GIS Expert

Context

The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) is currently looking for a GIS Expert for a Capacity Development Programme within Disaster Risk Assessment and Mapping. The Programme covers following countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey.

Contract Type

Length of the project is 3 years.

The expert is expected to work in minimum of 330 days during the 3 year period. Specific periods of work are to be defined.

Expected start date is 2016-12-01.

Activities

The activities to be carried out in the frame of the programme:

• develop and improve national systems for disaster loss data collection
• further develop and improve national risk assessments
• develop and improve national and regional risk mapping and establishment of risk atlas

Salary

Employed by the MSB on an international mission you will receive a monthly salary as well as a comprehensive allowances and benefits package, ranging from free home leave travel to access to psychosocial support.

The MSB highly values the well-being of our staff and whilst on mission you will have access to health and safety support from the MSB 24 hours a day.

The MSB also strives to apply gender equality in terms of recruitment to our roster.

Duties

• Support to local/national counterparts in developing their organization(s) capacity within risk assessments following EU guidelines and good practices.
• Plan, implement and follow up activities such as risk mapping, workshops, trainings, technical assistance missions etc.
• Provide technical support in the beneficiary countries for the further development of national risk maps to cover at least five hazard types which are most relevant for the region.
• Establish an Electronic Regional Risk Atlas (ERRA) as a combination of hazard maps with vulnerability and asset maps, linked to the national Early warning systems and European monitoring tools.
• Provide trainings for the duty officers and other relevant staff on how to use ERRA.
• Prepare and coordinate activities and project reporting as required.
• Represent the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency in meetings with representatives from national government agencies and EC.
• Liaise and co-ordinate the day to day work with the other project staff, projects and relevant partners.
• Integration of cross cutting issues, in particular gender and environment.

Requirements

Experience

• A minimum of 5 years of professional experience in the area of developing risk mapping
• Experience in international disaster management cooperation or multi-national programmes/projects (minimum two projects) related to disaster management
• Good operational knowledge of GIS, in particular:
  • Experience in using GIS software and tools such as ArcCatalog, ArcGIS, ArcMap and ArcView to convert and maintain geo-spatial information, produce standard and custom GIS mapping products and develop simple GIS tools and extensions
  • Ability to develop, compile, maintain, retrieve, query and analyse a variety of GIS coverage features and records such as location, relationships, trends, patterns, adjacency, containment, and proximity of map features and data
  • Ability to perform a variety of geospatial and statistical analyses
  • Experience in mapping of one or more of the following areas: a) floods; b) earthquakes; c) chemical/biological and technological hazards; d) fires
• Experience of establishment of an Electronical Regional Risk Atlas (ERRA) is a strong asset.
• Experience of work in the beneficiary countries is an advantage.

Education

University degree in Geographic Information Systems, computer science or other related fields.

Languages

Proficiency in both written and spoken English is essential. Please be ready to provide examples for public speeches in English or similar. Knowledge of one or more languages of the beneficiary countries will be an asset.

Other requirements

We are looking for women and men with a strong commitment towards humanitarian relief and disaster operations. It is of utmost priority that you understand, respect and act in the spirit of the mandate and core values of the MSB. 

You must undergo a pre-employment medical examination by a licensed physician before being contracted.

Profile

You must be able to interact with sensitivity and display respect for diversity and gender in multi-cultural environments. A capacity for working under pressure is essential, as work is often performed under difficult and demanding conditions, where the focus frequently shifts due to changes in priority.

You must possess a high level of professional and personal maturity together with an ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with colleagues, managers and external partners, such as UN organizations, NGOs, recipient governments and host populations.

You are expected to have excellent analytical and communicative skills, show initiative and take both a hands-on and an analytical approach to tasks and problems.

Contractual conditions

Working with the MSB on international operations means that you are temporarily employed by the MSB. The MSB pays salary as well as a comprehensive allowances and benefits package to field staff on international operations, ranging from free home leave travel to access to psychosocial support. In addition, participants on induction training and relevant specialist training courses receive remuneration from the MSB.

If selected for this position an evaluation will be done after the mission. The evaluation can result in an offer to be registered on the MSB roster. When you are registered on the MSB roster you can continuously receive interesting international job opportunities and invitations to stimulating and valuable trainings and exercises.

A registration on MSB’s roster is valid for three years. After this period your registration will be evaluated and you may be offered an extended registration. After being registered on the roster you need to conduct the MSB’s induction training and any specialist training courses required.

The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency applies a policy of equal opportunities to avoid any form of discrimination. We strive for gender balance and qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

It is your responsibility as an applicant to document your skills in a way that allows an objective and qualitative assessment. As a government agency we are subject to the principle of public access to official records. This means that if someone requests copies of application documents, we are required to disclose them.

Please note that applications will be continuously reviewed when received up until the application deadline. Therefore, we encourage all candidates to submit their application as soon as possible.