Background

Following the consolidation of its regional presence in Nairobi, and in light of the increasing requirements for humanitarian coordination support, advocacy and information management in the Horn of Africa, Great Lakes, and Southern Africa, the OCHA Regional Office for Southern and Eastern Africa is improving its information management and information dissemination capacity to ensure that humanitarian partners, local and international media, policy makers and governmental and non-governmental actors have timely and relevant information on the humanitarian situation and response in the 25 countries that the Office covers.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall guidance of the Head of OCHA Office and under the direct supervision of the Information Analysis Unit, the national IMO will be responsible for the following duties:

Development and implementation of Information Management systems and strategies:

• Develops Who-does-What-Where databases, contact management, contact directories as website templates;
• Support and maintain a client-oriented approach with all relevant stakeholders to help to identify and prioritize information system and process requirements, implement such system and process, ensuring the information needed to support humanitarian operations is coordinated, collected, organized and made available to all humanitarian stakeholders in-country with efficient technological options.
• Responsible to represent OCHA at different information management working groups/taskforces in the country to bring the information management actors on one platform to discuss relevant issues, support each other and agree on common standards
• Liaison with counterparts in standardizing, updating and developing robust information management systems through analysing most appropriate common operational datasets and fundamental operational data sets required for various themes.
• Initiating innovative activities like online GIS, web-based database systems for supporting Humanitarian actors on various information management themes.
• Incorporate common standards such as P-codes and other standards into datasets and products and insure that common operational coding standards are disseminated and used across cluster/sectors/taskforces for data collection and reporting.
• Manages information to support OCHA and the United Nations system, as well as partner organizations, prevent, mitigate, manage, and recover from humanitarian disasters and emergencies
• Determines the primary data and information elements that are required internally and externally to support inter-cluster coordination and humanitarian decision-making
• Designs and implements a dissemination plan for all information products produced by OCHA (e.g. situation reports, data, maps).
• Undertakes data preparedness activities in support of OCHA's response preparedness and contingency planning efforts.

Data processing and visualization, and data analysis;

• Supports strategic and operational decision-making by processing and analysing data and information and presenting it in the format most useful for analysis (e.g. reports, maps).
• Responsible for designing and producing agency standard information products through systematic collection and analysis of humanitarian information related to the country and region.
• Collection, cleaning, consolidation and documentation (metadata) relevant spatial and not-spatial datasets in line with OCHA’s “Country Level Minimum Common Operational Datasets” and disseminate to humanitarian actors in the country.
• Preparation of baseline inventory of spatial and attribute datasets with regular update.
• If necessary, oversees technical staff in the development of databases and other applications to support the collection and processing of context specific data (e.g.: affected population, displaced populations, demographic and vulnerability data, results of common rapid needs assessment etc.).
• Supports the advocacy, communication and reporting functions of the Office through the collection, processing, storage and retrieval of documents, including images, of emergencies and vulnerability, as well as relief operations.
• If required and as delegated, manages OCHA staff working directly on information management and information technology activities
• In collaboration with the Information Services Section (ISS) and the Field Information Services Section (FISS), apply global information management standards, policies and procedures to guide related activities within the Office
• Maintains products, including meeting schedules, contact lists and mapping products
• Produces reference and thematic maps to assist in the planning and decision making of emergency response operations;

Knowledge building and knowledge sharing;

• Conduct Information Management and Mapping related trainings for humanitarian community and OCHA staff based on needs and requirements.
• Provides training to OCHA staff on OCHA's information systems and standards.
• Establishes and maintains an information network at the national level to facilitate humanitarian information exchange and the promotion of data and information sharing protocols, those developed and endorsed by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee.

Competencies

Core 

Innovation
Ability to make new and useful ideas work

Leadership
Ability to persuade others to follow 

People Management
Ability to improve performance and satisfaction Level

Communication
Ability to listen, adapt, persuade and transform

Delivery
Ability to get things done
 

Technical/Functional 

Data Management
Ability to develop and execute architectures, policies, practices and procedures in order to manage the information lifecycle needs of OCHA ROSEA 

Data Analysis and Visualization
Ability to evaluate, transform and model data to derive relevant findings- undertake & provide analysis of data to assess Org performance and or global trends

Partnerships
Ability to engage with other agencies, donors, and other development stakeholders and forge productive working relationships

Innovation outreach and partnerships
Ability to communicate within and at large, participate in peer communities and engage substantively 

Knowledge Management
Ability to capture, develop, share and effectively use information and knowledge

Required Skills and Experience

Education:          

Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in Information Management, information systems, GIS or related field. A first-level university degree in any of these fields, in combination with two additional years of qualifying work experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree. Additional study related to technology for information management (e.g. GIS certification) is highly desirable.

Experience:        

• A minimum of two years of progressively responsible experience in information management, information systems, data management, geographic information systems & mapping, and/or data visualization, is required.
• In-depth knowledge of industry standard GIS and Graphics design software, including but not limited to Adobe Illustrator, ArcGIS, advanced Microsoft Excel is required.
• Experience managing information in disaster response or complex emergency settings is required.
• At least one year of experience working on humanitarian IM-related projects in Southern Africa region is required.
• Relevant experience within a humanitarian organization in the UN system or a similar international organization is required.
• Experience managing common operational datasets is desirable.
• Experience in working on OCHA core information products (e.g. humanitarian snapshot, humanitarian dashboard, appeal documents etc.) is desirable.

Language Requirements:              

• Fluency in written and spoken English. Knowledge of written and spoken French is desirable.

Other:  

• Experience undertaking missions to support Information Management in areas/countries where populations affected by humanitarian crisis are located is desirable.