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Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, hope.

Consultancy Title: Data processing Consultant

Section/Division/Duty Station: Data and Analytics, Division of Analysis, Planning & Monitor, UNICEF NYHQ

Duration: 20 January 2025 to 31 October 2025

Home/ Office Based: NYHQ / Remote

About UNICEF 

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world’s leading children’s rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children’s survival, protection and development. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND

Purpose of Activity/ Assignment:

The Immunization team within the Health and HIV Unit, Data and Analytics Section, Division of Analysis, Planning and Monitoring (DAPM) of UNICEF New York Headquarters is developing an integrated package to promote data use for decision-making, and provide timely and actionable data analytics to support global, national, and subnational advocacy and immunization delivery efforts. The package consists of a set of analytical products including cleaned subnational and monthly-level administrative datasets, and slide decks for visualizing subnational and monthly analytics, triangulated with other immunization-related data. These products will be used by a wide range of stakeholders for activities related to monitoring, planning and advocacy.

When working with administrative data, there are often multiple data quality challenges that need to be addressed. As such, there is a need for support with cleaning data from administrative systems, compiling and reconciling shapefiles, and production of cleaned subnational and monthly-level databases to materialise this vision.  The consultant will work under the guidance and supervision of the Statistics and Monitoring Specialist (Immunization) of the Data and Analytics Section, DAPM to support the development of these data packages and provide technical support.

Scope of Work:

The consultant will contribute to enhancing the accuracy and consistency of immunization databases and related analytics and visualizations, with a specific focus on Big Catch-Up (BCU) Monitoring.

The Big Catch-Up (BCU) is an initiative designed to reverse the decline in childhood vaccination rates caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The BCU aims to close immunization gaps, restore global vaccination levels, and strengthen immunization systems, ensuring that catch-up activities become an integral part of immunization programs worldwide. The consultant will support the integration and analysis of core BCU data to inform global, national, and subnational monitoring and decision-making.

Under the direct supervision of the Statistics and Monitoring Specialist (Immunization) in the Data and Analytics Section (DAPM), the consultant will focus on enhancing the quality and consistency of immunization and related health databases. This includes expanding and integrating databases to incorporate additional health indicators and environmental factors that may affect immunization coverage. The consultant will also develop and implement a robust BCU monitoring methodology to assess data quality, analyze trends before and after BCU activities, and evaluate performance at national and subnational levels.

The overarching goal is to establish a comprehensive and actionable framework for BCU monitoring that supports decision-making and prioritization at all levels. Specifically, the consultant will:

• Develop and refine methodologies to address key data reporting and quality challenges, such as the lack of age-disaggregated data or misclassification of child age during vaccination.
• Clean and integrate data from various sources (e.g., vaccine supply, immunization coverage) within the context of BCU monitoring.
• Analyze subnational BCU data based on the methodologies to identify inequities and priority areas for targeted interventions.

MAJOR TASKS TO BE ACCOMPLISHED

• Conduct a comprehensive review of existing BCU and related data (admin and survey data).
• Develop a robust analytical approach for BCU monitoring, including strategies to assess data quality, address reporting challenges, and ensure data consistency.
• Write and test code to implement the BCU analytics methodology, ensuring automation and accuracy in data processing.
• Create templates and codes for automatically generating PowerPoint presentations and other visual summaries of BCU monitoring data, tailored to different audiences, global, national and subnational health officials.
• Integrate additional data sources, such as vaccine supply and other contextual information relevant to BCU activities.
• Coordinate discussions with key stakeholders to refine the methodology, ensuring alignment with program needs and objectives.
• Provide technical support to countries in analyzing subnational immunization data, identifying inequities, and prioritizing interventions based on BCU monitoring outputs.

Responsibilities of UNICEF:

• Collaborate closely with the consultant throughout the Immunisation database maintenance and expansion process.
• Ensure the consultant has access to relevant information and resources necessary for successful project completion.
• Facilitate and support country consultation processes as well as coordination with stakeholders.

Terms of Reference / Key Deliverables:

Round 1: Draft and Feedback Phase

• Conduct a comprehensive review of existing BCU and related data (admin and survey data). Develop an analytical plan for BCU analytics. A short report on: Summary on the BCU data challenges, an analytical plan on how to address those challenges (28 Feb 2025)
• Write and test code to develop a clean dataset and integrate additional data sources, such as vaccine supply and other contextual information relevant to BCU activities in 2 countries: A fully optimized, well-documented codebase for the analysis, Cleaned and integrated dataset (31 Mar 2025)
• Write and test code to implement the BCU analytics methodology: A fully optimized, well-documented codebase for the analysis, Analytical results/outputs (30 Apr 2025)
• Create templates and codes for automatically generating PowerPoint presentations and other visual summaries of BCU monitoring data, tailored to different audiences, global, national and subnational health officials: Automated PowerPoint Slide Decks, tailored to different audiences – Global, National, Subnational (30 May 2025)
• Coordinate discussions with key stakeholders to refine the methodology, ensuring alignment with program needs and objectives. Present the methodology and country examples to stakeholder: A brief report on – Feedback, Suggestions, Frequent Questions Asked (30 July 2025)
• Incorporate the feedback to the methodology and analytical/visualization codes: Improved methodology report and codes to incorporate the feedback (30 July 2025)

Round 2: Finalization based on the feedback

• Develop a clean dataset and integrate additional data sources in 5 countries. Implement the BCU analytics methodology. Generate PowerPoint presentations: Automated PowerPoint Slide Decks, tailored to different audiences – Global, National, Subnational (31 Aug 2025)
• Develop a clean dataset and integrate additional data sources in 5 additional countries. Implement the BCU analytics methodology. Generate PowerPoint presentations: Automated PowerPoint Slide Decks, tailored to different audiences – Global, National, Subnational (30 Sep 2025)
• Disseminate the results at the global and country level. Develop or incorporate analytical outputs into an online data visualization tool (e.g., dashboard): Hold 4-6 dissemination meetings, Dashboard to show the analytical results   (31 Oct 2025)

Qualifications

Education: 

Advanced university degree (Bachelor) in the area of data science, computer science, demography, public health, social sciences, epidemiology, statistics, or related field.

Work experience:

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required *: 

• Minimum five years of work experience at the national or international levels in data cleaning, processing, data analysis, and development/maintenance of statistical databases using R.
• Proven experience in compiling and cleaning data, with a focus on health-related areas preferably.
• Advanced R programming and automation expertise.
• Proven experience in version control, collaboration, and continuous improvement using Git and Github
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Proven ability to work collaboratively in a multidisciplinary and multicultural environment.
• Proficient in English; knowledge of other UN languages is an asset.

Requirements:

Completed profile in UNICEF’s e-Recruitment system and

– Upload copy of academic credentials

– Financial proposal that will include/ reflect :

• • the costs per each deliverable and the total lump-sum for the whole assignment (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference.
  • travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per TOR.
  • Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, and living costs as applicable.
  • Indicate your availability

– Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.

– At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.

– Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

U.S. Visa information:

With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results. View our competency framework at: Here

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks: 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants. Consultants are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.

Level of Education: Bachelor Degree

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: No requirements