Result of Service

The individual contractor should provide the required research support in a timely manner. The individual contractor should also help in finalizing all comments provided and should provide all statistical-software codes and data sets and programs related to the projects by the end of the contract in an organized manner.

Work Location

UN-House ESCWA

Expected duration

6 Months

Duties and Responsibilities

Background:
The ESCWA World Development Challenges Report (ESCWA, 2022) finds that nearly half of the world’s population still experiences high or very high development challenges and that no region has reached a minimal level of quality-adjusted human development challenges, not even the world’s two most developed regions, Europe and North America. It also found that environmental sustainability remains a major global challenge in both developed and developing regions. The World Development Challenges Report also shows that the Arab region is the second most challenged region globally on the overall index with significant shortfalls in the governance and quality of education indicators which remain higher than the world average.

Given this context, ESCWA aims to recruit an individual contractor to assist our Development Challenges Project with producing development indicators and indices and developing effective policy assessment and monitoring tools aimed at understanding and tackling the development challenges facing the Arab region today. Specifically, the individual contractor (IC) will assist with research and consultation work towards the drafting of the Arab Development Challenges Report which zooms in on the development challenges of the region identified in the global report providing more in-depth country level analyses and results. The report also sheds light on two other specific challenges that overlap with and influence the DCI: economic resilience and multidimensional inequalities. These five aspects (economic resilience, multidimensional inequality, and the three dimensions of the DCI) would then form the basis for a development policies narrative that aims to interpret the stylized facts and results of applying these innovative measurement frameworks. The IC will also support the updating of the data for and drafting of the forthcoming World Development Challenges Report as well as the design and implementation of related trainings.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Reporting the Development Challenges Project Coordinator, under the broad supervision of the Cluster Leader, the individual contractor will work closely with the Development Challenges Project team assisting in the following areas:

1- Collect, synthesize and analyze data on development challenges, inequalities and economic resilience and support in updating the key messages portal
2- Support in drafting the global, regional and national Development Challenges Reports and related materials.
3- Assist in preparing training material for training sessions on related indices and other tools used and the underlying statistical methodology.
4- Assist in other related tasks as requested by the supervisor.

Qualifications/special skills

A Master’s degree in economics, statistics, or related area is required.

All candidates must submit a copy of the required educational degree. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed.
For this post, no previous work experience is required.
Knowledge of human development and governance analysis is desirable.
Knowledge of conducting quantitative analysis of data using statistical software, economic data analysis, presentation, drafting and visualization is desirable.

Languages

English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat; and Arabic is a working language of ESCWA.

For this position, fluency in English and Arabic is required.

Note: “Fluency” equals a rating of ‘fluent’ in all four areas (speak, read, write, and understand) and “Knowledge of” equals a rating of ‘confident’ in two of the four areas.

Additional Information

Recruitment for this position is on a local basis. The incumbent is required to have the legal right to live and work in the specified working location.

No Fee

THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.