..

Qualifications

Purpose of consultancy

To provide technical guidance to LCD in coordinating the production of online courses on OpenWHO.org for WHO technical teams; the collection and analysis of data from the OpenWHO learning platform; and the facilitation of quality control processes.

Background

The WHO Health Emergencies Programme (WHE) assists the world’s most vulnerable communities by providing flexible, rapid, and effective responses to health crises. Since the current COVID19 pandemic, public health learning is considered an essential intervention within such an emergency response.

The WHE Learning and Capacity Development (LCD) team is leading the implementation of the WHE Learning Strategy, which guides all learning, capacity development, and training activities across the programme. The unit is involved in a number of global and regional learning initiatives and is working on the streamlining and coordination of emergency learning for WHO globally. LCD is also the ‘home’ of the OpenWHO.org platform and assists teams across WHO with making quality public health learning content available to all people, free of charge.

The mission of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme (The Programme) is to build the capacity of Member States to manage health emergency risks and, when national capacities are overwhelmed, to lead and coordinate the international health response to contain outbreaks and to provide effective relief and recovery to affected populations.

The Learning and Capacity Development unit (LCD) in the Executive Director’s (EXD) Office seeks to provide a learning environment for WHO staff and partners in which they can share and acquire health emergency specific knowledge, skills and competencies. In addition, LCD is nurturing a learning ecosystem that involves a wide range of stakeholders and that facilitates resilience of national and local systems, supports preparedness capacity development, and enables emergency learning for staff, response partners and frontline responders, facilitating a safe, efficient and effective response.

Deliverables:

• Deliverable 1: Coordinate the production of courses on OpenWHO.org with WHO technical teams.
  • Activity 1.1: Facilitate the production, translation and publication of educative and informative learning materials and online courses.
  • Activity 1.2: Provide technical support to WHO technical teams and external service providers in adapting complex and continuously evolving WHO guidance and technical expertise to high-quality online learning materials suited to adult learning and fully accessible to different audiences, such as those in low-bandwidth or offline settings.
  • Activity 1.3: Contribute to the creation and operation of learning events and initiatives with high learner uptake and engagement.
  • Activity 1.4: Coordinate between all stakeholders, such as WHO experts at every level of the organization, external service providers, partner organizations and volunteers, to crowdsource learning expertise and rapid translation capacity.
  • Activity 1.5: Liaise closely with platform service providers and software developers to resolve any technical issues, conduct routine platform maintenance and actualize joint ideas for innovative, impactful new and improved features to maximize learner satisfaction.

• Deliverable 2: Provide technical expertise on improvement of training data analysis from OpenWHO.org platform.
  • Activity 2.1: Collect, update, analyse and prepare relevant learning data for reporting purposes, e.g., learner metrics disaggregated by WHO region, country, affiliation, gender, and age.
  • Activity 2.2: Gather and analyse information from feedback on courses and training to contribute to ongoing learning needs analysis and increasing training impact.
  • Activity 2.3: Generate insights on learners’ use of OpenWHO courses and other LCD learning offerings using data extracted via surveys and other available sources.
  • Activity 2.4: Extract, curate, and disseminate available data on learning delivery to relevant parties.
  • Activity 2.5: Produce and coordinate communication materials, including data dashboards, maps, graphs, charts, infographics blogs and other presentation material based on qualitative and quantitative research findings.

• Deliverable 3: Facilitate quality control processes.
  • Activity 3.1: Edit presentations and other learning materials.
  • Activity 3.2: Verify newly produced language materials for consistency with original (English language) content.
  • Activity 3.3: Implement changes to learning materials based on user comments or other feedback.
  • Activity 3.4: Facilitate events, archiving and records with the learning material.
  • Activity 3.5: Develop and establish quality assurance and quality control mechanisms and tools.

Qualifications, experience, skills and languages.

Educational Qualifications:

Essential:

• Advanced university degree (master’s degree or equivalent) in computer science, data science, analytics, statistics, information management, computational linguistics or a related field.

Desirable:

• A complementary education degree, qualification or training in epidemiology, public health, or related discipline.

Experience

Essential:

• At least five years of experience in a data management function.
• Experience in data quality collection, analysis, dissemination, data mining and data visualization and use of information for program planning and management.
• Experience in using data to advance decisions, strategies and execution.
• Experience in project management.

Desirable:

• Experience working in learning, knowledge transfer and capacity development within the context of health emergencies.
• Experience working in data annotation and information retrieval.
• Experience in assisting in machine learning activities.

Skills/knowledge

Essential:

• Excellent and demonstrated writing, oral presentation and communication skills.
• Positive attitude to learning new skills and working with a multicultural team.
• Capable of working under high pressure and tight time constraints.
• Focused on quality with attention to detail.
• Analysis and troubleshooting skills, with an aptitude and sound judgment for creative problem-solving.
• Proficiency with MS Excel, MS Word, MS Access, and Power BI.
• Proficiency with at least one statistical and data analysis package (SAS, STATA, SPSS, R, Statistica, or Matlab).
• Knowledge of natural language processing tools.
• Proven knowledge of WHO health emergencies learning.
• Knowledge in artificial intelligence for health.

Languages required:

Essential:

• Expert knowledge of English.

Desirable

• Intermediate knowledge of other UN language(s).

Location

Off-site – Home based.

Travel

The consultant is not expected to travel.

Remuneration and budget (travel costs are excluded):

Remuneration:

Band level B-USD 7,000 – 9,980 per month.

Living expenses (A living expense is payable to on-site consultants who are internationally recruited):

N/A

Expected duration of contract:

11 months.

Additional Information

• This vacancy notice may be used to identify candidates for other similar consultancies at the same level.
• Only candidates under serious consideration will be contacted.
• A written test may be used as a form of screening.
• If your candidature is retained for interview, you will be required to provide, in advance, a scanned copy of the degree(s)/diploma(s)/certificate(s) required for this position. WHO 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 through the link: http://www.whed.net/. Some professional certificates may not appear in the WHED and will require individual review.
• For information on WHO’s operations please visit: http://www.who.int.
• WHO is committed to workforce diversity.
• WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or users of any form of tobacco.
• Applications from women and from nationals of non and underrepresented Member States are particularly encouraged.
• WHO prides itself on a workforce that adheres to the highest ethical and professional standards and that is committed to put the WHO Values Charter into practice.
• WHO has zero tolerance towards sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), sexual harassment and other types of abusive conduct (i.e., discrimination, abuse of authority and harassment). All members of the WHO workforce have a role to play in promoting a safe and respectful workplace and should report to WHO any actual or suspected cases of SEA, sexual harassment and other types of abusive conduct. To ensure that individuals with a substantiated history of SEA, sexual harassment or other types of abusive conduct are not hired by the Organization, WHO will conduct a background verification of final candidates.
• Consultants shall perform the work as independent contractors in a personal capacity, and not as a representative of any entity or authority. The execution of the work under a consultant contract does not create an employer/employee relationship between WHO and the Consultant.
• WHO shall have no responsibility whatsoever for any taxes, duties, social security contributions or other contributions payable by the Consultant. The Consultant shall be solely responsible for withholding and paying any taxes, duties, social security contributions and any other contributions which are applicable to the Consultant in each location/jurisdiction in which the work hereunder is performed, and the Consultant shall not be entitled to any reimbursement thereof by WHO.
• Consultants working in Switzerland must register with the applicable Swiss cantonal tax authorities and social security authorities, within the prescribed timeframes (Guidelines issued by the Swiss Mission are available at: https://www.eda.admin.ch/missions/mission-onu-geneve/en/home/manual-regime-privileges-and-immunities/introduction/Manuel-personnes-sans-privileges-et-immunites-carte-H/Non fonctionnaires et stagiaires.html