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Job Title:   Economist (UN Jobs)

Organisation: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda

About the Company:

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. UNHCR’s mandate under the Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is to lead and co-ordinate action for international protection to refugees; seek permanent solutions for the problems of refugees and safeguard refugee rights and well-being. UNHCR has an additional mandate concerning issues of statelessness, as it is given a designated role under Article 11 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

Job Summary:   The Economist will contribute to the Global Compact for Refugees (GCR) objectives 1 and 2- Ease the pressures on host countries and Enhance refugee self-reliance. Concretely the Economist will contribute to the indicators measuring the success of the Global Compact for Refugees and particularly the Proportion of refugees living below the national poverty line in the host country. Depending on where the Economist is based the reporting lines will differ. If the Economist is based in Headquarters it will map to the DRS Partnership Analytics Research and Knowledge (PARK) section. If the Economist is based in a country or regional office, the Economist will report to either the Representative or Deputy Representative Programme, or in some cases Head of Sub-Office or Senior Operations Officer. In all cases a dotted line will be to DRS PARK for technical functional clearance of candidates and for technical oversight of economics products. The Economist will work closely with Programme and Protection colleagues in addition to Senior Management in the operation as well as Bureaux and technical unit key external stakeholders and development agencies, including the World Bank, government agencies, national statistical agencies, and other operational partners.

Under the supervision of the Senior Development Officer, the Economist will need to provide relevant economic analysis and data analytics and effectively collaborate on data analysis projects to inform evidence-based advocacy for enhancing refugee inclusion in national systems including national statistics. The Economist will need to engage with the Government of Uganda, Development Partners including WB, IFC, AfDB and other bilateral donor agencies, UN agencies, NGOs, Private sector actors and foundations as well as relevant coordination structures for supporting development partnership in the refugee context of Uganda. The position requires good understanding about government functions and skills in the implementation of GCR and familiarity with private sector agencies in Uganda. Government of Uganda, as a co-convenor of GRF 2023, pledged five policy pledges and development partners committed matching pledges, mainly in the areas of resilience and self-reliance, Climate Change, Transition; Localization, Durable solutions. The Economist will need the skills to support the Government, UNHCR and DPGs to track the GRF pledges and Development Financing in the refugee context of Uganda and support the transition towards more sustainable programming.

All UNHCR staff members are accountable to perform their duties as reflected in their job description. They do so within their delegated authorities, in line with the regulatory framework of UNHCR which includes the UN Charter, UN Staff Regulations and Rules, UNHCR Policies and Administrative Instructions as well as relevant accountability frameworks. In addition, staff members are required to discharge their responsibilities in a manner consistent with the core, functional, cross-functional and managerial competencies and UNHCR’s core values of professionalism, integrity and respect for diversity.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Project Management

• Lead the design and implementation of assessments and other data-driven products related to the socio-economic welfare of refugees, forcibly displaced persons and host communities, wherever possible through coordination with the National Bureau of Statistics and World Bank Country Economist in inclusion of forcibly displaced into National Poverty Assessment.
• Successfully manage all partnerships and activities in the collection of comparable socio-economic (poverty) data on forcibly displaced
• Contribute to defining and promoting a vision for the use of socio-economic data, particularly in planning, programming and advocacy at the country, regional and headquarters levels.
• Maintain a strong understanding of the state of literature on poverty analysis for forcibly displaced.
• Manage data collection activities, as appropriate. This may take place at all stages of data collection (preparation, survey design, sampling, onsite data collection oversight and supervision and quality assurance, data analysis and report writing).
• Conduct data analysis using econometric programs (R, Stata).

Data Collection and Analysis

• Consolidate raw primary and secondary datasets into final datasets to be used for analysis, as needed. This will involve creating and merging various sources of data and may require programming matching algorithms, linking up with field staff for additional information, and performing manual matching.
• Clean all datasets and create all necessary indicators. Work with the research team to design a thorough plan for data analysis and carry out the coding to perform this analysis. Common analytical tasks include production of descriptive statistics and regression analysis for various outputs such as briefs, presentations and academic papers.
• For any field survey, assist in programming the instrument and developing protocols to ensure high quality data.
• Properly prepare and document relevant datasets for archiving on the UNHCR Microdata Library.
• Lead the preparation of research papers including formatting and creating tables, graphs, and related analysis.
• Engage with country operation, partners and government, as appropriate, in the design and implementation of data collection and research projects.

Coordination

• Ensure good communication and coordination among members of the country team, Governments, researchers and partners, serving as a link between these parties.
• Lead drafting and writing of presentations, analytical reports and research and policy briefs.
• Participate in official missions and deliver capacity building and training activities for partners and governments.
• Identify research opportunities and contribute to proposals for research partnerships and funding.
• Reflect UNHCR’s positions on policy, advocacy and programming issues as they relate to the protection, resilience and solutions of refugees with medium-term economic and social development programmes.
• Represent UNHCR in negotiations and meetings relating to socio-economic profiling of forcibly displaced and wider partners research in country.
• Represent UNHCR in technical capacity with external actors.
• Support the identification and management of risks and seek to seize opportunities impacting objectives in the area of responsibility. Ensure decision making in risk based in the functional area of work. Raise risks, issues and concerns to a supervisor or to relevant functional colleague(s).
• Perform other related duties as required.

 




Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

Minimum Qualifications:

• For P3/NOC – 6 years relevant experience with Undergraduate degree; or 5 years relevant experience with Graduate degree; or 4 years relevant experience with Doctorate degree
• Field(s) of Education: Economics, Statistics, or related field(s)
• Certificates and/or Licenses: Not specified.

Experience: 

• At least six (6) years of demonstrated experience in economics, analysing data and conducting research.
• Familiarity with processes of the World Bank, the African Development Bank or other international financial institutions, bilateral development agencies or research institutions.

Desirable

• Familiarity with displacement and development issues.
• Experience of working with the private sector.
• Experience working in applied development economics.
• Experience in poverty modelling.
• Experience leading primary data collection effort and data analysis.
• Experience of working with synergies between the humanitarian-development nexus. Demonstrated skills and experience with measuring welfare through socio-economic profiling.
• Demonstrated experience with analysis of large datasets.
• Demonstrated expertise in utilization of relevant statistical software (R, Stata).
• Ability to work independently with limited supervision and deliver high quality products
• Demonstrated ability to think creatively, and to explore, harness and translate innovative concepts into relevant practical approaches for programming, policy, and advocacy purposes.
• Demonstrated ability to think creatively, and to explore, harness and translate innovative concepts into relevant practical approaches for programming, policy, and advocacy purposes.

Functional Skills:

• CO-Drafting and Documentation
• MG-Project Management
• EC-Statistical and modelling software
• IM-Statistics Analysis
• DM-Data Collection and Analysis
• (Functional Skills marked with an asterisk* are essential)
• Language Requirements: For International Professional and Field Service jobs: Knowledge of English and UN working language of the duty station if not English.
• For National Professional jobs: Knowledge of English and UN working language of the duty station if not English and local language.
• Education: Bachelor of Arts (BA): Economics, Bachelor of Arts (BA): Statistics
• Competencies: Accountability, Analytical thinking, Client & results orientation, Commitment to continuous learning, Communication, Empowering & building trust, Judgement & decision making, Organizational awareness, Planning & organizing, Teamwork & collaboration, Technological awareness

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified and interested candidates who wish to join the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) should apply online at the link below

Click Here

Deadline: 26th November 2024

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