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

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.

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. 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.

For more information about the consultancy, review the complete Terms of Reference here: TMC0001943 TOR.pdf

• Education: Master’s (or Higher) in Data Science, Spatial Econometrics, Geography, Computer Science, Economics, Statistics, Public Policy, or a related highly quantitative field
• Work Experience: At least 3 years of relevant experience in quantitative research and advanced data analysis.
• Geospatial experience: Demonstrated experience working with geospatial data and spatial analysis.
• Technical skills: Practical, demonstrable 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.
• Programming and data processing: Expert-level proficiency in Python or R (mandatory for Google Earth Engine integration, CNN feature extraction, and ML pipelines) AND proficiency in Stata (mandatory for all survey data processing). The consultant must deliver clean, reproducible Stata .do files for the survey integration phase, and clear Python/R scripts for the geospatial and machine learning phases.
• Geospatial tools: Demonstrated experience with Google Earth Engine (GEE), standard 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).
• Visualization and writing: Strong data visualization skills (e.g. generating continuous spatial heat maps) and a proven track record of analytical academic writing.
• Language: Fluency in English (written and spoken) is required
• Desirables: Familiarity with handling Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) or Living Standards Measurement Studies (LSMS), particularly experience in mitigating the spatial displacement (jittering) of GPS survey clusters.
• Knowledge: Knowledge of United Republic of Tanzania’s urban landscape, social protection landscape and poverty profile
• Experience with UNICEF/intl orgs: Relevant research experience working with UNICEF, other international organizations.
• Planning: Ability to organize own work and to carry out a computationally heavy research project with limited supervision according to deadlines.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values.

UNICEF promotes and advocates for the protection of the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything it does and is mandated to support the realization of the rights of every child, including those most disadvantaged, and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, minority, or any other status.

UNICEF encourages applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of gender, nationality, religious or ethnic backgrounds, and from people with disabilities, including neurodivergence. We offer reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities throughout the recruitment process. If you require any accommodation, please submit your request through the accessibility email button on the UNICEF Careers webpage Accessibility | UNICEF. Should you be shortlisted, please get in touch with the recruiter directly to share further details, enabling us to make the necessary arrangements in advance.

UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination based on gender, nationality, age, race, sexual orientation, religious or ethnic background or disabilities. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check, and selected candidates with disabilities may be requested to submit supporting documentation in relation to their disability confidentially.

Application materials

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)
• Cover letter
• A separate financial proposal TMC0001943 Financial proposal.docx

Remarks

UNICEF does not charge a processing fee at any stage of its recruitment, selection, and hiring processes. UNICEF will not ask for applicants’ bank account information. All UNICEF positions are advertised, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found here.