Position: Database Officer

ACTED is a French humanitarian NGO, founded in 1993, which supports vulnerable populations, affected by humanitarian crises worldwide. ACTED provides continued support to vulnerable communities by ensuring the sustainability of post-crisis interventions and engaging long-term challenges facing our target populations, in order to break the poverty cycle, foster development and reduce vulnerability to disasters. Their interventions seek to cover the multiple aspects of humanitarian and development crises through a multidisciplinary approach which is both global and local, and adapted to each context. Their 3,300 staff is committed in to responding to emergencies worldwide, to supporting recovery and rehabilitation, towards sustainable development.

REACH was born in 2010 as a joint initiative of two INGOs (IMPACT Initiatives and ACTED) and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Operational Satellite Applications Program (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, supporting and working within the framework of the humanitarian reform process. 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.

Country Profile

REACH, has been working in Kenya and regionally supporting inter-agency information management and assessment capacity since 2012. In 2012-2016 REACH supported the development of an early warning monitoring system through training of monitors and support to county analysts for the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA). Since 2017, REACH has been supporting the collection of information in Dadaab refugee camp and in border areas through technical support and assessment coordination services to NRC. In 2020, REACH has implemented vulnerability assessments in Samburu County including needs assessment, infrastructure mapping and capacity building of County officials. In addition, REACH is a member of the Kenya Cash consortium and the Kenya Cash Urban consortium, which, in collaboration with consortium partners have facilitated the conduct of monthly market monitoring in informal settlements of Nairobi and Mombasa as well as markets in ASAL counties.

Functions

Under the functional management of the REACH Research Manager and technical supervision of the REACH GIS Specialist, the Database Officer is responsible for an accurate, timely and efficient consolidation of the database from the data collected from the field. The Database Officer will be responsible for coding survey tools, performing data quality control, tracking data collection progress, downloading, storing and managing datasets, and contributing to the REACH team in terms of delivering high quality outputs. When available and required, he/she will support with other REACH data collection activities.

The Database Officer will also support Assessment Officers and Field Officers in organizing and managing the data collection enumerators. Furthermore, he/she will support the assessment team in developing and testing tools for data collection, specifically ODK and Kobo.

Duties and Responsibilities

Data processing and Management:

• To process data and information from the field – in particular ensure quality, consistency, accuracy, truthfulness, comprehensiveness of all collected data
• To enter all data and figures as needed into the database in a consistent, accurate and efficient manner
• To provide routine data checking logs or reports to field staff so that follow ups can be made to ensure the accuracy and consistency of collected
• To provide data outputs upon request
• To maintain up-to-date databases as required
• To produce data analysis of both quantitative and qualitative cleaned and validated data.
• To code research questionnaires using KOBO/ODK xls forms for use in data collection.
• To support producing of basic maps – i.e. ACTED ad hoc map requests, factsheet location maps.

Data quality control:

• Daily checking and cleaning of raw data, whilst logging any and all changes made to the original data
• Following up with field officers and enumerators about identified problems and mistakes identified in the data
• Design and develop tools to improve data cleaning (including spatial verification) and analysis.

Capacity building:

• Work with each field staff and/or enumerator individually where repeated data entry issues to address in the cleaning process and flag up for general improvement
• Provide trainings on data processing and management, data quality control, and tool coding to other IMPACT staff

Technical support:

• The REACH Database Officer will contribute towards the identification and implementation of effective and adapted technical solutions and partnerships. The REACH Database Officer will provide technical backstopping of database to GIS/DB team and provide capacity-building to GIS/DB team related to database management.

Any other tasks need to ensure the success of the IMPACT mission.

• The REACH Database Officer may be called upon to work on other IMPACT programs in various locations in country as needs dictate and the security situation allows.

Confidentiality and Data protection:

• The REACH Database Officer will maintain the strictest confidentiality of data and processes. He/she will actively take measures to prevent the unauthorized sharing of information and data. Protection Mainstreaming
• Promoting of and adhering to Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse policy and guidelines (for site residents, ACTED staff, partner agencies, casual labors)

Qualifications and Experience

• Excellent academic qualifications, including a Bachelor degree in Statistics, Economy, GIS, Information Systems, or relevant discipline;
• Minimum of 2.5 year of experience working in information management, database management, or a related field
• Proven experience in data processing and/or analysis (using either SPSS, Python, or R preferably);
• Advanced MS Excel skills (advanced usage of formulas, pivot tables, lookup functions)
• Considerable experience using ODK for quantitative data collection
• Considerable experience creating and coding ODK questionnaires
• Excellent analytical and problem solving skills;
• Experience with industry standard mapping tools, especially ESRI products is desired;
• Excellent team working skills
• Good organizational, communication and interpersonal skills
• Ability to work with remote staff in an effective and efficient manner
• Ability to think creatively in terms of tool and process development
• Positive attitude and a willingness to learn
• Ability to operate in a cross-cultural environment requiring flexibility
• Fluency in English and national languages required
• Ability to work independently