DARTS Analyst and Product Manager
WFP celebrates and embraces diversity. It is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all its employees and
encourages qualified candidates to apply irrespective of race, color, national origin, ethnic or social background, genetic information,
gender, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, religion or belief, HIV status, physical or mental disability.
Job Title: DARTS Analyst and Product Manager
Type of Contract: Regular Consultant level I
Division: CBT / Cash-Based Transfers Division
Duty Station (City, Country): Munich, Germany
Duration: 11 months
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:
The United Nations World Food Programme is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. The mission of WFP is to help the world achieve Zero Hunger. Every day, WFP works to ensure that nobody goes to bed hungry and that the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly women and children, are able to meet their food and other essential needs.
One of WFP’s corporate objectives is to increasingly deliver assistance, either cash-based transfer (CBT) or in-kind, through digital means, and register beneficiaries digitally, in order to achieve greater efficiencies and provide greater accountability and traceability of assistance delivered.
Therefore, WFP seeks to build its corporate capacity to centrally receive, store, process and analyse digital operational data for the purpose of promoting accountability, controls, and efficiencies as part of cash-based transfer. There is also the opportunity to better inform WFP’s programme design through the analysis of digital data emanating from operations.
Several challenges exist in streamlining digital analysis globally, including the tasks of receiving and maintaining massive amounts of varied and unstructured operational data, processing and generating meaningful analysis of data, while ensuring that data privacy and security standards are upheld. The Data Assurance Team within the CBT division has initiated a pilot, in collaboration with the WFP Innovation Accelerator, for a self-service “Data Assurance and Reconciliation Tool, Simplified” (DARTS).
After a successful initial pilot, CBT is recruiting a dedicated “DARTS Analyst and Product Manager”, to be part of the Cash Data Services team established in the CBT Division.
JOB PURPOSE
The DARTS Analyst and Product Manager will report to the Head of Cash Data Services and will be responsible for leading the product roadmap, from objectives definition and further prototyping to full implementation and roll-out.
ACCOUNTABILITIES / RESPONSIBILITIES:
- With reference to the standards set in the Cash Assurance Framework, define the DARTS product vision, in consultation with CBT management and stakeholders in the WFP Innovation Accelerator and IT division.
- Coordinate the interactions with the IT division for the DARTS endorsement by the IT boards, and for guidance by other IT units, such as architecture, data, and security.
- Liaise with external companies for the development of the DARTS system and data infrastructure.
- Analyse requirements and make specifications for new functionality, preserving the “general purpose” nature of the application.
- Work with data analysts and data scientists in CBT and in other WFP divisions to foster the development of richer and more advanced logic for self-service cash assurance controls.
- Prototype and pilot in field offices new DARTS functionality, using rapid prototyping tools and testing new data-controls logic.
- Since DARTS is going to be one of the tools for data-assurance, keep a strong alignment with other activities and plans of the Cash Data Services team for the support to WFP Country Offices.
- Provide expert guidance on approaches and solutions for cash assurance (reconciliation, metrics, and anomaly detection), developing guidelines and training material.
- Keep solid and frequent communications about the product evolution with COs and with internal stakeholders, announcing new product features, presenting progress to management, etc.
- Regularly gather customer feedback and privilege a customer-centric approach.
- Deploy on mission, providing on-site support as needed.
- Perform any other duties as required.
QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:
Education:
A bachelor’s or master’s degree in Data Science, Statistics, Computer Science or Economics.
Experience:
3-5 years’ experience with different approaches and techniques for data analytics and data science.
Knowledge and Skills:
Ability to effectively engage and coordinate across a variety of stakeholders. Knowledge and experience with Agile methodologies is desirable.
Ability to communicate clearly, adapting the style to technical and non-technical audiences, across different stakeholders within the organization.
Previous experience in approaches for reconciliation and anomaly detection for cash- based transfers is considered a distinct advantage.
Ability to capture requirements and translate them into specifications for technical teams.
Solid SQL and Python/pandas skills.
Languages:
Fluency (level C) in English with an intermediate knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish) or
Portuguese (one of WFP’s working languages) is desirable.
Terms and Conditions
WFP offers a competitive compensation package which will be determined by the contract type and selected candidate’s qualifications and experience.
Please visit the following websites for detailed information on working with WFP.
http://www.wfp.org Click on: “Our work” and “Countries” to learn more about WFP’s operations.
Deadline for applications: 02 July 2023
Ref.: VA No. 827685
All employment decisions are made on the basis of organizational needs, job requirements, merit, and individual qualifications. WFP is committed to providing an
inclusive work environment free of sexual exploitation and abuse, all forms of discrimination, any kind of harassment, sexual harassment, and abuse of authority.
Therefore, all selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks.
No appointment under any kind of contract will be offered to members of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), International
Civil Service Commission (ICSC), FAO Finance Committee, WFP External Auditor, WFP Audit Committee, Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) and other similar bodies within the
United Nations system with oversight responsibilities over WFP, both during their service and within three years of ceasing that service.
