Consultancy: MICS Tabulator Data and Tabulation Verification Consultant - Req. #581502
Empleo nº: 581502
Tipo de trabajo: Consultant
Ubicación: United States
Categorías: Research, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation
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Vacancy Announcement: Consultant
Consultancy Title: MICS Tabulator Data and Tabulation Verification Consultant
Section/Division/Duty Station: Data Collection Unit, Data and Analytics Section, DATA Team; DAPM, NYHQ
Duration: May – December 2025
Home/ Office Based: 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. 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, as mandated by the United Nations General Assembly, is committed to advocating for children's rights, meeting their basic needs, and fostering opportunities for their development. A core component of this mission is the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) program, the largest source of internationally comparable data on children and women worldwide. MICS surveys provide essential information for policymaking, program design, and progress tracking on key global development goals, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With data spanning multiple thematic areas, MICS remains a crucial tool for evidence-based decision-making at national and international levels.
While MICS data is widely available, effectively utilizing it requires specialized software and statistical expertise, limiting accessibility for many stakeholders. To address this, UNICEF is developing the MICS Tabulator, an online platform designed to simplify data access, analysis, and visualization. The Tabulator will allow users to generate custom tabulations, pivot views, dynamic indicators, and visualizations without the need to download microdata or use advanced statistical tools. By making data more accessible, the platform will empower policymakers, researchers, and development partners to leverage MICS findings more effectively.
The MICS Tabulator will help broaden data use, ensuring that key insights on the well-being of children and women are available to a wider audience while maintaining international comparability and quality assurance. It will also strengthen capacity building, allowing National Statistical Offices (NSOs) to conduct child-centric surveys more independently, with only minimal technical support needed for ensuring data quality and alignment with global standards. Ultimately, the project aims to enhance evidence-based decision-making and contribute to UNICEF’s overarching mission of improving the lives of children worldwide.
MICS surveys generate rich datasets covering diverse areas such as health, education, nutrition, child protection, and gender equality. Over time, modifications in survey tools and country-specific adaptations have led to differences in data structures, making cross-country and trend analysis more challenging. To address these inconsistencies, UNICEF partnered with IPUMS at the University of Minnesota to harmonize MICS datasets across multiple rounds. This harmonized data ensures greater comparability across countries and over time, enabling more seamless integration into the MICS Tabulator. By leveraging these harmonized datasets, the platform will provide a cohesive and structured data source, facilitating streamlined analysis and ensuring greater usability of MICS findings for researchers, policymakers, and technical experts working in data-driven fields.
The development of the MICS Tabulator platform is currently ongoing, alongside continued efforts to harmonize MICS data for integration into the system. To ensure the highest data quality standards, the MICS team is seeking additional support from a data processing expert. This expert will play a crucial role in verifying the quality of harmonized data, ensuring its alignment with the original MICS datasets, and contributing to the development of tabulation programs that will feed directly into the Tabulator platform. These efforts will further enhance the accuracy, usability, and reliability of the MICS Tabulator, ensuring it effectively supports data-driven decision-making and policy development.
Scope of Work:
The selected candidate is expected to work on assessing the quality of the harmonized MICS data, ensuring its alignment with the MICS Tabulator platform, and collaborating with the Tabulator software development team as well as the IPUMS team responsible for data harmonization. This role will involve developing relevant code for data analysis and tabulation that will run in the background of the Tabulator platform, supporting decisions on visualization tools, and contributing to documentation and technical guidance for the platform’s implementation.
This consultation aims to ensure that the consultant has a strong grasp of household survey methodologies, MICS-specific data processing approaches, and statistical tools, allowing them to provide effective support in developing a robust and user-friendly platform for real-time data analysis. The consultant will work closely with technical teams to ensure that the MICS Tabulator is built on high-quality, standardized, and well-structured data, with the necessary analytical tools to enhance accessibility and usability for stakeholders.
Specific Roles and Responsibilities
1. Assess the Quality of Harmonized MICS Data
o Conduct a comprehensive review of harmonized MICS datasets to ensure accuracy, completeness, and internal consistency.
o Verify alignment between harmonized datasets and original MICS data, ensuring that variable definitions, coding structures, and classifications are correctly retained.
o Identify and document any inconsistencies, errors, or data gaps, providing recommendations for necessary adjustments.
2. Ensure Data Alignment with the MICS Tabulator Platform
o Work closely with the Tabulator software developers to ensure that the structure and content of harmonized datasets are correctly integrated into the platform.
o Support the testing and validation of datasets within the Tabulator, ensuring smooth functionality and accurate outputs.
o Develop guidelines for handling data transformations needed to optimize data display and usability within the platform.
3. Develop Analytical Code for Tabulation and Data Processing
o Create SPSS, Pyton and R-based scripts for data processing, tabulation, and indicator calculations that will run in the background of the MICS Tabulator.
o Ensure that tabulation programs align with MICS methodologies and produce internationally comparable results.
o Work on automating standard analysis procedures, reducing manual processing time while ensuring methodological accuracy.
4. Support the Selection and Implementation of Visualization Tools
o Provide input on the most suitable visualization methods (charts, graphs, tables) to enhance data presentation and user experience.
o Work with developers to ensure that visualization outputs correctly reflect MICS indicators, supporting decision-making on UI/UX elements related to data display.
5. Contribute to Technical Documentation and Guidelines
o Prepare clear documentation for data processing workflows, indicator calculations, and tabulation procedures.
o Develop user guidelines to assist MICS stakeholders in understanding and effectively using the MICS Tabulator for data analysis.
o Ensure that all documentation follows best practices for data governance and quality assurance.
6. Coordinate with Key Stakeholders (IPUMS and Software Developers)
o Regularly engage with the IPUMS team to discuss harmonization progress, data structure refinements, and quality control measures.
o Maintain communication with software developers, ensuring that the technical aspects of data integration, tabulation, and visualization are aligned with MICS requirements.
o Provide feedback and recommendations to improve the overall functionality and efficiency of the MICS Tabulator platform.
By fulfilling these responsibilities, the consultant will play a crucial role in ensuring that the MICS Tabulator functions as a reliable, high-quality tool for real-time data analysis.
Terms of Reference / Specific Deliverables
Assess the quality of harmonized MICS data and ensure alignment with original datasets.
- First comprehensive assessment report on data quality and alignment with original MICS datasets.
30 June 2025
Verify data integration within the MICS Tabulator platform and provide recommendations for adjustments.
- Documented feedback and recommendations for improving data integration within the Tabulator.
Propose the content for up to 10 MICS Tabulator generic Dashboards (tabulations, tables, graphs, charts, etc.)
30 July 2025
Develop SPSS, Python, and R-based scripts for tabulation and indicator calculations.
- Working scripts (3) in SPSS, python and R Develop working scripts in SPSS, Python, and R to automate tabulation and calculate all standard MICS tables and indicators, ensuring 100% coverage in each language.
30 August 2025
Support decisions on visualization tools for the MICS Tabulator platform.
- Technical brief outlining visualization tools and methods for data presentation.
30 September 2025
Prepare technical documentation on data processing workflows and tabulation procedures.
Produce content (description, tooltip, use case examples, etc.) for the harmonized dataset variables and indicators to help guide MICS Tabulator users on the user interface.
- Completed documentation on data processing workflows and tabulation methodologies.
- Content produced for harmonized dataset variables and indicators to help with MICS Tabulator frontend
15 June 2025
Engage with the IPUMS team and Tabulator software developers to ensure smooth collaboration.
- Weekly updates and bi-monthly meetings summaries with IPUMS and software development teams.
15 December 2025
Conduct validation tests to confirm data accuracy and functionality within the platform.
- Validation report detailing testing outcomes and necessary adjustments.
30 September 2025
Final assessment of the quality of harmonized MICS data and ensure alignment with original datasets.
- Comprehensive assessment report on data quality and alignment with original MICS datasets.
30 October 2025
Provide a final report summarizing findings, challenges, and recommendations for improvement.
- Final summary report with key findings, recommendations, and future action points.
15 December 2025
Qualifications
(1) Education
- Advance University Degree (Masters) in Information Technologies, Statistics, Demography, or any other related technical field with expertise in data management
Language Proficiency:
- Good communication skills in English.
(2) Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:
• This is a high-level position with a minimum of ten years' working experience in data processing in household surveys, preferably with prior MICS or DHS data processing experience.
• Expertise in programming with CSPro.
• Expertise in programming with SPSS and R.
• Excellent interpersonal skills.
Requirements:
Completed profile in UNICEF's e-Recruitment system and
- Upload copy of academic credentials
- Financial proposal that will include/ reflect :
o the costs per each deliverable and the total lump-sum for the whole assignment (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference.
o travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per TOR.
o Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, and living costs as applicable.
o 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.
Publicado: Eastern Daylight Time
Vencimiento de la solicitud: Eastern Daylight Time
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