Programme Policy Officer (Data Assurance)

CONTRACTUAL INFORMATION
JOB TITLE: Programme Policy Officer (Data Assurance)

TYPE OF CONTRACT: International Consultant Level I

UNIT/DIVISION: Programme – CBT/IDM

DUTY STATION: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

DURATION: 6 months

ABOUT WFP
The United Nations World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. The mission of WFP is to help the world achieve Zero Hunger in our lifetimes. Every day, WFP works worldwide to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry and that the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly women and children, can access the nutritious food they need.

Click the link to learn more about WFP in Ethiopia: WFP Ethiopia Employee Value Proposition.pdf

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT
WFP Ethiopia, one of the largest and most complex operations for WFP globally, is currently rolling out its five-year Country Strategic Plan (2020-2025). While the bulk of operations will continue to address the immediate short-term needs of refugees, internally displaced persons and other food-insecure and undernourished people, there will be a gradual expansion and intensification of resilience and livelihood diversification initiatives at the humanitarian–development–peace nexus. WFP will focus on the prevention of malnutrition, the building of resilience and the integration of nutrition concerns and gender equality throughout the portfolio.

WFP Ethiopia has integrated Cash-Based Transfers (CBT) programming in its humanitarian response and resilience building to offer more dignity and choice to targeted beneficiaries in the way they meet their essential needs on local markets, and to allow more flexibility in reaching food security and nutrition outcomes. CBT is implemented across four activities (relief food assistance, malnutrition prevention, refugee support and resilience building). In 2022, WFP Ethiopia transferred more than 26 million USD to 1.2 million beneficiaries. In 2023, WFP Ethiopia established a robust Identity Management system encompassing digital registration, distribution, and reconciliation of in-kind assistance as well.

JOB PURPOSE
This job is based in the Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Country Office. The purpose of this consultancy is to further improve WFP’s Identity Management system by leading data management activities (collection, processing, quality control) and strengthening data analytics enabling evidence-based decision-making.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES (not all-inclusive)

1. Lead data assurance activities within the Country Office (CO) including ensuring timely action on anomaly detection, reconciliation, and de-duplication, namely analysis, adjudication, and verification.
2. Develop and implement data analytics products and pipelines that enhance the capability of the Country Office to make evidence-based decisions, leveraging data from various sources and identifying in-depth trends in data starting from registration, through distributions, and reconciliation.
3. Work closely with technology and activity teams to ensure the integration of data analytics into existing and future decision-making processes, fostering a data-driven culture within the organization.
4. Assist stakeholders and product owners in analyzing and validating business needs and establishing development priorities which includes reviewing all the CBT and other transfers using SCOPE or other digital systems, providing routine data updates on CBT, in-kind and CBT programming as well as the digitization efforts.
5. Coordinate with functional units within the country office such as RAM and AAP, as well as the CBT and TEC Teams in HQ and the Regional Bureaux, to ensure that IDM/CBT operations run smoothly in the field and at the CO level, analysis needs are covered, and technical inputs are provided.
6. Ensure reporting inputs are accurate and verified using auditable digital trails, and information is available to relevant units and focal points.
7. Proactively identify challenges regarding data collection and processing to suggest solutions and establish mechanisms to improve data quality and integrity for analysis and identify cost efficiency improvements available through such analysis.
8. Coordinate the management of digitally registered beneficiary data with the WFP Ethiopia CBT/IDM team:
9. Assist in conducting in-depth analyses and identifying and flagging trends in registration, and in-kind food distribution data.
10. Assist in the data cleaning of beneficiary registration and provide feedback to the Area Offices on the status of the operations.
11. Supervise and/or undertake the data analysis for all relevant CBT programmes.
12. Work closely with teams to ensure that software solutions meet the growing analysis needs within the WFP Ethiopia Country Office.
13. Coordination with Area Offices and Sub-Offices on the registration status and the data quality.
14. Assist in extracting and developing final lists for the printing of beneficiary assistance cards.
15. Support in printing, stocking, tracking, and documenting the delivery of beneficiary identity cards through the use of the payment instrument tracker (PIT) tool.
16. Coordinate with Area Offices, Relief, and RAM teams to support distribution list creation for in-kind food distributions in interim solutions deployed by Ethiopia CO (PIT & DAT).
17. Maintaining up-to-date info on beneficiary registration, issues recorded and plan progress.
18. Assist in the transition to long-term solutions deployed by Ethiopia CO (SCOPE), especially in data migration, ensuring integrity during transition period.
19. Liaise with WFP area/sub-offices, and other partners as required to coordinate and resolve all issues related to beneficiary data, including data sharing, data consistency and data privacy protection guidelines etc.
20. Undertake field missions and duty travel as required.
21. Support in the identification of appropriate tools and methodologies and assist in designing SOPs to carry out operational analysis, re-engineering and change management.
22. Build up national capacities in data analysis at the CO, ensuring a sustainable set of capacities remains with the CO.
23. Review data analysis and storage processes against data protection principles, to ensure that privacy principles are followed.
24. Undertake other tasks as required.

STANDARD MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
Education: University degree, preferably in Computer Science, Engineering, Statistics, Data Management, Data Analytics, Information Management, or a related discipline.

Experience: At least three (3) years of postgraduate progressively responsible professional experience in the private or public sector demonstrating high performance;
Solid understanding of the CBT project management cycle, including experience with at least one phase: Data Analytics, analysis & assessments, design, implementation, and/or M&E.
Demonstrated advanced skills in data analysis using SQL, Python, and data visualization using Tableau/PowerBI.

Language: Fluency in both oral and written communication in English. Knowledge of the local language is an added advantage.

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS
29 April 2024

Qualified Female Candidates and persons with disability are highly encouraged to apply.

Open to non-Ethiopian National