Research Analyst Consultant. Florence Italy. Office of Strategy & Evidence /Remote #592612

Research Analyst Consultant. Florence Italy. Office of Strategy & Evidence /Remote #592612

Contract type: Consultant • Duty Station: Rome • Location: Italy • Categories: Programme Management

Contract Duration 6 Months

Working arrangement: Home/Remote based

UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do for as long as we are needed. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.

UNICEF is a place where careers are built. We offer our staff diverse opportunities for professional and personal development that will help them reinforce a sense of purpose while serving children and communities across the world. We welcome everyone who wants to belong and grow in a diverse and passionate culture, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

Terms of Reference

The purpose of this consultancy is to provide technical analytical support to the Urban Poverty study in the United Republic of Tanzania and produce a working paper for publication and a policy brief for advocacy. Background UNICEF Office of Strategy and Evidence – Innocenti (UNICEF Innocenti) and UNICEF Tanzania Country Office (TCO) are collaborating to generate high-quality, policy-relevant evidence on urban poverty and deprivation in Tanzania. The collaboration aims to produce a peer-reviewed working paper and a policy brief that will inform UNICEF advocacy, programme design, and resource mobilization in support of urban social protection, targeting, and inclusive urban development. Rapid urbanization in Tanzania has intensified spatial inequalities, particularly within large urban centres where informal settlements and localized deprivation are often masked by aggregate statistics. While recent global studies have produced micro-estimates of wealth and poverty, these models lack the spatial granularity required to map intra-urban disparities relevant for city-level planning and intervention. This research addresses that gap by developing an urban-focused, high-resolution poverty mapping approach, integrating geospatial data and machine-learning techniques. The analysis will focus on six Tier-1 cities—Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Arusha, Dodoma, Mbeya, and Zanzibar City—where the density of survey data enables robust model training and validation. Within this context, UNICEF Innocenti seeks to recruit a Research Analyst (Consultant) to provide technical and analytical support to the study, contributing directly to the processing of geospatial data, predictive modelling, analysis, and drafting of the working paper and the policy brief.

If you would like to know more about this consultancy, please review the complete Terms of Reference here TMC0001943 TOR.pdf

Qualifications

• Education: Master’s (or Higher) in Data Science, Spatial Econometrics, Geography, Computer Science, Economics, Statistics, Public Policy, or related highly quantitative field
• Work Experience: At least 3 years of relevant experience in quantitative research and advanced data analysis
• Demonstrated experience working with geospatial data and spatial analysis
• Practical experience building and tuning supervised machine learning models (e.g., Random Forest, XGBoost) and deep learning architectures (e.g., CNNs) for socio-economic or spatial analysis
• Skills: Proficiency in Python or R (mandatory for Google Earth Engine integration, CNN feature extraction, and ML pipelines) AND proficiency in Stata (mandatory for survey data processing). Deliver clean, reproducible Stata .do files for survey integration and clear Python/R scripts for geospatial and ML work
• Experience with Google Earth Engine (GEE), GIS platforms (e.g., QGIS, ArcGIS), including processing of multi-spectral remote sensing data (e.g., Sentinel-2, VIIRS) and vector data (e.g., OpenStreetMap)
• Strong data visualization skills and a proven track record of analytical academic writing
• Language Requirements: Fluency in English (written and spoken)
• Desirables: Familiarity with DHS or LSMS data and experience mitigating spatial displacement (GPS jitter) in survey clusters
• Knowledge of United Republic of Tanzania’s urban landscape, social protection landscape and poverty profile
• Relevant research experience with UNICEF or other international organizations
• Ability to organize own work and carry out a computationally heavy research project with limited supervision according to deadlines

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do. Further information on UNICEF values can be found on the UNICEF Values page.

Application and other information

Qualified candidates are invited to submit the following documents via the online recruitment portal, TMS (Talent Management System): an up-to-date TMS profile and curriculum vitae (CV).

Advertised: 24 Apr 2026 W. Europe Daylight Time • Deadline: 07 May 2026 W. Europe Daylight Time

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