Organizational Setting

FAO’s commitment to environmental sustainability is integral to our strategic objectives and operations.

The Statistics Division (ESS) develops and advocates for the implementation of methodologies and standards for data collection, validation, processing and analysis, in the food and agriculture statistics domains. In these statistical domains, it also plays a key role in the compilation, processing and dissemination of internationally comparable data, and provides essential capacity building in support of Member Nations. The Division also disseminates publications, working papers and statistical yearbooks, that cover agriculture and food security statistics, including prices, investments, production, trade and agri-environmental statistical data. Finally, as the ESS Director also plays the role of FAO Chief Statistician, the Division supports the various functions of the Chief Statistician, that is to ensure stronger governance of FAO’s data and statistical system, foster consistency of FAO’s Data and Statistical programme within the Strategic Framework, ensure statistical excellence through the implementation of statistical standards and quality assurance mechanisms, and position FAO’s presence in data and statistical discussions at global level.

The post is located in the Data and Statistics Coordination Team of ESS at FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy. The Data and Statistics Coordination Team supports the governance and coordination of FAO’s data and statistical activities, both within FAO and within the broader international data and statistical community. It oversees the planning, monitoring and reporting on FAO data and statistical programme of work and more generally supports the monitoring of FAO’s corporate results. It coordinates FAO’s role as custodian agency for 21 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicators. Finally, it acts as focal points for any queries on intellectual property matters concerning FAO databases.

Reporting Lines
The Statistician reports to a Senior Statistician in ESS, under the general supervision of the Director ESS.

Technical Focus
The incumbent will be responsible for providing technical support to the governance, coordination, planning, monitoring and reporting of data and statistical activities at corporate level, in particular in the area of SDG monitoring, and to the design and monitoring of FAO results framework.

Key Results
Collection, analysis and review of information, data and statistics and project/meeting services to support programme products, projects, publications and services.

Key Functions

• Participates in the development of improved and/or updated technical, statistical and/or analytical tools, systems, databases; participates in the collection, review, processing and/or analysis of key social/economic/environmental indicators, based on both traditional statistical methods/sources or on unstructured sources and data science methods, to support the delivery of economic and social development programmes of work, which can be focused on products, projects, publications or services.
• Participates in the design and conducts research, data collection, validation, analysis and/or reporting in support of the development of technical standards, international instruments, innovative tools and methodologies to be used within the Organization or by external stakeholders.
• Participates in the production of technical reports and provides input in technical documents, divisional publications and/or web pages.
• Supports in the response to requests and provides technical and/or policy advice, assistance and solutions to Regional, Subregional and Country Offices.
• Participates in multidisciplinary teams, collaborates with other Divisions/Offices/Centres on work groups and committees and promotes best practices.
• Collaborates in capacity development activities, including the planning and organization of training workshops, seminars, and major meetings, and in the preparation of related information, materials, on-line tools and information kits.
• Participates in multidisciplinary teams and short-term work groups, leads and/or participates in the Divisional teams, participates in Organization-wide committees, project teams and working groups and provides specialized expertise on international technical networks and or technical policy and standard setting bodies.
• Participates in the organization, conduct and follow-up of meetings, consultations and conferences, in the development and/or production of required materials and the provision of information and assistance to partners.

Specific Functions

• Provides technical support to the work of FAO data coordination groups, including the development, implementation and monitoring of strategic orientations, policies, standards, procedures and best practices for the production and dissemination of food and agriculture statistics.
• Supports the compilation, disaggregation, progress assessment, dissemination and reporting of the SDG indicators under FAO custodianship.
• Supports the coordination of statistical capacity development initiatives on SDG monitoring and provides technical assistance to Member Nations, with a particular emphasis on improving national capacities to collect and report data for SDG monitoring.
• Provides regular assessment reports on the quality of the SDG indicators under the custodianship of FAO.
• Supports the coordination, planning, monitoring and reporting on FAO’s data and statistical programme of work, projects and activities.
• Provides technical support for the design and monitoring of FAO’s results framework, including the conduct and analysis of corporate outcome assessments and stakeholder surveys.
• Supports the coordination of FAO reporting on data and statistics to FAO Governing Bodies, the UN Statistical Commission and other relevant bodies.
• Provides technical support for the preparation and coordination of FAO regional commissions on agriculture statistics and the United Nations Committee of Experts on Food Security, Agricultural and Rural Statistics (UN-CEAG) meetings, as well as the coordination of FAO’s participation in committee of experts and working groups under the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) as well as other regional and global statistical coordination bodies relevant to FAO’s data and statistical mandate.
• Supports the establishment, review and management of corporate partnerships for data and statistics, including with other international organizations, academia, the private sector and resource partners.
• Provides technical support for the management of intellectual property rights for FAO databases.
• Performs other related duties supporting ESS’s mandate as requested.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• Advanced university degree in statistics, mathematics, economics, agricultural economics, or a related field.
• Three years of relevant experience in the compilation and analysis of food and agricultural statistics in national or international organizations
• Working knowledge (proficiency – level C) of English and intermediate knowledge (intermediate proficiency – level B) of another FAO official language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish).

Competencies

•    Results Focus
•    Teamwork
•    Communication
•    Building Effective Relationships
•    Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

• Work experience in more than one location or area of work, particularly in field positions, is desirable.
• Strong command of statistical methods including: data presentation, analysis and descriptive statistics; main continuous and discrete random variables (binomial, normal, standard normal, log-normal) and their properties; probability distributions; conditional probability, probabilities of intersections of events, Bayes’ theorem; correlation and rank correlation; sampling and sample size: simple, stratified, and multistage random sampling; Inference, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing and significance; linear regression (single and multiple) comparison of population means and variances, ANOVA; Chi-square and goodness of fit tests; nonlinear models: maximum likelihood estimation; elements of survey and questionnaire design.
• Extent and relevance of experience in collecting and analysing technical information and data, in particular data related to food, agriculture and the SDGs.
• Extent and relevance of experience in software used for processing and analysing data.
• Experience in the use of statistical software, such as R, Stata or SPSS.
• Quality of oral and written communication skills in English.

Level of Education: Bachelor Degree

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: No requirements