African Development Bank (AfDB) - the premier pan-African development institution, promoting economic growth and social progress across the continent. 

POSITION : Principal Statistician (Agriculture)

The Hiring Department

• The Statistics Department (ECST) is responsible for the Bank’s statistical activities that focus on two main components: (i) 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, (ii) 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 RMCs 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, SDGs 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 Principal Statistician (Agriculture) will be responsible for the following main activities:

• Improving technical capacities of the National Statistical Systems and data quality: provide guidance on the development of sectoral strategies for the development of agricultural statistics and provide advice on statistical methodologies and tools in the assigned area;
• Improving data delivery in the assigned area: Develop effective systems to ensure that data is generated according to the principle of immediate relevance and that statistical data bases related to the assigned area are effectively designed and maintained and supervise the preparation of publications assigned for dissemination within the Bank and to officials and institutions in member countries.
• Providing leadership and advice on statistical developments necessary for the Bank's analytical work, in such fields as agricultural statistics, food statistics, environmental statistics, and Bank operational statistics to meet the economic and social data needs of the Bank (including policy, country programming and project cycle activities);
• Development of results measurement for the High 5s and SDGs agenda: Providing support for effective generation of indicators for SDGs in the assigned area and design and implementation of the Statistical Projects supported by the Bank;

Responsibilities

• Coordinate the Bank’s support to the institutional reform and change process within the national statistical system as guided by the statistical legislation or public sector reform programme. The reform may include amendment or enactment of a new body of statistical legislation and restructuring of the national statistical office;
• Develop approaches to build regional and national partnerships on big data and official data related to agricultural statistics, environment, food, and other related areas;
• Provide technical support for the implementation of agricultural surveys in Regional Member Countries;
• Prepare knowledge products to support Bank's Ten Year Strategy and the High 5s agenda, particularly agriculture and food security, environment and climate change statistics, renewable energy potential, water resources, etc.
• Ensure and coordinate the implementation of the Bank’s statistical capacity building program in Regional Member Countries to enable them to generate quality, reliable and timely agriculture and food security statistics, green growth statistics;
• Develop Initiatives for improving statistical production in agriculture-related areas of expertise;
• Participate in the design, development and implementation of regional or national statistical programs and projects related to agriculture statistics and involving by the Bank or the partner institutions;
• Recommend and implement a statistical strategy for ECST support to relevant Bank's operations departments in designing monitoring and evaluation systems for environment and climate change, and transitioning to green growth;
• Support Bank's operations to generate measurable green growth indicators as well as ensuring that they inform the Bank’s five point agenda (High 5):  Feed Africa, Industrialize Africa, Integrate Africa, Power Africa and Improve Quality of Life in Africa;
• Develop an integrated framework to assist RMCs in setting up monitoring and evaluation systems for measuring and monitoring critical Agricultural indicators for measuring countries' level of agricultural development and food security;
• Guide countries in developing sustainable systems integrated in their national strategies for the development of statistics (NSDS) to generate data required to inform the relevant sustainable development goals (SDGs);
• Develop procedures to be followed by ECST to effectively contribute to the Bank’s Result Measurement Framework, with respect to agricultural statistics;
• Provide statistical support as necessary to the regional member countries in the context of implementing the results measurement agenda, Bank’s Ten Year Strategy (TYS) and the priority agenda on High 5s i.e. inclusion of statistical issues in the Bank’s operations;
• Coordinate the Bank’s support to countries in the preparation of country driven strategies and work programs in line with the Strategy for the Harmonization of Statistics in Africa (SHaSA) and the Statistical Capacity Building (SCB) program as described in the National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) or other national statistical strategy;

Selection Criteria

• Ability to conduct a survey programme or managed statistical program;
• Ability to carry out a technological watch on its field of activity;
• Strong analytical and problem solving capabilities, coupled to manage innovation and change;
• Excellent teamwork skills and ability to interact effectively with staff members at all level;
• Excellent spoken and written English or French, with a working knowledge of the other language;
• Competence in managing computer data bases in order to develop and implement statistical databases;
• Hold at least a Master's degree or its equivalent in statistics, economics or a related field with a strong background in quantitative methods. A postgraduate qualification in agriculture statistics/economics is an added advantage;
• Have a minimum of six (6) years of relevant working experience in a research, statistical or development institution;
• Private sector experience is an added advantage;
• competency in database management and in applying statistical methods including but not limited to agriculture economic and econometric modeling, competency in multivariate analysis, survey analysis, and in the use of statistical computer programs;
• Competence in the use of standard Microsoft Office Suite applications (Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint).