UNICEF contributes to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in Nigeria with a mandate to advocate for the protection of children’s rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential. UNICEF’s Nigeria country programme: Aims to accelerate the realization of the rights of all children and women to survival, development, protection and participation. Promotes efforts to reduce infant, child and maternal mortality; expand access to quality basic education; and strengthen social and child protection systems. Uses a rights-based and gender-sensitive approach Plays a catalytic role in supporting federal, state and local governments in identifying key bottlenecks that hinder realization of the rights of disadvantaged children, supported by equity-focused, inclusive advocacy, planning, action and monitoring at all levels. Supports adolescent development.
- Job Type: Contract
- Qualification: MBA/MSc/MA , PhD/Fellowship
- Experience: 3 – 5 years
- Location: Abuja
- Job Field: Data Science / Research
How can you make a difference?
The SBC Research and Data specialist reports to the SBC Team Lead for general guidance and direction and will focus on providing support aimed at building high quality evidence system that will serve the purpose of improving the scientific rigor of SBC work on all child survival and development sectors in Nigeria. The specialist will ensure adequate technical support to UNICEF Nigeria Country Office for data collection, analysis and visualization for SBC initiatives across all sectors including Health, WASH, Nutrition, Child Protection and Education. He/she will provide support to build capacities at national and subnational levels and on all elements related to SBC data collection and analysis as well as support the monitoring and evaluation components of SBC interventions in the country. The section is positioning itself to support the above sectors in a new country programme hence key technical support is required to establish the online platform for data collection, and the tools for visualizing collated data. In liaison with UNICEF and IPs M&E focal persons, the SBC Data Specialist will facilitate development of quantitative and qualitative data collection tools for this purpose.
Key responsibilities:
Summary of key functions/accountabilities:
- Design and establish SBC evidence system.
- Design and supervision of SBC-related implementation research
- Provide specific support on monitoring of SBC interventions including the development/update of country and state data monitoring mechanism, tools, and reports.
- Strengthen capacity UNICEF SBC staff, partners and government in SBC research design, planning, implementation, processing, and analysis
Design and establish SBC evidence-generation system
- Review existing SBC evidence mechanism in Nigeria country office.
- Assess SBC evidence capacities in Nigeria country office and conduct evidence gap analysis.
- Design and plan for comprehensive SBC evidence ecosystem
Design and supervision of SBC-related implementation research work
- Design appropriate research methods including research instruments, guide or tools for data collection, collation, analysis, and presentation.
- Ensure data quality assurance.
- Ensure data processing and analysis.
- Ensure data presentation and visualization.
Provide specific support on monitoring of SBC interventions including the development/update of country and state data monitoring mechanism, tools, and reports.
- With support from the PMR lead the design of SBC research methods including data collection techniques, instruments and sampling methods and plan of analysis for the establishment of baseline for SBC sections indicators.
- Support the planning, monitoring, capturing of social media SBC data and using same to support evidence for investment in social media demand generation initiatives.
Strengthen capacities UNICEF SBC staff, partners and government in SBC research design, planning, implementation, processing, and analysis
- Identify capacity-building needs of UNICEF SBC staff, government partners on SBC research design, planning and implementation.
- Develop and implement a capacity-building plan for staff and partners in SBC research-related areas
- Lead and implement the quarterly SBC showcase of best practices and lessons learned.
- Monitor and assess capacity-building efforts and provide support where needed.
Capacity Building for Sustainability
- Provide advice on capacity building of SBC teams, both within NPHCDA and among counterparts.
- Oversee and advise on the development of goals, strategy, approaches, plans as well as training materials and activities to build up capacity in participatory and behaviour change communication for personnel involved in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of SBC intervention, in support of COVID-19 vaccine and RI.
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have
Education:
- An advanced degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Data Science, Public Health, Machine Learning, Economics, or any other related field.
Experience:
- Five (5) years of responsible work experience in social sciences research and data analysis, preferentially including experience in/with developing countries, with practical experience in developing methodologies and tools to inform action/programmes/ policies. Applicants with three (3) years of experience with Ph.D. degree will also be considered.
- Experience analyzing data from social monitoring systems, monitoring and evaluation work, or other survey work.
- Experience performing data extraction, cleaning, analysis and presentation for medium to large datasets.
- Excellent writing skills, planning and coordination skills, with proven ability to work independently. 
- Previous work with UNICEF is an added advantage.
Language Requirements:
Fluency in English and another UN language. Local working language of the duty station an asset