UNDP Jobs - 74185- INTERNATIONAL CONSULTANT to guide and coordinate t

INTERNATIONAL CONSULTANT to guide and coordinate the development of a statistical toolkit and methodology for household budget survey on the left bank of the Nistru River

Location :

Chisinau, MOLDOVA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

18-Sep-2017

Application Deadline :

12-Sep-17 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

September 2017-March 2018

Languages Required :

English Russian

Expected Duration of Assignment :

up to 35 working days

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

The Support to Confidence Building Measures Programme (SCBM Programme) is funded by the European Union and implemented by UNDP Moldova since 2009. The overall objective of the Programme is to contribute to an environment of trust and cooperation across the Nistru River generating new perspectives on shared interests and a shared future by people from both banks of the river while responding to their pressing development needs.

The SCBM Programme aims to support the skills development and improve capacity of statisticians from both banks of the Nistru River to produce accurate and reliable statistical data, complying with international standards and best practices. Also, it contributes to enhancing of data users’ abilities to make best use of available statistical information, fostering the dialogue and future partnerships between the communities of data experts on both banks. An additional incentive for such an effort would be the growing demand of qualitative data on behalf of local and international data users which are necessary to describe the current status of affairs in different fields of activity and sectors, to identify the occurring shortcomings and prevent potential factors of risk, to design the needed measures and governance decisions.

Under the current assignment, the Programme aims to respond to the request of statisticians from the left bank of the Nistru River regarding the launch of preparatory works for developing the tools and methodological materials compliant with international standards, necessary for gradual implementation of the household budget survey on the left bank of the Nistru River.

Specific context

A household’s economic well-being can be expressed in terms of its access to goods and services. The more that can be consumed, the higher is the level of economic wellbeing. Measuring consumption expenditure might therefore be a way of measuring economic wellbeing. Statistical surveys of consumption investigate how and why society and individuals consume goods and services, and how this affects society and human relationships.

Given the above rationale, one of the topics of cooperation and development support by the SCBM Programme in the statistics area represents the statistical Household Budget Survey (HBS) which is lacking on the left bank of the Nistru (HBS has not been conducted there since 2002) and is well-functioning on the right bank on a continuous basis.

On the right bank of the Nistru, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of the Republic of Moldova is conducting two continuous surveys - Labour Force and Household Budget Surveys – which are regularly funded from the annual public budget of the institution. Ad-hoc modules to these regular surveys are periodically carried out with the support of development partners. The HBS conducted since 1997, currently suffers from high level of non-response and continuous efforts are made to reduce this problem. Digitalization of data collection methods from current paper and pencil methods, as well as the redesign of the sampling basis on the basis of the latest 2014 Population and Housing Census are planned in the next 2 years.

As it regards the left bank of Nistru, all the official statistics produced by the local specialized statistical service (with the involvement of its 7 territorial statistical units) is based on the administrative and business reporting. The regular statistical surveys involving the population and the households are totally missing from the local statistical system. Nevertheless, the left bank was included for the first time ever the fourth round of MICS (data collected during September-November 2013) which has been carried out through a local NGO and with the participation of the specialists from the statistical service. Also, the latest Population Census has been carried out on the left bank in 2015 and the preliminary results were recently disseminated. Its results might serve as a solid basis for future sampling activities.

With this status of affairs in the area of statistics, the stringent need for a Household Budget Survey is acknowledged by the local specialists as a distinct data source on the wellbeing of the population and a solid evidence for region’s policies on social-economic development. It would help to collect monetary data and the qualitative perception of the household. Besides the expenses per se, the survey might also collect information about non-monetary consumption (such as food produced for own consumption), household resources which include individual income (wages, independent earned income, etc.) and revenue received by the household as a whole (benefits, transfers between households, etc.).

The work on this topic has been started with a capacity building activity for the statisticians from Tiraspol and other towns on the left bank undertaken by the SCBM Programme in December 2016 including the familiarisation with the concept and methodology of the Household Budget Survey, its advantages, as well as international best practice and experience on production of social statistics. Also, a roadmap has been drafted to guide the follow-up actions on design, development and implementation of HBS on the left bank of Nistru.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the current assignment, the EU-UNDP Support to Confidence Building Programme is to hire an International Consultant to provide overall guidance and expert support to UNDP Moldova and its implementing partners (especially the statistical service in Tiraspol, national technical consultant/s, sampling and other experts) for the methodological set-up and organisation of a household budget survey on the left bank of the Nistru river.

The scope of the Consultant’s work is to:

provide expert advice in drafting of HBS methodological framework and survey’s toolkit, as well as their quality assurance in compliance with international and EU requirements in the respective field;
contribute with own inputs for the required materials and outputs required for the successful preparation and organisation of the HBS survey (by the envisaged stages – planning, organisation of field work and preparations for data collection) on the left bank of Nistru river;
guide the work of other resource specialists (on methodology and on sampling) involved in the HBS preparation process and ensure expert report on appropriateness of preparation activities undertaken by the implementing partners;
significantly contribute to raising the public awareness (through communication, lobbing, debriefing, etc.) on the importance and utility of the HBS and information resulted from it, its applicability for the policy-making and general society needs.

The Consultant will provide expertise and support, throughout the survey planning and methodological set-up, based on his/her deep knowledge of international/EU standards and best practices, own practical experience on their application, as well as documents and resources made available by the Programme’s counterparts.

Also, the Consultant will ensure a high level of analytical work, efficient communication and cooperation with the staff of UNDP and of the implementing partners, responding promptly to HBS related needs and issues as they arise for the successful fulfilment of the formulated tasks. He/she is expected to perform a team-work in close collaboration with the local technical team, the relevant stakeholders and will represent SCBM in meetings and events related to HBS.

The experience of the statisticians on the right bank and their lessons learned from the respective HBS process will be considered. The consultancy results will be further used for programmatic purpose of UNDP.pecially the statistical service in Tiraspol, national technical consultant/s, sampling and other experts) for the methodological set-up and organisation of a household budget survey on the left bank of the Nistru river.

Moreover, activities under this assignment will be implemented in collaboration with World Health Organisation office from Moldova that will provide financial contribution for the development of HBS toolkit by the national and international consultants recruited by UNDP. Also, WHO will provide an additional international consultant, to join the team of experts, to develop only health module to be included in the future HBS.

Competencies

Deep knowledge of international/European standards, legislation and best practices, terminology and definitions used in the European Statistical System in the field of social, welfare and living conditions statistics (confirmed by experience records in EU member, candidate or potential candidate countries);
Knowledge of the development context in the Republic of Moldova and/or the left bank of the Nistru River;
Strong analytical, writing and training skills;
Excellent written and spoken English;
Knowledge of Russian and/or Romanian will be an asset;
Good interpersonal skills, solid judgment/decision making, initiative and creativity;
Ability to analyse, plan, communicate effectively orally and in writing, draft reports, organize and meet expected results, adapt to different environments (cultural, economic, political and social);
Proven commitment to the core values of the United Nations, in particular, respecting differences of culture, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, language, age, HIV status, disability, and sexual orientation, or other status.

Required Skills and Experience

Academic Qualifications:

Advanced university degree (Master’s or equivalent) in statistics, economics, social science and/or other science related to areas relevant for the assignment;
Other formal education relevant for the assignment (confirmed by certificates);

Experience:

At least 10 years of relevant professional experience (expertise, management position, consultancy, advising, etc.) in statistics (preferably official/Government statistics system), with candidate/s country/ies to join the European Union community;
At least 5 records of practical experience in organisation and implementation of statistical surveys on social and economic phenomena for the purpose of official statistics (design of statistical concepts, definitions, methodologies, sampling, questionnaires, statistical analysis); [confirming documents will be mandatory provided]
At least 5 records of practical experience in conducting training of statisticians in the social sector and public presentation skills (having regard to the participation in numerous national and international meetings);
Experience of work with international organizations/projects, including UN and/or European ones;
Proven experience in collaboration with public institutions and service providers (incl. multi-stakeholders), in particular in the areas relevant to the assignment, in Central and Eastern Europe and CIS.

Additional documentation can be found at: http://www.md.undp.org/content/moldova/en/home/operations/jobs.html