Job Purpose
“This is a national staff position open to nationals and others who are legally eligible to work in countries where IFRC has legal presence: Buenos Aires (Argentina), San José (Costa Rica), Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), Guatemala City (Guatemala), Tegucigalpa (Honduras), Kingston (Jamaica), Managua (Nicaragua), Panama City (Panama), Lima (Peru), or Port of Spain (Trinidad and Tobago). Candidates must be able to provide proof of their eligibility to work in those countries during application phase”
The Social Scientist position will be responsible to embed and strengthen rapid, fit-for-purpose operational social science approaches to inform the design and delivery of effective national response plans, with the aim to strengthen community-centred approaches in the NS public health response, as per as per the deliverables of the BHA grant.
The position will support Red Cross response approaches to establish a robust contextual understanding of key socio-behavioural drivers, identify critical data gaps in relation to communities’ capacities, priorities, perceptions, practices, and behaviours (in alignment with relevant humanitarian and academic methodological standards and research objectives). The Social Scientist will focus on supporting National Societies on the design, implementation and use of socio-behavioural research for programming (including through effective mechanisms for data triangulation). It will also promote collaborative approaches to address these knowledge gaps.
The position ultimately contributes to evidence-based decision-making using a variety of information sources including community-level data (e.g. community feedback, social listening, monitoring data) and social science intelligence (operational social science research).
Particularly early identification of challenges/limitations and recommended adaptations. They will guide IFRC community engagement and Health colleagues and National Society country staff during the rollout of community data processes and (with a focus on qualitative data analysis), systems and tools, as well as supporting the survey design, sampling methodology development and data analysis stages. The findings from these studies will be used for operational decision-making and contribute quality data to global research on communities’ perceptions of COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines, other endemic diseases in the region.
Job Duties and Responsibilities
Technical guidance and support:
- Guide IFRC and National Society response team during the rollout of community data processes and (with a focus on qualitative data analysis), systems and tools
- Advise with rapid contextual analysis drawing on existing data and evidence and identify key lessons learnt impacting on control measures.
- Provide technical advice to enhance standardised approaches to the collection, analysis, and use of socio-behavioural data.
- Provide practical advice and tools to IFRC and NS staff to undertake rapid ethnographic assessments on social norms and beliefs, behaviours, perceptions, power dynamics and political economy.
- Support NS staff in the proper analysis, framing and dissemination of operational findings.
- Contribute to knowledge management aspects to ensure tools, protocols, and methodological expertise are made available to RCRC teams and partners.
- Undertake a rapid capacity needs assessment among NS and develop targeted capacity-strengthening initiatives to reinforce applied social science research in community engagement initiatives and response approaches.
- Facilitate qualitative data analysis training and technical assistance to staff and volunteers, using the qualitative data toolkit.
- Support the integration of community feedback mechanism data into survey data for an overall picture of community perceptions with identification of gaps, in closed collaboration with the IM lead.
- Provide feedback, through brief lessons learned summaries, to IFRC teams and National Societies on their methodologies and limitations, to continue to develop best practice social science and statistical methods into Red Cross Red Crescent work.
Research design and methodology development
- Design and implement workplans for socio-behavioural perception studies, serving as the technical focal point for methodology and process.
- Advise IFRC Secretariat and National Society staff on the best methodologies given requirements, objectives and constraints for each study.
- Work to ensure the highest possible level of standardisation through advising on question and response selection, provided the global and regional standard question banks and recommended indicators.
- Advise with sampling targets for each survey project given the geographic scope and research objectives.
- Develop simple encoding scheme for open ended responses and focus group discussion questions based on research questions, that can be reproduced and implemented by others.
Data Analysis to improve situational awareness and support evidence-based planning and operations.
- Support with quantitative and qualitative analyses on incoming survey data, using statistical software such as R, Python, SPSS, etc.
- Produce tables, charts, graphs as needed to communicate results, for both analysis and final presentation.
- Clean and collate survey response quantitative and qualitative data in a central repository, for access on request or live API for reuse or exploratory analysis – available to IFRC teams, National Societies, and RCCE Collective Service organisations, following standard global indicators and data table minimum structures.
- Develop/adapt per need and manage related databases, spreadsheets and other qualitative/quantitative data tools/templates such as the necessary feedback data collection forms, survey tools, feedback and focus group discussion coding system, ensuring that the methodology, purpose and use of data collected is sound and clear.
- Support regional coordination structures with more effective or efficient means of conducting perceptions surveys, simple community feedback data triangulation approaches, methods to triangulate feedback data across countries and summarise trends, as well as ways to visualise consolidated feedback data to help inform decision-making, etc.
- Coordinate with operational social science experts/groups on socio-cultural research; and synthesise/triangulate analysis to integrate key findings into response operations.
- Support the region/countries (targeted support to National Societies) with collecting and managing qualitative research data (such as perceptions data and community insights/feedback) in relationship with epidemiological trends (COVID19 but also other diseases, outbreaks, health services use) to improve situational awareness and support evidence-based planning and operations and how it relates to community engagement.
- Identify products and processes to facilitate use of community data to inform decisions.
- Identify and build capacity for creating/updating these products and processes, including qualitative data analysis principles and evaluation ethics, qualitative data interpretation and reporting.
Dissemination of findings to humanitarian, government and research communities.
- Write summary reports following standard templates and required parameters, as well as regional summaries.
- Provide executive summaries or key findings for easy communication to non-technical audiences.
- Support presentations of findings at webinars, events or other opportunities, with emphasis on reaching a wide range of audiences in the region of interest as well as global.
- Share developed tools, templates, guidance, datasets and results with the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement and other humanitarian organisations, adhering to IFRC’s data protection guidelines for use of personal data.
Coordination and partnerships
- Liaise with partners focal points and social scientists and strengthen partnerships with main social science and RCCE stakeholders in the response to ensure the systematic inclusion of social science intelligence in the humanitarian response plan.
Education
- Relevant post-graduate university degree or higher education, preferably in statistics, data science, sociology, public health, or other social science with analytical focus
- Relevant survey sampling design and survey analysis coursework/certification
Experience
- At least five (5) years of experience in humanitarian and health emergencies with experience in undertaking and managing health information and qualitative data analysis in operations (at least 3 years in the humanitarian/health emergencies field context).
- At least three (3) years of experience working directly with field teams or primary data from field teams from low resource settings using multiple methodologies, preferably in Latin America and the Caribbean
- Experience in setting up and managing projects with a qualitative data collection focus, with sources such as community feedback mechanisms, interviews, focus group discussions, social media posts, etc.
- Demonstrated ability to conduct operational research, use mixed methods with an emphasis on qualitative research methods and approaches in humanitarian crisis and/or public health emergencies.
- Demonstrated experience of integrating gender and diversity issues into public health programmes
- Experience within the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, preferred
- Experience in an international organization or NGO, preferred
Knowledge, Skills and Language
- Good understanding of - or training in - current developments in the field of behavioural and social sciences, research approaches
- Good understanding of social statistics
- Demonstrated ability in manipulating large data sets and in using data analysis tools, with focus on qualitative data analysis
- Excellent analytical skills and knowledge of quantitative, qualitative and participatory research methodologies and analysis
- Ability to get consensus and collaboration across many operational units; ability to explain complex concepts in layman's language; ability to generate enthusiasm; ability to communicate with all levels of management and staff.
- Demonstrated excellent written and oral communication skills and the ability to clearly and accurately convey information.
- Proven Information Management and data skills in the areas of mobile data collection, data visualisation, including mapping and M&E, preferred
- Demonstrated familiarity in using KoBo / Open Data Kit, QGIS, ESRI, Tableau and Illustrator, preferred**
Languages
- Fluently spoken and written English and Spanish
- Good command of another IFRC official language (French) and other languages of the region (French Creole, Portuguese), preferred
Competencies and Values
VALUES: Respect for diversity; Integrity; Professionalism; Accountability
CORE COMPETENCIES: Communication; Collaboration and Teamwork; Judgement and Decision Making; National Societies and Customer Relations; Creativity and Innovation; Building Trust
FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES: Building Alliances; Leadership; Empowering Others
How to apply:
Interested candidates should visit the link https://www.ifrc.org/jobs/details.html?jobId=95225&jobTitle=Social%20Scientist to view the full job description and to submit your application no later than March 25, 2022.
Comments
A letter of motivation must be submitted along with the application no later than the closing date. In order to ensure a proper comparative evaluation of your application for this vacancy and to enable us to consider your profile against other similar current and future vacancies, we ask that you submit your application taking into account the following:
Important Note:
Please note that the selected candidate will be hired through a national contract under the labour law of any of the following countries, where the IFRC have legal status: Buenos Aires (Argentina), San José (Costa Rica), Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), Guatemala City (Guatemala), Tegucigalpa (Honduras), Kingston (Jamaica), Managua (Nicaragua), Panama City (Panama), Lima (Peru), or Port of Spain (Trinidad and Tobago); therefore only those citizens, as well as foreign applicants with valid and current residence and work permit in those countries, will be considered for this vacancy.
The incumbent is responsible to abide by Federation policies, procedures, plans and local labour laws
The closing date is midnight Geneva time; Only those candidates shortlisted for interviews will be notified.