Consultant (National Account and Macro-Statistics Specialist)

Home Based - May require travel

Organization: FAO - Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Location: Home Based - May require travel
Grade: Consultancy - International Consultant - Internationally recruited Contractors Agreement
Occupational Groups:
- Statistics
- STATISTICS DIVISION, ESS
Closing Date: Closed

IMPORTANT NOTICE\: Please note that Closure Date and Time displayed above are based on your personal device date and time settings

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FAO is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender and nationality

People with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply

All applications will be treated with the strictest confidentiality

The incumbent may be re-assigned to different activities and/or duty stations

depending on the evolving needs of the Organization

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Organizational Setting

The consultant leads the work of FAO on macro-economic indicators related to agriculture, and work in collaboration with other lead technical agencies like UN Statistics Division and OECD Secretariat to enhance availability of data from countries in FAOSTAT on indicators related to fishery, forestry, crop, livestock, and agro-industry sub-sectors, The consultancy position is housed in the Statistics Division of FAO but the incumbent interacts with wide cross-section of colleagues in other relevant technical divisions of FAO to support finalization of corporate documents for presentation in multilateral forum.

Reporting Lines

Under the overall direction of the Director of ESS and the supervision of the Economics Team Leader, the consultant will be responsible for maintaining and updating FAOSTAT Macro-Statistics Domain, including the Macro-Indicators, Deflators, and Capital Stock Databases. She/He will also lead, advise and coordinate on further methodological improvements, data extensions and stabilisation/maturation of this FAO statistical product.

Technical Focus

The consultant will lead and be responsible for the update, analysis and dissemination of global FAO databases related to FAOSTAT Macro-Statistics domain, including the Macro-Indicators, Deflators, and Agriculture Capital Stock databases. As an ongoing effort, the consultant will also support the migration of the associated statistical processes onto the Statistical Working System (SWS) for automated statistical processing, and for enriching the database with country and indicator coverage. The consultant may be required to take lead on development of new and emerging domains related to macro-economic indicators or national income accounting.

Tasks and responsibilities

Activities of the consultant shall be organized around the following priority areas\: update the Macro-Indicators, Deflators and Agriculture Capital Stock databases; and identify methodological issues and potential extensions, advise on methodological refinements and improvements, and implement agreed upon decisions in collaboration with lead UN agencies.

On the Macro-Indicators and Deflators databases, s/he will\:

Identify and advise on priority areas for extension, with evaluation based on data availability, resource constraints and stakeholder needs.
Provide input, advice and feedback to the Statistical Working System (SWS) team on proper integration of the data processing stages into the SWS. Specifically, s/he will provide all data validation, estimation and imputation rules and methods to the SWS team and participate to the SWS output checking and validation.
Advise on, lead, coordinate, implement and document methodological statistical developments. This may include production of methodological guidelines and manuals.

On the Agriculture Capital Stock (ACS) database, s/he will\:

Lead, coordinate and advise on improvements in the estimation of agricultural capital stock and physical investment (i.e. fixed capital formation);
Provide assessment and recommendations on data sources; data linking/integration/smoothing; imputation/estimation methods; and compilation of new statistical indicators;
Present methodological developments in internal and external fora for feedback and improvements; prepare and make presentations to raise awareness and increase use of the database; develop a user community.
Lead and coordinate the development and consolidation of data processing routines (using STATA and the R packages) to further automate statistical steps.

For all databases, s/he will also\:

Coordinate processes to update existing databases, metadata and analysis in FAOSTAT and the ESS webpage with more recent data;
Advise on the streamlining of statistical processes;
Advise on the use of and modifications required to international classifications, including Agro-Industry measurement.
Advise colleagues on use of these databases;
Liaise with key data producers and users in FAO, IFAD, UNIDO, the OECD, the UNSD and Eurostat on data issues, results and methodological improvements;
Examine, advise on and implement other improvements, including in underlying data sources (e.g. machinery data).

The work may involve missions to organizations responsible for maintaining secondary data sources, to build relationships, develop insights and present data development work and statistical analysis insights; to regional associations to provide updates and obtain advice and suggestions to improve the relevance and quality of the ESS statistics; and to countries to obtain data and provide training and technical capacity development.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

Advanced university degree/University degree in statistics, economics, agriculture or any other related field.
At least, 5 years of experience working in a NSO or statistics department of relevant line ministry
Advanced knowledge of the R statistical software.
Working knowledge of English, French or Spanish and limited knowledge of one of the other two or Arabic, Chinese, Russian.

FAO Core Competencies

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

Technical/Functional Skills

Extent and relevance of experience in managing the full data production cycle, from data collection and validation to data dissemination.
Extent and relevance of experience in producing national accounts and macro-economic statistics
Advanced knowledge in the R-software
Demonstrated and relevant experience in econometric modelling
Work experience in more than one location or area of work will be considered as an advantage

Desirable