Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS Plus) Data Processing Consultancy, Data Collection Unit, Data and Analytics/DAPM, NYHQ, remote, Req# 584362

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If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines fordeveloping countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

Consultancy Title: Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS Plus) Data Processing Consultancy

Division/Duty Station: Data Collection Unit, Data and Analytics, DAPM, NYHQ

Duration: 26 December 2025 – 25 December 2028

Home/ Office Based: Remote

BACKGROUND

Purpose of Activity/ Assignment:

   

Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) enable countries to produce statistically sound and internationally comparable estimates of a range of indicators on the situation of children and women in areas such as health, education, early childhood development, child protection, water and sanitation, nutrition, and HIV/AIDS. For many countries, MICS surveys are among the most important data sources used for situation analyses, policy decisions, programme interventions, and informing the public about the situation of children and women. 

In recent years, including during the pandemic, the MICS programme has continued innovating new methods and data collection protocols. A recent initiative of the MICS programme is MICS Plus, which is based on the probability selection of a sub-sample of households interviewed during a MICS survey (or any other household sample frame furnished with telephone numbers) and initiating regular calls to these households for a maximum period of one year to continue data collection. The method progressively builds up longitudinal data on the situation of children and the well-being of households; results can be reported on a real-time basis. MICS Plus can be used for various purposes, such as (a) collecting longitudinal data on MICS topics, (b) for opinion polling, (c) generating data on children not available in MICS for both methodological and practical reasons, (d) for programme monitoring and evaluation, (e) for crisis monitoring.

MICS Plus was piloted in two districts of Belize from 2019 to 2020. As the pilot test progressed, the COVID pandemic created an unforeseen opportunity to take MICS Plus to the national level sooner than anticipated. In 2020-2021, two national MICS Plus surveys were completed in Mongolia and Georgia. At present, MICS Plus surveys are planned and/or implemented in several countries, including Yemen, Turkmenistan, Costa Rica, Mongolia, Pakistan, Nepal, etc. Meanwhile, more countries are now coming forward to join the MICS programme to conduct MICS Plus.

MICS Plus is dependent on a sophisticated data management system that needs to be closely monitored and updated for each wave of calls, as questionnaires change from one wave to the next, among other changes. To ensure that MICS Plus surveys are conducted with best practices and acceptable quality standards, the MICS programme has developed novel protocols for setting call centers, call parameters, data entry and management protocols, and systems/approaches for data quality checking editing, analysis and reporting. In short, for each MICS Plus survey, a data management system is created, and analysis and reporting programs are developed.

To this end, UNICEF needs a data processing expert to (a) support the maintenance and updating of the standard data management systems (b) support the development of editing and analysis programmes, and include the anonymization of microdata, (c) support the development of data management systems, editing and analysis programmes for new MICS Plus surveys.

 

Additionally, due to the increasing number of countries starting with MICS implementation in 2025/26 and working on innovations in the MICS programme, the Data Collection Unit needs additional support to cope with the workload  

Scope of Work:

UNICEF HQ needs to hire a data processing consultant with experience with MICS Plus or similar surveys to fully support MICS Plus data management and data processing tasks.

 

Specifically, consultant support is needed in the following data management and processing-related areas of work:

• The maintenance and updating of standard data man