Result of Service

To design and develop a system for regularly extracting and pre-processing industrialisation indicators from various international databases and national sources

Work Location

Remote

Expected duration

3 Months

Duties and Responsibilities

PROJECT BACKGROUND:

The The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda focus on the relevance of inclusive and sustainable industrial development as the basis for sustainable economic growth (United Nations, 2015). Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Sub-regional Office for Southern Africa (SRO-SA)seeks to establish a regularly updated database containing inclusive industrialization indicators. The focus is on indicators that reflect the main dimensions of inclusive industrialization, including productivity, diversification, technological deepening, and inclusiveness (utilising sex-disaggregated data). Additionally, within the database indicators that capture trade and support measurement of regional integration should be incorporated.

Firstly, the database will allow for the monitoring and evaluation of industrial development across ECA Member States and the Southern Africa region over time. Secondly, it provides readily available data for various analyses that the ECA Office may undertake. Thirdly, it enables assessment of the ‘inclusiveness’ of the type of industrialization pursued by Member States in the sub-region. Fourthly, it will assist in the identification of appropriate interventions to assist Member States to promote inclusive industrialization within their borders.

SRO-SA would like to have an automated system, preferably built on open source tools, for regularly extracting relevant indicators to feed a database as well as an online web-based data portal. The data portal and database are expected to serve as a single point for compiling, validating, and disseminating data and metadata on industrialisation indicators at the SRO-SA level and also linked to the main ECAstats database for validation of data compiled by African Centre for Statistics (ACS).

In its publication “a world that counts”, the United Nations stressed that data producers and users needed to adapt to the data revolution, abandoning expensive and cumbersome production processes, incorporating new data sources, including administrative data from other government departments, and focusing on providing data that is human and machine-readable, compatible with geospatial information systems and available quickly enough to ensure that the data cycle matches the decision cycle. The Linked Open data movement also seeks to work towards solutions for the world’s most pressing problems in a spirit of transparency, collaboration, re-use, and free access. It promotes open data, open government, open source, open hardware, open content, and open access, among others. In a similar manner, many experts have been promoting the use of FAIR data principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable) in development. ECA is committed to these principles and would like to have them applied to its data collection and dissemination processes.

The services of a consultant are therefore required to design and develop a database and data portal in line with the specific needs on industrialisation by compiling, organizing, analysing, and publishing data and metadata.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Under the direct technical supervision and oversight of the Chief of the Inclusive Industrialization Section in SRO-SA and the strategic and policy direction of the Director of SRO-SA, the consultant is expected to perform the following tasks:

• Develop data capturing mechanism that compiles data across different systems and formats, including API for both consuming and exposing datasets
• Coding of scripts to extract data from member states and other reputable web-based sources.
• Using open-source tools and platforms that are scalable, adaptable,and interoperable with statistical database/reporting applications, to design and develop a web-based online data portal linked to the database with the goal of aiding reporting on the indicators and Industrial Index.
• Train users of the database and data portal in the use and maintenance of them both
• Perform other duties as might be assigned by the staff concerned, and this may include related research to support the production of all on-going research and analytical work related to flagship publications.

Qualifications/special skills

Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in a field related to ICT (Computer science, Data science, Statistics, Information systems, or a related field).A first-level university degree, in combination with 2 years qualifying experience, may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
A minimum of 10 years of practical experience in statistical and related work.
• Proven knowledge of the workings of public-private sector collaborations
• Knowledge of developing countries and issues related to SDGs and Agenda 2063
• Good communication, presentation and writing skills
• Excellent drafting and analytical skills
• Knowledge of the key concerns and challenges facing statistical data issues in Africa
• Good understanding and use of the following tools: R, Python, Web-development, JavaScript, Web services/APIs

Languages

English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For this consultancy assignment, fluency in English IS REQUIRED. Knowledge of the other is an advantage. Knowledge of another UN Language is an advantage

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.