Population Data Analyst

Details

Mission and objectives

UNFPA is the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. Our mission is to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled. UNFPA’s goal is to achieve universal access to sexual and reproductive health, realize reproductive rights, and reduce maternal mortality to accelerate progress on the ICPD agenda, to improve the lives of adolescents and youth, and women, enabled by population dynamics, human rights, and gender equality. UNFPA launched efforts to achieve three transformative results, ambitions that promise to change the world for every man, woman and young person: 1.) Ending unmet need for family planning 2.) Ending preventable maternal death 3.) Ending gender-based violence and harmful practises UNFPA recognizes that innovation is a key accelerator to achieve these results. UNFPA will harness innovation to meet tomorrow’s challenges and boost its impact, especially in addressing furthest behind populations, and leverage opportunities, social capital, funding and technology by (a) strengthening the corporate innovation architecture and capabilities, (b) scaling up innovations that have proven to be effective and impactful, (c) forming new partnerships and connecting with relevant innovation ecosystems, (d) strengthening and leveraging financing for innovation, and (e) expanding communities and culture for innovation.

Context

UNFPA is the United Nations agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled. UNFPA works to improve lives in 23 countries in East and Southern Africa. We work with governments and through partnerships with other United Nations agencies, civil society, regional economic communities, and the private sector to ensure that no one is left behind. Our Regional Office in Johannesburg, South Africa provides strategic support and technical expertise to colleagues in our 23 Country Offices and our partners who work on the ground to improve people’s lives. We provide policy advice, training, and support. We focus on impacting the lives of women and young people by empowering them and also seek to ensure that they enjoy universal access to reproductive health and realize their reproductive rights – including in humanitarian crises. We place gender equality and human rights at the heart of this. This United Nations Volunteer (UNV) assignment is part of UNFPA ESARO’s programming initiative to capture and bring visibility to UNFPA’s work in the region through quality graphic design, which will be used in social media, short publications and other communication products, including digital media platforms. The UNV will assist the organization in capturing its project activities across the region, including countries.

Task description

The Population Data Analytics Analyst post is located in the UNFPA East and Southern Africa Regional Office, based in Johannesburg, South Africa, and reports directly to the Technical Adviser, Population Data Policy based in the Evidence, Knowledge and Innovation Unit. S/He/ will be part of an inter-disciplinary team with a focus on strengthening evidence generation and utilization undertaken by the Regional office in support of the 23 countries and accelerating exchange and learning across other UNFPA regions. S/He/ will support the production of data on demographic change, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), gender social norms, measure the impact of interventions, and strengthen humanitarian data. The candidate should be familiar with a variety of common health and population data sources, including household surveys such as the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) and Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), registry data and population censuses, and be capable of producing up-to-date estimates of demographic trends and projections. Specific tasks: • Work with the Evidence Knowledge and Innovation unit to facilitate drafting and generation of sound knowledge products and evidence-based briefing papers from across all units in the regional office to highlight strategic regional level and country specific issues relevant for the ICPD Agenda; • Supports the maintenance of accessible database(s) of best/good practices, lessons learned, researches/studies, to mention a few; and ensure linkages to relevant UN-wide knowledge management hubs and platforms at regional and global level; • Be part of a team to manage the in-depth analysis and research findings, and exchange of good practices in order to build knowledge related to UNFPA strategic plan and regional programme and thematic areas including integrated sexual and reproductive health, adolescent and youth development, gender and GBV and population dynamics in support of sustainable and inclusive development; • Support and assist the assigned Country Offices to identify opportunities or lessons learnt/best practices in countries; • Support the analysis/drafting of research and evidence about current and emerging population and development trends, including SRHR and gender issues; • Drafts materials for publication and dissemination through internal and external South-South and Triangular Cooperation such as new knowledge, best practices and practical lessons learnt; • Drafts documentation (collection, review and analysis) of good/best practices and lessons learned in accordance with UNFPA guidelines to demonstrate impact towards achieving the transformative results and fostering learning to guide realigning of interventions, scale up innovation and programme implementation. Results/expected outputs: • Strengthen the population change and data output area undertaken by the ESA regional office in support of the 23 countries in the region and accelerating exchange and learning across other UNFPA regions; • Support the production of data on population dynamics as well as on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), measure the impact of interventions, and strengthen humanitarian data interventions.