Information Management Consultant

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
- Information Technology and Computer Science
- Documentation and Information Management
- DPSPD - Partnerships Unit
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 Partnerships Unit (DPSPD) is in charge of developing and strengthening external partnerships to facilitate delivery on FAO's mandate; advocacy for gender equality and women's empowerment; capacity development; land tenure\: and responsible investments. The Partnerships Unit (DPSPD) is responsible for delivering and strengthening country-based activities, including direct support to capacity development at country level, facilitating and establishing partnerships to develop capacities, and capacity support to non-state actors, in particular civil society and small-scale producers. The Uit is responsible for establishing effective partnerships with non-state actors including parliamentarians, civil society, academia, and the private sector in the fight against hunger. The Division is responsible for raising public awareness and promoting multi-stakeholder policy dialogue to improve international policies in the areas of FAO’s mandate.

FAO International Consultants and Call Purpose

The Organization frequently engages experts to work on short-term activities and projects as international consultants or under personal service agreements (PSA). International consultants or PSAs are engaged by the Organization to provide expertise, skills or knowledge for the performance of a specific task or piece of work, which is short-term by nature. The assignment may involve fulltime or part-time functions. The assignment can be from 1 month up to 11 months. The possibility of extension is subject to satisfactory performance and depending on the resources and needs of the Organization.

The objective of the call is to attract suitable individuals to undertake B-level consultancies and/or PSAs in the areas of work of the division, including support capacity development and information management. In particular the Consultants or PSAs will help with the management at information and content level of the Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) Programme, the International System for Agricultural Science and Technology (AGRIS) Programme and/or the AGROVOC Multilingual agricultural thesaurus.

Individuals meeting or exceeding the requirements of the Call will be included in the Partnerships Roster. Experts who are registered in the Roster are available for consideration whenever relevant opportunities arise matching the required profiles.

Reporting Lines

The Consultants or PSAs will report directly to officers within the unit they are selected to work in.

Technical Focus

Provide access to current scientific literature and data, develop capacity on creating, managing and exchanging open data and research data and support communities of practice in the thematic areas of agriculture, nutrition, food security, forestry, fisheries, rural development, biology, food systems, livestock production, natural resources and related topics and in the various areas related to FAO’s mandate, priorities and strategic framework, as well as the SDGs.

Tasks and responsibilities

The assigned tasks and responsibilities related to technical support in the area of information management can include some of the following elements\:

Provide overall strategic guidance and maintenance of agricultural information services dedicated to information provision, in particular, to enhance accessibility and visibility of the scientific data production in agriculture in low-income countries.
Review and publish structured data describing bibliographic resources such as articles, monographs, theses, conference papers, presentation materials, research reports, learning objects, etc. – in print or electronic format – about current scientific literature in food, nutrition, agriculture and related biological and environmental sciences produced and submitted by journals, institutional repositories and other databases.
Support information integration, in particular in the areas of Semantic Web, metadata models, schema and data translation.

The assigned tasks and responsibilities related to capacity development in the information management can include some of the following elements\:

Implement and deliver training programs, online seminars and workshops in the context of access to scientific information resources in agriculture, to enhance the visibility, accessibility and usability of agricultural data and science, particularly in low-income countries.
Deliver capacity development activities to increase capacity and awareness on how to manage, access, exchange and use information and data more efficiently and to strengthen the capacity of data producers and consumers to manage and use open data in agriculture.
Support the organization of international events in the area of research data management.
Report about recommendations and good practices on metadata, vocabularies and ontologies for different type of data related to agricultural sciences using FAO methods for documenting good practices.
Facilitate communities of practices and networks of information of research data providers and practitioners related to PSPC information services.
contribute to drafting reports/working papers and to disseminating results

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

Advanced University degree (for Consultants) / University degree (for PSAs) in library or information science, computer science, political sciences, international relations, and/or agronomy, or any field related to FAO's mandate
Five years of progressively responsible professional experience in (i) information science (ii) research data management (iii) capacity development; and
Working knowledge of English, French or Spanish and limited knowledge of one of the other two or Arabic, Chinese, or Russian for Consultants. In the case of PSAs, the requirement is for working knowledge in one of the FAO official languages.

FAO Core Competencies

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

Technical/Functional Skills

Deep understanding of the processes of online information provision.
Understanding of content management systems, in particular Drupal and Typo3
Understanding of course management systems
Deep understanding of semantics and standards for interoperability of agricultural data.
Relevance of experience in the organization of capacity development events in cooperation with international partner organizations
Extent and relevance of experience in programme/project results-based management and reporting
Understanding of FAO workflows is considered a strong asset

Selection Criteria

Extent and relevance of academic qualifications.
Extent and relevance of work in information and data management.
Excellent analytical and conceptual skills.
Experience in working with international development organizations, such as UN agencies.
Familiarity with performing cross-sectional tasks in multidisciplinary environments.
Good capacity to work under pressure with ability to face unexpected and urgent issues.
Experience with JAVA, Apache Solr and bash scripting on Linux OS
Knowledge of XML and experience in data normalization/integration
Excellent analytical and conceptual skills, as well as gender sensitive and cross-cultural competency.