disciplines: CompSci, Software Engineering, Data Science, Mathematics, Physics or a related field.

Work experience:

• 5 years of experience working with data and analytics tools;

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required *:

•  Proven experience in implementing ETL pipelines over heterogenous data using Python, R and SQL;
•  Experience discovering and harmonizing development data using scripted approaches for access with both file-based and API methods;
•  Experience using cloud-based analytics platforms and data and spatial data processing tools, e.g. Data Bricks, ArcGIS Desktop);
• Experience using data science packages, e.g., Pandas, Numpy;
•  Experience with UNICEF domain data is an asset;
• Fluent in spoken and written English. Additional official UN working languages are a plus, especially Spanish.

Requirements:

Completed profile in UNICEF's e-Recruitment system and

- Upload copy of academic credentials

- Financial proposal that will include/ reflect :

• • the costs per each deliverable and the total lump-sum for the whole assignment (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference.
  • travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per TOR.
  • Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, and living costs as applicable.
  • Indicate your availability

- Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.

- At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.

- Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

U.S. Visa information:

With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results. View our competency framework at: Here

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment. 

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles 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. 

Remarks:  

Individuals engaged under a consultancy will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants. Consultants are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.