A two-week capacity building workshop on Trade in Services statistics and Informal Cross-Border Trade (ICBT) measurement methodologies in Mozambique.

Work Location

Remote

Expected duration

Three Months

Duties and Responsibilities

PROJECT BACKGROUND:

In its role both as a think-tank and as a provider of technical assistance to African member States, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) assumes the lead technical and coordinating role within the United Nations system for supporting African countries to become AfCFTA-ready, as part of deepening Africa’s trade integration through domestication and effective implementation of the Agreement establishing the AfCFTA. An important complementary component of this initiative is to strengthen capacities of member states in the development and regular updates of trade statistics databases in order to inform evidence-based policy analysis.

Against this background, the Government of Mozambique, through its Ministry of Industry and Trade (MIC) has requested the ECA through its Subregional office for Southern Africa (SRO-SA) to strengthen capacities of the Government of Mozambique to compile formal trade statistics aligned with International Merchandise Trade Statistics 2010, (IMTS 2010) and using Eurotrace as the software to produce and maintain formal trade statistics for Mozambique in the area of goods and for alignment with the Manual on Statistics of International Trade in Services 2010 (MSITS 2010) in the area of services. This request was formulated as a follow up to Phase One of a project titled “Technical assistance to the Government of Mozambique to develop an integrated data management system on External Trade Statistics in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)”.

The current request will be funded under a project titled “Strengthening Capacities in Trade in Services Statistics for Southern African member States: Mozambique and Namibia”. The overarching objective of this project is to strengthen trade statistical capacities and availability of trade statistics in two SROSA member states, namely Mozambique and Namibia through trainings of officials to collect, process and produce up-to-date trade and tourism data. The project, which will end on 31 December 2023, consists of two broad outcomes as follows:

OC1: Strengthened capacities of government officials and enumerators to compile trade statistics including trade in services statistics

OC2: Enhanced availability of trade statistics in Mozambique and Namibia through the conduct of surveys and updated databases/trade portals with production of new trade reports

Due to a significant scaled-down budget, the component for Mozambique will focus only on the achievement of OC1 whose two planned activities were as follows:

Under Component one (Mozambique)
1. Government Officials from MIC, INE, Bank of Mozambique and Customs will be trained and refreshed on the compilation of formal trade statistics and the use of Eurotrace to compile formal merchandise trade statistics;
2. Fieldwork staff (enumerators) will be trained on data collection of trade in services statistics (focus on travel) and informal cross border trade statistics.

A capacity building workshop on formal trade statistics and Eurotrace was held in the context of this project from 22 May to 2 June in Maputo, Mozambique addressing No.1. in the above.

The ECA SRO-SA, in collaboration with the ECA African Center of Statistics (ACS), held a series of consultative meetings between June and August 2023 with the MIC, the National Institute of Statistics (INE), the Central Bank of Mozambique and the Customs Authorities to discuss the further implementation of the current project. Based on these consultations, it was agreed to recruit an International consultant to organize a two-week capacity-building workshop, among others, on Eurotrace, trade in services statistics, management of foreign trade database and Balance of Payments data. Furthermore, given that the INE, Central Bank and Customs are collaborating to implement an Informal Cross-Border Trade Survey in Mozambique, training of enumerators and staff at these institutions and MIC in the area of informal cross-border trade measurement methodologies will be relevant. In this context, the ECA SRO-SA, in collaboration with the ECA ACS, is seeking to recruit an international consultant to design and deliver a two-week capacity building workshop in Maputo, targeted at staff (especially statisticians and trade analysts) and enumerators from MIC, INE, Central Bank and Customs in order to train them in the area of trade, Balance of Payments data, trade in services statistics, and ICBT statistics and relevant measurement methodologies.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
Under the general supervision of the Chief, Subregional Initiatives Section, SRO-SA and the direct supervision of the Economic Affairs Officer, Subregional Initiatives Section, SRO-SA, the Successful Consultant will have the following list of duties and responsibilities:

1. Hold consultations with INE, MIC, Central Bank, Customs, and ECA to design the two-week capacity building workshop, defining objectives, planned outcomes and training activities in order to submit to ECA the concept note and agenda of the two-week workshop that should be held no later than 30 November 2023 along with the module contents.
2. Prepare and deliver the technical materials of the two-week workshop with a focus on methodologies to be used to compile trade in services statistics, balance of payments statistics and ICBT statistics that are aligned to international standards;
3. Prepare the training modules of the workshop and submit to ECA the modules contents at least 15 days before the workshop; the modules should be in English and shall be translated to Portuguese by ECA.
4. Train at the workshop a group of enumerators and staff (max 25) on how to conduct trade in services and ICBT surveys, highlighting good practices and approaches to deal with bottlenecks;
5. Design and deliver break-out sessions and training activities within the workshop using approaches to foster learning and sharing of experiences and in order to understand the gaps in trade statistics in Mozambique;
6. Prepare a mission report and a workshop report detailing the results of the workshop;
7. Deliver a final report to ECA highlighting the challenges and gaps behind trade statistics compilation and utilization in Mozambique with recommendations on how to address the gaps and promote harmonization of trade statistics in Mozambique across the 4 institutions: INE, Central Bank, Customs and MIC.

Qualifications/special skills

Advanced University Degree (Master’s Degree or Equivalent) in statistics, economics, trade or a relevant field is required. A first-level University Degree in combination with two additional years of relevant experience may be accepted in lieu of the Master’s Degree.
A minimum of 5 years of relevant work experience in at least one of the following areas is required: trade statistics, trade in services, statistics, informal cross-border trade and international development.

Languages

English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For this consultancy assignment, fluency in English is required. Knowledge of the other is an advantage. Knowledge of another UN Language is an advantage. Fluency in Portuguese is an added advantage.

No Fee

THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.