Senior Data Analyst

Organizational Context

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, with a network of 191-member National Societies (NSs). The overall aim of IFRC is “to inspire, encourage, facilitate, and promote at all times all forms of humanitarian activities by NSs with a view to preventing and alleviating human suffering and thereby contributing to the maintenance and promotion of human dignity and peace in the world.”  IFRC works to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people before, during and after disasters, health emergencies and other crises.

 

IFRC is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (Movement), together with its member National Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The work of IFRC is guided by the following fundamental principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality.

 

IFRC is led by its Secretary General, and has its Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The Headquarters are organized into three main Divisions: (i) National Society Development and Operations Coordination; (ii) Global Relations, Humanitarian Diplomacy and Digitalization; and (iii) Management Policy, Strategy and Corporate Services.

 

IFRC has five regional offices in Africa, Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and the Americas.  IFRC also has country cluster delegations and country delegations throughout the world. Together, the Geneva Headquarters and the field structure (regional, cluster and country) comprise the IFRC Secretariat.

 

IFRC has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment and other forms of harassment, abuse of authority, discrimination, and lack of integrity (including but not limited to financial misconduct). IFRC also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles.

 

The NSDOC Division is in turn organised into three Departments. National Society Development Services Department (NSDS) is one of the departments. The Organizational Transformation (OT) unit is part of NSDS and is responsible for the support provided by the Secretariat to all National Societies to become agile, adaptive, well performing, and competitive organizations.

 

The Senior Data Analyst is part of the OT Unit and reports to the Manager, OT Unit.

Job Purpose

The NSDS Senior Data Analyst plays a crucial role in enabling the NSDS Department to harness the power of data analysis to identify critical National Society development needs, develop high-value services, enable evidence-based decision-making, promote accountability, and make impactful investments that help National Societies realize their development potential.

 

The Senior Data Analyst collaborates with colleagues within the IFRC Secretariate and across National Societies to identify NSDS data requirements; set data standards; build processes and tools to collect, clean, analyze, and visualize data; and create data products and services. The Senior Data Analyst also ensures that the NSDS data practices are aligned and integrated effectively with the broader IFRC data and digital transformation strategies.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

Data Requirements and Standards:

• Understand the NSDS strategy and services, identify supporting data requirements, identify specific data sources and types, and define appropriate data standards.
• Contribute to the development and implementation of the NSDS data strategy and data governance policies. Ensure strict adherence to data protection, privacy and ethical standards in all NSD data-related activities.

 

Data Processes and Tools:

• Develop processes and tools for consolidating and integrating relevant data from existing sources.
• Develop processes and tools for capturing relevant data that is currently unavailable from existing sources, including extraction from unstructured sources, such as narrative reports.
• Develop processes and tools for validating and cleaning data, conducting analysis, producing visualizations, and generating reports.
• Ensure that NSDS data management processes and tools are aligned and integrated with those of the wider IFRC Secretariate and network of National Societies.
• Stay abreast of the latest data analysis technologies and good practices, and continuously monitor NSDS data management processes and tools to identify and implement improvements, such as increased automation, enhanced quality control, deeper insights, and improved user experience.

 

Data Products and Services:

• Actively promote and enable the use of data for evidence-based decision-making and to enable NSDS accountability to National Societies, IFRC management, and other stakeholders.
• Prepare user-friendly analysis reports, translating data-driven insights into actionable recommendations for non-technical stakeholders and key decision-makers.
• Implement advanced data visualization and reporting techniques to communicate complex data in a comprehensible manner for business users.
• Design and develop intuitive, interactive analysis dashboards to provide real-time data insights.
• Ensure that data and analysis that is presented in NSDS products and services have been subjected to an appropriately rigorous validation and quality assessment, and that any accuracy concerns are well understood by the relevant stakeholders.

Job Duties and Responsibilities (continued)

• Contribute to the development and maintenance of NSDS data products and services, such as:
  • NSD Investment Framework: integration of national humanitarian context and NSD data from various sources to provide a comprehensive view of National Societies’ current capabilities and identify where there is the most significant need for NSD investment.
  • IFRC Knowledge Graph: a comprehensive knowledge graph that represents the extensive scope of IFRC's data and knowledge capital. Includes the use of AI technologies and methods to extract structured data and learning insights from unstructured sources, such as evaluation reports, NSD grantee reports, guidelines, policies, and strategies. Also includes the application of graph analytics to discern significant relationships, patterns and insights within the knowledge graph, contributing to the development of high-value knowledge products and data.
  • National Society Web Pages: a web page that brings together data from a wide variety of sources to provide a convenient way for internal and external users to access publicly available National Society data, quickly assess a National Society’s reach and impact, and identify National Society development trends.
  • NSDS Reports: various reports on the performance and impact of specific NSDS services, such as the three NSD funds (NSIA, ESF, and CBF), organizational assessments, and communities of practice, as well as of the Department as a whole.

 

Collaboration and Coordination:

• Effectively collaborate with IFRC colleagues in the Secretariate, National Societies, and Reference Centres; maximizing efficiency and effectiveness by defining shared goals and working together to achieve them.
• Coordinate with teams working on related initiatives to ensure alignment and the generation of complementary outputs and outcomes.

Education

Required

• An advanced university degree in computer science, data science, analytics, statistics or information management.

Experience

Required

• A minimum of 5 years of relevant work experience in applied analytics, business intelligence, information management, statistics, project management and stakeholder management.
• Demonstrated experience of working on large scale data collection, management, analysis and visualization and delivering on targets successfully
• Strong background in the management of quantitative and qualitative data for the humanitarian sector

Preferred

• Familiar with the Red Cross and Red Crescent network and have experience in international humanitarian and development work

Knowledge, Skills and Languages

Required

• Ability to interpret com complex data and turn it into insightful, easy-to-understand visual presentations that drive strategic discussions.
• Advanced data analysis, including extracting, preparing, exploring, visualizing and reporting on structured organizational data.
• Understanding of database theory, normalization, schema design, and data modelling.
• Familiarity with emerging techniques for leveraging the power of large language AI models (LLMs), such as prompt engineering, retrieval augmented generation (RAG), chatbots, and automated agents.
• Results-oriented, demand-driven, entrepreneurial, and able to take initiative in ambiguous situations to deliver on overall defined goals.
• Advanced proficiency with data analysis and visualization software and programming languages, including Excel, PowerBI, SQL, Python.
• Excellent written and oral communication, organizational and presentation skills in English

Preferred

• Familiarity with the development, maintenance, and use of knowledge graphs, understanding of the principles of graph databases and graph data science algorithms, and proficiency with the Cypher query language.
• Proficiency with Kobo Toolbox.
• Frontend/Web development: HTML, CSS, Javascript, React.js and use of data APIs. 
• Good command of another IFRC official language (French, Spanish or Arabic)

Competencies, Values and Comments

Values: Respect for diversity; Integrity; Professionalism; Accountability

Core Competencies: Communication; Collaboration and teamwork; Judgement and decision making; National Society and customer relations; Creativity and innovation; Building trust.