Senior Information Management Officer

Background on IMPACT and REACH

REACH was born in 2010 as a joint initiative of two International NGOs (IMPACT Initiatives and ACTED) and the United Nations Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT). REACH’s purpose is to promote and facilitate the development of information products that enhance the humanitarian community’s decision-making and planning capacity for emergency, reconstruction and development contexts. REACH facilitates information management for aid actors through three complementary services: (a) need and situation assessments facilitated by REACH teams; (b) situation analysis using satellite imagery; (c) provision of related database and (web)-mapping facilities and expertise.

IMPACT Initiatives is a humanitarian NGO, based in Geneva, Switzerland. The organisation manages several initiatives, including the REACH Initiative. The IMPACT team comprises specialists in data collection, management and analysis and GIS. IMPACT was launched at the initiative of ACTED, an international NGO whose headquarter is based in Paris and is present in thirty countries. The two organizations have a strong complementarity formalized in a global partnership, enabling IMPACT to benefit from ACTED’s operational support on its fields of intervention.

We are currently looking for a Senior Information Management Officer to support our team in Moldova.

Department:REACH

Position: Senior Information Management Officer

Contract duration: 12 months

Location: Chisinau

Starting Date: ASAP

Country profile

Following the escalation of conflict in Ukraine, beginning February 24th, 2022, military hostilities have caused widespread damage to infrastructure and houses, hundreds of civilian deaths, disrupted markets and essential services and precipitated massive displacement in Ukraine and neighbouring countries, including Moldova. According to UNHCR data, over 700,000 refugees from Ukraine entered Moldova since the beginning of the displacement. Many of them continued their journey to Moldova and other European countries, while about 100,000 are estimated to be currently remaining in Moldova. The Moldovan authorities have hence set up 70 refugee accommodation centres (numbers of open centres have varied since) across the country, most of them hosting between 50 and 500 people each: for the most part for people that do not have ID papers or with limited financial resources. Since then, several of the centres stopped functioning as such. Despite the generous and rapid response of Moldavian authorities and civil society and given the scale of the crisis, these centres have limited hosting capacity, and are already overcrowded. Some of the needs among the population arriving and placed in the centres and those living within the host community remain unmet, especially among children and women. Given the martial law and mobilization of men in the conscription age in the conflict in Ukraine, most of the displaced crossing into Moldova are women and children, and the conflict with its emotional burden has a heavy toll on the already at-risk individuals. REACH Initiative was established in Moldova to support the setup and scale-up of the assessment and analysis systems required to inform joint planning and monitoring by government and humanitarian actors in such a complex and protracted situation. Additionally, the protracted crisis accentuated the needs of many vulnerable Moldovan communities, affected by the refugee arrival, the energy crisis, and the soaring inflation rate. As a result, REACH has expanded its portfolio to incorporate activities that respond to the development needs and objectives of the broader Moldovan society.

FUNCTIONS

IMPACT is seeking a candidate with strong information management and external engagement skills, who has experience of working in a refugee response or other humanitarian setting. The overall goal of the SIMO will be to ensure timely, detailed and relevant analysis of needs for refugees in Moldova, via partial secondment to the Information Management Working Group of the inter-agency Refugee Response.

Under the supervision of the REACH Moldova Research Manager and IMPACT HQ in Geneva, the SIMO is responsible for collating and analysing data submissions, coordinating inputs from partners, producing products, disseminating findings to relevant stakeholders and monitoring information needs of the humanitarian community. The SIMO will carry out a 2.5 day per-week secondment to provide dedicated information management and analytical support to the IMWG and partners. The ideal candidate will be an early-career professional, with a background in data, who is looking to lead an external engagement and representation-heavy portfolio to support a dynamic refugee response.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The Information Management Officer is responsible for the following:

FOSTER COORDINATION OF NEEDS ASSESSMENTS AND ANALYSIS

• Co-chair the IMWG meetings, including scheduling and arranging meetings, setting agenda items, leading discussions, developing training sessions and materials for shared tools, and provision of ad-hoc support in line with the IMWG Terms of Reference and in close collaboration with the other IMWG co-chairs;
• Work with IMWG partners to increase the use of the joint tools, and coordinated assessments, by continuing to ensure they meet partner information needs;
• Provide technical support and guidance on the design of assessments (e.g., tools, analysis framework, etc.), including gender, age, disability, and nexus-related considerations, and maintain a network of related stakeholders;
• Support on information needs and monitoring for the RRP process, including conducting gap analyses;
• Identify and update key situational, sectoral, thematic and context indicators that can produce a stronger analysis of the humanitarian situation and needs monitoring;
• In collaboration with UNHCR oversee the development of data collection tools and processes to support inter-working group or inter-agency assessments, in accordance with IASC guidance on data responsibility;
• Maintain the assessment registry to track planned, ongoing, and completed;
• Ensure that all relevant partners are consulted and involved at all stages of the research cycle: assessment preparation; data collection; data analysis; review of research products; product dissemination; and lessons learnt;
• Represent IMPACT in relevant meetings/ working groups;
• Follow up on relevant issues identified by partners or during meetings/working groups;
• Present research findings to relevant third parties in order to enhance their use and impact;
• Ensure that all partner engagement and all external relations are clearly documented and communicated with the line manager and relevant colleagues.

SUPPORT TO REACH RESEARCH CYCLES

Research Planning and implementation

• Anticipate knowledge gaps prior to inform the development of new research cycles;
• Ensure that all research cycles are planned in line with the IMWG strategy, the country strategy, and IMPACT’s research cycle and other relevant guidelines;
• Design new research approaches and methodologies or update existing ones according to the IMWG and IMPACT’s requirements and principles as well as broader partners’ information needs;
  • Provide in the preparation of ToRs, including their validation by HQ before any data collection begins, if required;
  • Ensure relevant stakeholders and partners are engaged in research design and planning.
• Ensure that all collected data is stored in line with REACH’s Data Management Guidelines;
• Provide data analysis on primary and/or secondary data as per ToRs, ensuring that meaningful techniques are used to analyze the data collected;

Drafting of Research Products

• Draft timely and accurate outputs that consolidate the analyses from each research cycle into relevant products such as factsheets, reports, briefs, and presentations;
• Ensure that products accurately reflect the information collected and that information is conveyed in a way that maximizes their impact in line with their intended use;
• Ensure that data is uploaded quickly and correctly onto portals/dashboards and disseminated effectively to WG partners;

Knowledge sharing and learning processes

• In coordination with country management, support the conduct of monitoring and evaluation for each Research Cycle, as specified in the research ToRs;
• Generate and document robust lessons learned at the end of each Research Cycle;
• Ensure knowledge and learning processes are shared with other teams within the mission, and with HQ;
• When required, provide feedback to appropriate global organizational knowledge learning tools.

Team Management and capacity building

• As relevant, line management of national and international assessment team members;
• For staff under his/her/their responsibility, and in close consultation with the line manager, conduct appraisals, provision of regular feedback, and participation in career management;
  Prepare and follow up work plans with each staff member that directly reports to him/her;
• For all activities, ensure that all assessment and field teams are comprehensively briefed on objectives, expected outputs and that the overall implementation strategy is clearly understood;
• Support induction for new staff members, including training in basic technical competencies for research design, implementation and analysis.

Data Confidentiality and Protection

The Senior Information Management Officer will maintain the strictest confidentiality on all data collected and related processes, ensuring full compliance with IMPACT’s data protection policy and SOPs. He/she/they will actively take measures to prevent the unauthorized sharing of any information and data belonging to IMPACT and its partners, or collected during his/her/their assignment with IMPACT.

REQUIREMENTS

• Academic Excellent academic qualifications, including a Master’s degree in a relevant discipline (International Relations, Political Sciences, Social Research, Economics, Development Studies, Information Management, Information Systems, or similar);
• External engagement experience Previous experience of engaging with humanitarian clusters/sectors an asset; excellent coordination and organisational skills required, including an ability to manage large workloads, oversee multiple teams/projects and effectively meet deadlines through multitasking and prioritisation;
• Communication/reporting skills Excellent communication and drafting skills for effective reporting;
• Years of work experience At least 2 years of working experience of research/information management in complex humanitarian settings;
• Familiarity with the aid system, Familiarity with the humanitarian response architecture and the research community;
• Research skills Excellent research and analytical skills. Experience in assessments, M&E, field research, or evaluations;
• Software skills Proven knowledge of the Microsoft Office Suite, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Advanced skills in R, SPSS and/or STATA or other statistical analysis software are an advantage; Experience with InDesign an asset.
• Management skills Team management experience and skills highly desirable;
• Multi-tasking skills Ability to multitask with tight deadlines, on numerous research cycles;
• Level of independence Proven ability to work independently;
• Cross-cultural work environment Ability to operate in a cross-cultural environment requiring flexibility;
• Experience in geographical region Past experience in the region is desirable;
• Language skills Fluency in English is required, competency in Russian / Romanian is an asset;

CONDITIONS

• For this position, salary between 2’460 CHF and 2’520 CHF monthly (before income tax), etc as well as a monthly living allowance of 300 USD NB – IMPACT salaries are strictly determined by our salary grid depending on the grade of the position and the level of education of staff. A location-dependent security and/or isolation adjustment is then applied as a recognition that some staff are required to work in difficult places where living and working conditions are much more difficult than elsewhere.
• Accommodation and food provided in a guesthouse.
• Enrolment in Swiss private pension fund (Swisslife – approx. 9.975% of staff gross salary), health insurance, life insurance and repatriation assistance.
• Flight tickets every 6 months & visa fees covered (in-country travel costs and professional expenses are fully covered).
• Contribution to the luggage transportation: between 20 and 100 kgs, depending on the length of the contract (+ luggage and personal property insurance)
• Annual leave of 36 days per year. Public holidays of the country of assignment. Family/compassionate leave when applicable.
• Predeparture induction – 3 days at IMPACT Initiatives’s HQ in Geneva + one week pre-departure training in ACTED HQ in Paris, including a 4-days in situ security training;
• IMPACT prioritizes the psychological safety of its staff and the health insurance provided covers, among others, up to 1000 € per year of psychosocial counselling fees.