Statistical Assistant - ECST.1 at African Development Bank - AfDB

Reference: ADB/18/169
Location: Côte d’Ivoire
Grade: GS7
Position N°: 50000874 / 50000876

The Complex

• The Chief Economist/Vice-President for Economic Governance and Knowledge Management (ECVP) is the Bank’s spokesperson on economic matters and the VP for the ‘Economics Governance and Knowledge Management Complex’.
• The Complex is responsible for providing leadership and visibility for the Bank on economic, finance, financial governance and socio economic development issues; and coordinate the generation of analytical works to inform operational policy; systematically emphasize the critical role of knowledge, experience, lessons learnt and their tangible impact on sustainable, inclusive transformation of African economies.

The Hiring Department/Division

• The Statistics Department (ECST) is responsible for the Bank’s statistical activities that focus on two main components: providing support for effective development of statistical capacity and systems in African countries for the provision of timely and reliable data to support development results measurement for the High 5s and Sustainable Development Goals agenda across Africa, mainstreaming results measurement in Bank operations to ensure their operational effectiveness as well as to support the Bank’s research, policy and financial services
• As part of the Statistics Directorate, the Economics and Social Statistics Division (ECST1) ensures that Regional Member Countries provide the Bank with timely, reliable, consistent and regionally comparable data on economic and social activities (trade, industry, agriculture, finance, infrastructure, population, demography, poverty, education, health, Sustainable Development Goals' monitoring, etc.).
• Its principal activities are: to develop and manage statistical systems needed to support the operational work of the Bank Group and its development research activities; to prepare the Bank Group’s official statistical publications; and provide statistics and statistical analysis for the Bank Group’s Annual Report, the African Development Report and other important Bank’s publications.

The Position

• The main objectives of this position are to assist the Statisticians of the Bank’s Statistics Department (ECST) in collecting, compiling, organizing and updating the socio-economic databases; disseminating the data on the AfDB Opendata Portal, and in the Bank Annual Report, the African Economic Outlook Report (AEO) and statistical publications; and in formulating statistical and forecast models relating to topical socio-economic issues.

Duties and Responsibilities
Under the supervision of the Division Manager, the Statistician the Statistical Assistant will:

• Compile and process data from national and international sources concerning national accounts,  consumer price indices, government finance, raw material prices, exchange rates, financial flows, debt, stock market movements;
• Update the socioeconomic databases on RMCs in the Data Collection System (DCS) and follow up the dissemination of the data on the Bank’s Opendata Portal accessible on line for internal and external users;
• Contribute to the preparation of the Bank Statistical Publications, statistical briefs, as well as thematic reports on national accounts, monetary statistics and stock market volatility;
• Monitor and manage macroeconomic data on RMCs and conduct short-term projections of macroeconomic indicators in relation to the African Economic Outlook and prepare the Statistical Annex;
• Regularly update and generate the standard statistical tables and charts for use in Bank documents and as requested by management;
• Contribute to update the operation data of the Bank;
• Prepare relevant data for monitoring and evaluation of the impact of the financial and economic crises in RMCs;
• Train and assist users in the Bank on how to access and use the databases managed by ECST;
• Carry out all ad hoc tasks required by the department;
  

Selection Criteria
Including desirable skills, knowledge and experience:

• Hold at least a Bachelor’s Degree or the equivalent in Statistics, in Quantitative Economics or a related field, with a good knowledge of quantitative and econometric methods;
• Have minimum of 5 years of relevant experience working on macroeconomic indicators in a national or international research or development institution;
• Communication, Problem Solving, Client Orientation, good relations and Team work;
• Strong background in quantitative methods;
• Proven experience in managing time series data;
• Ability to develop and manage statistical information systems;
• Ability to identify analysis biases (wrong data, outliers, data deviations ) and cleanse  the database;
• Ability to synthesize the data collected and choose the most relevant modes of representation;
• Ability to deliver according to strict deadlines;
• Excellent spoken and written English or French, with a working knowledge of the other language;
• Advanced knowledge of Excel and competence in the use of other Bank standard software applications (Word, Access and PowerPoint);
• Competence knowledge of Database Management Systems (DBMS), Statistical software for analysis in statistics and econometrics (example: Stata, SPSS, SAS), particularly regarding forecasting techniques.