Statistician

Organizational Setting

The Statistics Division (ESS) develops and advocates for the implementation of methodologies and standards for data collection, validation, processing, analysis and dissemination 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 countries.

The Division also disseminates publications, working papers and statistical yearbooks on various topics related to food and agriculture statistics, including food security and nutrition, 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 incumbent will work for the Dissemination and Outreach Team within the Statistics Division, which is responsible for the dissemination and promotion of statistical data and microdata related to FAO's mandate including FAO's statistical data platforms maintained by the Statistics Division (i.e. FAOSTAT, RuLIS, DataExplorer Beta, the Food and Agriculture Micro-data Catalogue and Country Profile Tool) .

The position is located in ESS at FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy.

Reporting Lines

The Statistician reports to the Statistician/Team Leader of the Dissemination and Outreach team under the overall guidance of the Director, ESS.

Technical Focus

The incumbent will be responsible for the dissemination of food and agriculture data on FAO's dissemination platforms and will support the production of dissemination products and publications related to FAO statistics. The incumbent will also provide user support and outreach for FAO data platforms, including the preparation and updates of training material; organize and conduct training on the use of FAO data platforms; and support the development of statistical innovations related to dissemination.

Key Results

Research and analysis of information, data and statistics, statistical methods, statistical and econometric modelling. Development and maintenance of specialized tools, methodologies, systems and/or databases and the technical assistance services to support the implementation/delivery and monitoring of the programme of work and related products, projects, publications and services.

Key Functions

• Collects, reviews, processes and/or analyses 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.
• Develops improved/updated technical, statistical and/or analytical tools, systems, databases.
• 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.
• Produces a variety of technical reports and provides input in technical documents, divisional publications and/or web pages.
• Provides response to requests and provides technical and/or policy advice, assistance and solutions to Regional, Subregional and Country Offices, including technical backstopping to field projects.
• Participates in multidisciplinary teams, collaborates with other Divisions/Offices/Centres on work groups and committees and promotes best practices.
• Provides capacity development services, including the planning and organization of training workshops and seminars and preparation of related information, materials, on-line tools and information kits.
• Participates in divisional teams, Organization-wide committees, project teams and working groups and provides specialized expertise on international technical networks and or technical policy and standard setting bodies.
• Supports the organization, conduct and follow-up of meetings, consultations and conferences, the development/production of required materials and the provision of information and assistance to partners.
• Participates in resource mobilization activities in accordance with the Strategic Framework and divisional plans.
• Promotes international cooperation and collaboration, advocates best practices, knowledge sharing, increased policy dialogue and provides technical expertise at international meetings and conferences.

Specific Functions

• Develops and maintains FAO's dissemination platforms, including building and updating data models, developing structural metadata and ensuring that databases are backed up and kept up to date according to the statistical release calendar.
• Prepares and disseminates statistical data and associated metadata on FAO's dissemination platforms in line with FAO Corporate Statistical Standards and in consultation with Digital FAO and Agro-Informatics Division (CSI).
• Implements all the necessary steps for the dissemination workflow according to the business architecture of the different platforms, including liaising with data producing teams, performing data transformation, management and integration and preparing test sites for data validation.
• Implements improvements to corporate dissemination websites and to applications used by FAO to assist in data dissemination, including visualizations and analytical products, in liaison with Programmers and Communication experts.
• Plans, monitors and reports on the release calendar schedule.
• Prepares documentation and training material on FAO's dissemination platforms.
• Provides outreach and trainings on FAO's dissemination platforms to users and provides oversight and responds to user queries on the platforms.
• Leads and supports the preparation of various publications, including the dissemination briefs, technical reports and reports on FAO statistics for quality assurance.
• Provides assistance to ongoing dissemination-related projects for statistical innovation.
• Performs other related duties as requested.

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CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

• Advanced university degree in statistics, data science, mathematics, economics, agricultural economics, or a related field.
• Five years of relevant experience in the compilation and analysis of food and agricultural statistics in national or international organizations with focus on the management of statistical platforms and databases for dissemination and the development of relational and multidimensional data models.
• 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.
• 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 the compilation, validation, analysis and presentation of food and agricultural data.
• Extent and relevance of experience and knowledge of the main data sources used for the compilation of food and agricultural statistics, their underlying quality limitations and how to address them.
• Extent and relevance of experience in conducting quantitative analyses and presentation of food and agricultural statistics using appropriate statistical software.
• Extent and relevance of knowledge and experience in the dissemination of statistical data.
• Extent and relevance of experience in software used for processing and analysing statistical data, such as R, Python, STATA and SQL.
• Extent of knowledge of and relevant experience in data modelling methods and best practices using SDMX technical standards.
• Extent and relevance of knowledge and experience in the publication of high-profile statistical publications and reports.
• Extent and relevance of experience in the preparation, editing and revision of outreach and communication materials.
• Extent and relevance of knowledge of and experience with Tableau and other data visualization software.
• Knowledge of and familiarity with FAO's statistical dissemination platforms FAOSTAT and RuLIS is considered a strong asset.