International Consultant-Technical Support,Hanoi,Vietnam,Remotely,6 Months (Open For International Candidates) Req#595841

How can you make a difference?

The Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) programme is UNICEF's international household survey programme run together with national statistics offices designed to collect high-quality data on the situation of children, women, and households.

In preparation for the next MICS in Viet Nam, the National Statistics Office (NSO) of Viet Nam expressed interest in transitioning from a paper-based management of enumeration areas (EAs) to a digital geospatial framework to support MICS and other future household surveys.

Viet Nam conducted its most recent Population and Housing Census in 2019. The Census cartography - which was primarily paper based - serves as the master sample frame for other national population-based surveys.

After the recent administrative reform in July 2025, 63 provinces have been merged into 34 and 10,035 communes have been merged into 3321 with new commune boundaries.

In this context, the NSO is required to update the master sample frame using new provincial and commune boundaries. At the same time, in line with digital transformation policy, NSO is interested in developing a national digital geospatial database of EAs that can serve as a permanent geographic reference framework for survey and census operations.

Such a framework would support sample design, sample selection, household listing, fieldwork management, weighting, dissemination, and future statistical activities.

The development of a digital master sample EA framework requires the assessment, preparation, and integration of multiple geospatial datasets, including administrative boundaries, structure coordinates, population estimates, building footprints, roads, waterways, and other geographic features.

In addition, the resulting framework should provide standardised metadata for each EA, including population estimates, household counts, administrative identifiers, and urbanisation classifications

The purpose of this assignment is to support the NSO of Viet Nam in developing a national digital geospatial EA framework for MICS and other household surveys, while strengthening national capacity for its maintenance, updating and future use.

UNICEF, in collaboration with the NSO, will recruit a team of an international consultant and a national consultant to undertake this assignment. This ToR is for recruiting an international consultant, but the context and expected team work are presented for candidates to understand the situation and the national resources he/she will have.

The two consultants will operate as an integrated technical team.

The international consultant will lead methodological design, comparative analysis, technical specifications, quality standards, advanced programming, documentation and training design.

The national consultant will lead or support national data access, contextual interpretation, data preparation, local testing, production processing, liaison with NSO units, validation, documentation and hands-on knowledge transfer.

The work of both consultants needs to be closely coordinated to avoid duplication and to ensure that technical knowledge, source code and operational ownership are transferred to the NSO.

Scope of Work

Under the supervision of UNICEF and in close collaboration with the NSO of Viet Nam, the international consultant will undertake the following activities:

A. Methodology development of the digital EA framework

• Develop and document a methodology for digital EA delineation based on publicly available data sources.

• Define operational criteria for EA creation, including household thresholds, geographic constraints, and administrative requirements.

• Define and document the authoritative coordinate reference system and transformation workflow. Project outputs shall support VN-2000 using the officially applicable parameters and central meridians and, where required for interoperability, WGS84. The consultant shall document all source coordinate systems, transformations, precision implications and quality checks, and shall not apply unverified transformation parameters.

• Using publicly available data sources, design a pilot of delineation of NSO’s selected EAs for manual review and validation by the national consultant and NSO.

• Ensure consistency with the best international practices for survey sampling frames.

B. Assessment and preparation of geospatial data

• Review actual census cartographic materials, sampling frame documentation, and existing geospatial datasets provided by NSO.

• Assess the spatial and attribute alignment between the 2019 EA framework and the latest officially approved administrative boundaries at all relevant levels. Identify splits, mergers, code changes, boundary mismatches, gaps, overlaps and lineage issues, and develop a documented crosswalk and synchronisation approach that preserves traceability between the 2019 census geography and the current administrative structure.

• Review and, where necessary, clean, harmonise, and prepare datasets required for EA delineation.

• Review transportation networks, waterways, and other geographic features that may support EA delineation, and identify opportunities for improvement.

• Assess requirements for updating population estimates and generating supporting population surfaces where required.

• Identify data gaps and recommend solutions where necessary.

• Agree with the NSO and the national consultant on the master sample areas covering dense urban, peri-urban, rural, remote, mountainous, coastal or riverine, and other operationally relevant contexts, as permitted by available data.

• Define a documented data-readiness assessment, including minimum data requirements, expected limitations, treatment of missing or conflicting data, and implications for national scalability.

• Ensure that data preparation and analytical workflows can be reproduced using R and/or Python scripts.

C. Validation and enhancement

• Develop measurable quality assurance and acceptance criteria covering invalid geometry, gaps, overlaps, slivers, multipart geometries, non-contiguous EAs, administrative-boundary violations, duplicate or missing identifiers, missing metadata, implausible values and deviations from agreed thresholds.

• Specify mandatory validation technical and operational validation with the national consultant and NSO staff across representative urban, rural and geographically complex areas.

• Maintain a validation and decision log, refine the selected or hybrid workflow based on feedback, and prepare final geospatial datasets, metadata, code, configuration files and QA outputs.

D. Capacity building and knowledge transfer

• Design and deliver a comprehensive five-day, in-person, hands-on training programme for NSO staff, jointly supported by the national consultant.

• Prepare a competency-based package enabling participants to understand, execute, compare, validate, modify and maintain the EA workflows rather than only observe demonstrations.

• Structure the workshop broadly as follows:

Day 1 - data architecture, readiness and preparation

Day 2 - concepts and demonstrations approaches

Day 3 - supervised implementation and comparison

Day 4 - QA, validation, metadata, classifications and refinement

Day 5 - production workflow, maintenance, code adaptation, governance, participant assessment and handover planning.

• Provide presentations, instructor and participant guides, step-by-step exercises, training datasets, expected outputs, troubleshooting notes, glossary, fully commented scripts or notebooks, and pre- and post-training competency assessments.

• Ensure participants have sufficient hands-on time to run, inspect, modify and troubleshoot the code with support from both consultants, and transfer all editable source materials for internal reuse.

E. Documentation and recommendation

• Document all datasets, assumptions, methods, algorithms, parameters, decisions, workflows, exceptions, outputs and limitations.

• Deliver a structured reproducible source-code repository containing fully commented R and/or Python scripts or notebooks, configuration files, sample commands, package and environment specifications, data dictionaries, README files, folder structures, processing logs and troubleshooting guidance.

• Ensure that no essential step is available only through an undocumented manual action.

• Prepare practical recommendations for national implementation, institutional roles, approval, versioning, updates, change management, maintenance, staff competencies and future expansion, and present the comparative results and final workflow to UNICEF and the NSO.

Conditions for work:

In compliance with Viet Nam’s Personal Data Protection Law, Law on Statistics and all data security, confidentiality, and information management requirements, the consultant team are not provided with data when outside the country or not in the NSO’s premise. They can only access the data while working physically on NSO’s premises.

All access, storage, processing and transfer of data shall follow applicable national laws, NSO security requirements and UNICEF data-protection requirements. Source data shall not be copied, transmitted, stored, or accessed outside authorised NSO systems or premises without prior written authorisation.

The international and national consultants will be recruited by UNICEF in close consultation with NSO. Day-to-day management will be performed by the UNICEF Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist. NSO will designate technical and managerial focal points; facilitate secure, authorised access to agreed datasets and relevant documentation; clarify data definitions and national standards; identify and approve pilot locations; participate in methodology review, validation and training; consolidate technical comments from relevant NSO units; and provide documented acceptance or revision requests for each deliverable.

The international and national consultants will work as an integrated team with designated NSO technical staff as focal points. The international consultant will lead methodological design, assessment, technical standards, advanced programming and training design, while the national consultant will lead or support national data access, contextualisation, processing, local testing, validation, documentation and day-to-day technical liaison. Workplans, code, data-processing responsibilities and review tasks will be coordinated from the outset to prevent duplication and ensure that the international-consultant days and national-consultant days are used as complementary inputs.

Data Protection and Confidentiality

The consultant shall comply with all applicable laws, regulations, and institutional requirements governing the protection of personal data, confidentiality, and statistical information in Viet Nam.

Specifically, the consultant shall:

1. Comply with the Law on Personal Data Protection of Viet Nam (Law No. 91/2025/QH15), as well as any implementing regulations, guidance, or subsequent amendments applicable throughout the duration of the assignment.

2. Comply with the Law on Statistics and all data security, confidentiality, and information management requirements of the National Statistics Office (NSO), including any protocols governing access to, storage of, processing of, and dissemination of statistical data.

3. Not copy, store, transfer, transmit, or remove microdata, personally identifiable information, or any restricted datasets outside systems, locations, or environments explicitly authorized by the NSO. Access to restricted data shall only be permitted in accordance with NSO-approved security arrangements.

4. Transfer and hand over to the NSO all source code, scripts, models, algorithms, documentation, intermediate products, databases, outputs, and other materials produced under this assignment. No proprietary restrictions shall prevent the NSO from accessing, maintaining, modifying, or using the deliverables upon completion of the consultancy.

5. Obtain prior written approval from the NSO before publishing, presenting, sharing, distributing, or otherwise disclosing any project data, analysis, findings, maps, reports, code, or outputs to any third party. No project-related information may be released publicly without the explicit authorization of the NSO and UNICEF.

6. Sign and adhere to any confidentiality, non-disclosure, data access, or data security agreements required by the NSO and UNICEF prior to accessing project data or commencing technical work.

7. Immediately report any actual or suspected data breach, unauthorized access, loss of data, or security incident to the NSO and UNICEF and cooperate fully in any investigation or mitigation measures.

This obligation shall remain in effect during the consultancy period and after the completion or termination of the contract.

Education

Geography, GIS, Geoinformatics, Geomatics, Cartography, Statistics, Demography, Spatial Data Science, Computer Science, or related fields.

Work Experience

• At least 8 years of progressively responsible experience in GIS, spatial statistics, census cartography, survey sampling frames, or geospatial population modelling.

• Demonstrated experience supporting development of digital Enumeration Areas (EAs), census cartography, master sampling frames, or geospatial survey infrastructure.

• Demonstrated experience delivering digital EA frameworks or census cartography modernization projects in at least two countries.

• Experience working with National Statistical Offices or similar government agencies.

• Prior experience supporting MICS, DHS, Census, LSMS, household surveys, or other large-scale sample surveys.

• Experience in developing geospatial methodologies for: EA delineation; population gridding/population estimation; integration of administrative and geospatial datasets; quality assurance of spatial datasets.

• Experience applying international standards such as DEGURBA, census geography, sampling frame development, or official statistics frameworks.

• Experience designing and delivering GIS capacity-building programmes and technical workshops.

• Experience working in Asia Pacific regions or developing-country contexts is highly desirable.

Language Requirements

• Excellent written and spoken English.

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills

• Advanced proficiency in: ArcGIS Pro or open-source geospatial analysis and automation, including QGIS; R and/or Python for geospatial analysis; spatial SQL/PostGIS; population modelling and raster analysis; graph, clustering, optimisation or regionalisation methods; spatial-data quality assessment; and automated validation.

Demonstrated ability to produce fully commented, modular and reproducible source code is required.

• Strong knowledge of census and survey methodology; geospatial databases; urban-rural classification systems; integration of building footprints, structure coordinates, road networks, and administrative boundaries into operational survey geographies.

• Experience preparing technical documentation, metadata, and standard operating procedures.

• Demonstrated experience preparing reproducible analytical repositories, including README files, dependency or environment specifications, parameter files, test procedures, processing logs and technical user documentation.

• Ability to design and deliver intensive hands-on training in which government participants execute and modify open-source analytical code.

Desirables

Experience working in Asia Pacific regions or developing-country contexts is highly desirable.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination based on gender, nationality, age, race, sexual orientation, religious or ethnic background or disabilities. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check, and selected candidates with disabilities may be requested to submit supporting documentation in relation to their disability confidentially.

• An up-to-date TMS profile and curriculum vitae (CV)
• Cover letter

• A detailed technical proposal

Less than 10 Pages which clearly explains the outline on how to deliver the tasks and deliverables and demonstrates candidate’s knowledge and expertise relevant to this topic.

The submission should contain a few samples of similar products: samples of fully commented R or Python geospatial code, with documentation sufficient to demonstrate reproducibility; non-confidential or synthetic data may be used.