Registers Development Specialist IPSA 11

Saudi Arabia has made remarkable progress along the socio-economic development path. As a result of this, the Kingdom has been able to move to a high-income country. The ongoing transformation of Saudi Arabia beneath the Vision 2030 plan is unlocking new possibilities at an extraordinary pace. The General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) is the statistical reference for Saudi Arabia's socio-economic development. GASTAT provides comprehensive, reliable, up-to-date statistics and value-added services in line with international standards and takes the lead in developing a modern statistical sector in order to support decision-making. GASTAT is working on building an economic database platform, which aims to provide and develop a unified national economic database at the kingdom level. Showing through it the statistical data in the fields of commerce and industry, and that is through linking the data sources relevant to these fields, either from governmental entities or statistical products which are issued by GASTAT.

Population and housing census and Establishment Census play a significant role in any statistical office. However, there are different ways to conduct them, one is through a traditional way, by sending a huge number of field researchers to interview respondents, and the other is through the administrative register. Keeping in mind the fast development in the e-governance sector, Saudi Arabia has planned its 2030 Census to be register-based. Therefore, a new Register department was established with a focus on building three registers (1) Population register (2) Housing Register and (3) Business register

The first two registers are currently in their very early stages. However, the business register is getting close to being mature and in fact been used to draw a sample for some business surveys.

The Registers Development Specialist will provide technical assistance related to building the three registers. The Registers Development Specialist will also implement capacity strengthening activities, including training and mentoring, He/ She will work under the supervision of the Manager for Register. Specifically, the responsibilities under this assignment include the following:      

1. Technical support:

1. Review and present the status of all registers and define the scope of work to bring each of the registers to the internationally accepted standards.
2. Review the high-level conceptual data model for the registers and propose changes if necessary and review the variables and define a suitable definition per variable of each register.
3. Support in transforming administrative registers into statistical registers and develop a maintenance plan per each register 
4. Review the methodology of linking data, proposes changes if necessary, and support in filling Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with the relevant counterparts.
5. Develop conceptual Quality assessments methodology and support GSTAT on the implementation of the Quality assessments for all registers.

1. Capacity Development

In addition to delivering the abovementioned technical support, the Registers Development Specialist will advise on principles and best practices in relation to the registers’ methodologies and frameworks through:

1. Delivering training to the registers department staff in building and maintaining Registers databases
2. Providing coaching and on-the-job-training as needed

Institutional Arrangement

1. The duty station for the Registers Development Specialist is Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
2. Reporting and follow-up Mechanism:

The Registers Development Specialist will be supervised by the Director of the Register department in GSTAT and the UNDP’s Chief Technical Advisor. The Registers Development Specialist will submit monthly reports to his/her supervisor including activities, outputs, performance indicators, challenges, lessons learned, and recommendations.