Statistical Information Systems (SIS) Specialist

Support for the Development of a National Statistical System for Disaster-Related Statistics

Country: Anguilla

Background
Caribbean countries are exposed to high levels of risk from meteorological hazards, which have significant negative impacts on their economic and fiscal stability. These natural hazards are being exacerbated by the adverse effects of climate change – intensifying hazard patterns and increasing stress on water availability, coastal investments, and livelihoods. The high costs of recovery and reconstruction have resulted in increased debt, unsustainable budgetary deficits, and unreliable funding streams for many countries in the Caribbean. Absence of macroeconomic stability makes it harder for Caribbean countries to implement poverty reduction policies.

Anguilla is a micro-state, one of the five United Kingdom (UK) Overseas Territories in the Caribbean. Lying at the northern end of the eastern Caribbean island chain, it covers an area of 90 square kilometers. Anguilla has a GDP of US$ 281.1 million and a population of 17,422. While tourism and construction are the main economic drivers and employment suppliers in Anguilla, the economy is fueled by luxury tourism, offshore banking, fishing, and remittances. Services, primarily tourism, account for 76.3% of GDP, followed by industry, which represents 21.3%, and agriculture 2.4% of GDP. In 2017 Hurricane Irma caused severe damages and losses in Anguilla. One life was lost, and homes, as well as businesses across the island, were severely damaged.

In the wake of Hurricane Irma, the Government of Anguilla (GoA) has requested assistance from the Caribbean Disaster Risk Financing Technical Assistance (DRFTA) Program administered by the World Bank Group – Urban, Disaster Risk Management, Resilience and Land Global Practice (GPURL). This Program presents recommendations for a cost-effective, disaster risk financing strategies in the Caribbean. The Program also aims to build institutional capacity on catastrophe risk financing as well as identify catastrophe risk financing of affordable and effective options in countries based on a concrete understanding of the exposure of the national Government to disaster losses derived from the Country Disaster Risk Profiles (CDRP) and disaster risk financing tools currently in use and available to the country. Under the DRFTA, the GoA is seeking to improve its capability to assess the social and financial impacts of disasters through the integration of information systems. The main objective of this consultation is the design of a statistical database necessary for quantification of disaster damage and loss.

The lead agency for this initiative is the Anguilla Statistics Department, which is the National Statistical Office (NSO) of the country. The mandate of the Statistics Department is set out in Section 2 of the Statistics Act of 2000:

• to collect, compile, analyse, abstract, and publish statistical information relative to the commercial, industrial, social, economic, and general activities and conditions of the people who are the inhabitants of Anguilla;
• to collaborate with all other departments of Government and with local authorities in the collection, computation, and publication of statistical records of administration;
• to take any census in Anguilla; and
• generally, to organize a coordinated scheme of social and economic statistics and intelligence pertaining to Anguilla.

This mandate requires collaboration with many agencies within the GoA. Due to a lack of official policies around data sharing within the GoA, the NSO relies on ad-hoc arrangements with other agencies around the sharing of data. This has resulted in a lack of interoperability between various systems and a lack of coordination between agencies when implementing new information systems. Consequently, the NSO needs to expend limited staff time to discover new datasets and then to transform data to models appropriate for the creation of statistics.

The need for producing data necessary for decision making has been noted as a priority by the GoA. The NSO has also emphasized the need for coordination of information systems across the Government. Since 2014, the NSO has been pursuing the creation of a National Statistical System (NSS). The system is primarily being developed in-house by the NSO. Additionally, the Department of Information Technology and E-Government Services (the central information and communications technology (ICT) authority in the GoA) has been pursuing the creation of a GoA ICT Strategy, which is currently in the proposal stage.

Disaster events further stress the NSO as the Agency is tasked with providing information vital for decision making on short notice. In 2017, Hurricane Irma caused severe damage across Anguilla. In the aftermath of the disaster, the NSO was expected to provide immediate information on the hurricane impacts. Still, it found that it did not have the information readily available to produce the necessary statistics and did not have an appreciation of the quality of the information available from other agencies.

The DRFTA program will be assisting the NSO in improving their ability to produce statistics vital for disaster response and recovery. The project has two main components: (1) an assessment of the information architecture of the GoA by an ICT Specialist consultant hired as part of this project and based in Anguilla. Based on this assessment, (2) an expert in Statistical Information Systems (SIS) will work with the project ICT Specialist to craft metadata for the NSS and develop statistics required for the assessment of disaster impacts. These Terms of Reference (ToR) outlines the activities to be performed by the SIS expert. The desired outcome of this project would be to create a design for a springboard from which a response can be launched by the Government of Anguilla to dynamically cater to the need for data to make decisions promptly. Decisions that can be made with the knowledge and comfort that the data used is of good quality, mainly coherent and consistent across the system after a disaster event. To this end, the World Bank Group (The Client) is seeking the services of a qualified consultant, an expert in Statistical Information Systems (SIS), to undertake a series of tasks outlined within this ToR.

Objectives
The main objective of this assignment is to build the capacity of the NSO to be able to produce statistics required to assess the impact of disasters, including; damages, losses, and financial expenditures.

The goals associated with this objective are:

• Identification of statistics required for disaster impact assessment by the GoA
• Capacity built at the NSO for the generation of disaster impact statistics
• Increased capacity at the NSO for data collection, sharing, and management
• Development of designs and specifications for key components of the NSSScope of Work
  The Statistical Information Systems (SIS) consultant is expected to undertake the following tasks:

Task 1 – Review Background Materials to Develop a Work Plan

• The consultant will liaise with the NSO and World Bank team to produce a work plan for undertaking this assignment. The work plan will outline the methodologies for undertaking the tasks in this ToR, deliverables, and associated timelines.
• To assist in the development of the work plan, the consultant will review the following background documents:
a. The UN-ESCAP Disaster-Related Statistics Framework 1
b. UN-ECLAC Assessment of the Effects and Impacts Caused by Hurricane Irma Anguilla 2017
c. Sound Statistics for Sustainable Development through Collaboration and Coordination” — National Statistical System for Anguilla (Government of Anguilla, 2014)
d. GOA – ICT Strategy and Road Map & Population Registration and Identity Management System
e. Other relevant documents as provided by the client or the GoA
• The client will approve the work plan before activities begin.

Task 2- Development of Disaster-Related Statistics
• The consultant will undertake a series of tasks to gain an understanding of the status quo within the GoA with regards to the policies, procedures, and data sources necessary for the generation of statistics required for the creation of disaster damage and loss statistics. The findings from Task 2 will inform the development of the metadata catalogue (Task 3) and the design of the database (Task 4) in this ToR.

2.1 Review NSO Operations and Status of the NSS

• The consultant will review the enabling environment and operations of the NSO. The review of the enabling environment will investigate available legislation and policies pertaining to statistics and disaster management within the GoA. The analysis of operations will map and examine workflows, budgets, personnel capacity, and the existence of standard operating procedures for the development of statistics. It will also look at the standards and technologies employed by the NSO with regard to the production of statistics. The consultant will also coordinate with the project ICT Specialist to determine the institutional arrangements the NSO has for information exchange with other GoA agencies.
• The SIS consultant will also determine the current status of the NSS and report on the current plan for the development of the system.

2.2 Determine Required Statistics and Methodologies

• The consultant will determine the statistics required by the GoA for the assessment of disaster impacts. To complete this task, the consultant will first assemble a list of all the necessary statistics, based on the Hurricane Irma Post-Disaster Needs Assessment, the UN-ESCAP Disaster-Related
1 https://communities.unescap.org/asia-pacific-expert-group-disaster-relat…
Statistics Framework, and other relevant documents. From the UN-ESCAP Framework, the consultant should focus on summary tables C, D, E, and DRRE.

2.2.1 Data Sources and Gaps

• The SIS consultant will then work with the project ICT Specialist to identify possible national and international data sources for the collection of the required statistics. As part of this process, the consultant will consult the Information Architecture assessment assembled by the project ICT Specialist and identify and document national data gaps, which would be critical to address to be able to generate the necessary statistics effectively.
• The consultant will also make recommendations, which are within the capability of the GoA to implement, for the collection of the required statistics. These will include both recommendations for implementation within the NSO and recommendations for the wider GoA, possibly including the creation of agreements (such as Memoranda of Understanding (MoU)) with agencies producing key data sources. 2.2.2. Statistic Generation Procedures and Training

• After the data sources have been identified (as per Task 2.2.1), the consultant will develop procedures for the generation of the identified statistics. The procedures will include the identified data sources and workflows required to go from data to statistics. The consultant will validate the procedures with the staff of the NSO through a series of working/training sessions where the consultant will lead staff through each of the proposed processes and refine these processes together with staff until they can competently perform them without supervision. The consultant will also provide a step by step manual of the procedures upon completion of the validation exercise.

Task 3 – Support the Development of a Metadata Catalogue

• The consultant will work with the project ICT Specialist consultant to develop a metadata catalogue to support the NSS. This catalogue will be used to document all datasets managed by the NSO and the other agencies participating in the information architecture assessment conducted by the project ICT Specialist. The resulting catalogue will provide an international standards-compliant way of documenting datasets that will be compatible with metadata catalogue server software and allow for the integration of data and systems.

3.1 Definition of a Metadata Profile
• The consultant will work with the World Bank Task Team to define a metadata profile based on an international standard such as the Generic Statistical Information Model, SDMX, DCAT, Dublin Core, or ISO 19115 or a combination of profiles appropriate for various data types. The consultant will define a set of standards-based metadata terms and associated definitions and present these in a table format for review and approval by the NSO and the client.
• The profile should be set up to document a variety of data types, including documents, geospatial datasets, spreadsheets, and other data types, as determined necessary by the ICT Specialist and NSO.
• The profile will initially be limited to the minimum required for the agencies assessed in this consultancy. The consultant is advised to use a profile compatible with a standards-based metadata server such as pycsw or a statistical standards-based metadata server such as Fusion Registry.
At a minimum, the metadata profile assembled should allow documenting the following:

• Dataset name
• Dataset creator
• Dataset owner
• Responsible Agency
• Creation date
• Last updated
• Format
• Sharing terms and restrictions
• Keywords/Tagging
• Applicable licensing terms/Copyright
• Description/Abstract
• Dataset location (URL and/or Physical Address)
• Attributes and Attribute types and definitions

3.1.2 Develop a Metadata Workbook

• The consultant will work with the ICT Specialist to assemble a metadata workbook based on the profile developed under Task 3.1 of this ToR and the inventory of datasets. The workbook will contain a spreadsheet with rows corresponding to individual datasets and the columns corresponding to metadata tags from the profile. The spreadsheet will also contain hyperlinks to the datasets where they are available through the GoA network or through the general internet, where possible. The spreadsheet will contain validation and filtering capability to allow for sanitized input of metadata and searching.
• The workbook will also contain spreadsheets with; definitions of the metadata tags, and possibly mapping between statistical/geospatial metadata profiles/tags, if required.
• If the budget allows, the consultant may also undertake the establishment of a metadata catalogue using the assembled worksheet as a demonstration exercise for the GoA. The consultant, in collaboration with the project ICT Specialist, will document the setup of such a solution in a replicable manner.

3.2 Train GoA Officers on Metadata Maintenance
• The consultant, together with the project ICT Specialist, will provide training to NSO staff on the maintenance of the metadata worksheet, including searching, entering, and updating metadata. It is expected that the consultant will provide a manual of standard operating procedures for metadata maintenance for training participants.

3.3 Metadata Server Solution for the NSS
• To build on the capability for metadata management and sharing, the consultant will work with the ICT Specialist and the NSO to develop requirements for a metadata server and associated GUI-based metadata management application, which could form part of the NSS.
• The consultant will identify possible off-the-shelf solutions that could fit the requirements which have recurring costs that can fit within the budget of the NSO and in the national ICT infrastructure.
• The consultant will also provide a work plan outlining the general steps which will be required to move from a spreadsheet to a metadata server application.

Task 4 – Design of a Database for Disaster-related Statistics
• A well-designed database will make it possible to generate reliable damage and loss statistics quickly. The consultant will lead the design of a database, while working along with other technical experts on the task team, to create a database design to support the processes and statistics identified under Task 2. The database will not be developed under the scope of this ToR, and the design must be completed in a way that can make it possible to complete the implementation.
• The design needs to be as technology agnostic as possible unless otherwise specified by the client and NSO, and it needs to align, at a minimum, with the post-disaster needs assessment (PDNA) standards outlined by the WB, UN and EU.

The design will consist of:

1. Clearly defined requirements based on the needs of the NSO, and other relevant GoA agencies. The requirements should contain:
   a. Data QA/QC rules and any processing steps to be completed within the database
   b. User access and other security requirements, including logging
   c. Output formats and reporting requirements
   d. Requirements relevant for establishing the database within the NSS and the GoA ICT infrastructure
2. Conceptual and Logical Data Models (LDM). The LDM should include entity-relationship diagrams.
3. A clear process for linking between the database entities and the metadata catalogue.
4. Roles and responsibilities required for the continuous maintenance of the database by the NSO or relevant agency, along with the outline of a training plan for the staff in maintaining the database.
5. A proposed work plan schedule for database implementation, outlining the tasks required.
6. Other components deemed relevant by the client/consultant.
   Task 5 – Final Report
   The consultant will assist the World Bank Task Team in the composition of a final report documenting the process and outcomes of this project.
   Expected Deliverables
   Task 1:
   • Approved Work Plan
   Task 2:
   • Memo on the operations of the NSO and the status of the NSS as defined in Task 2.1
   • Report on the data sources, gaps and associated recommendation as defined in Task 2.2.1
   • Manual for statistics generation as defined in Task 2.2.2
   Task 3:
   • Approved Metadata Profile with a Terms and Definitions table
   • Manual of standard operating procedures for metadata management
   • Memo of requirements and recommendations for a metadata server solution
   Task 4:
   • Database requirements, as defined in Task 4
   • Data models, as defined in Task 4
   • Proposal for linking the database and metadata, as per Task 4
   • Database maintenance memo, as per Task 4
   • Database implementation work plan, as per Task 4
   Task 5:
   • Inputs for the final report, as required by the Task Team Leader
   Required Qualifications
   • Master’s Degree, or equivalent, in Computer Science, Economics, Information Systems, Business, Public Administration, Statistics, or related field.
   • At least 10 years of professional work experience in a data science, software engineering, economics, and/or statistics role.
   • Demonstrable professional experience with the use and development of statistics for a System of National Accounts (SNA).
   • Demonstrable professional experience with the design of statistical tables, built from queries to a central database, for national, or equivalent, statistical offices.
   • Demonstrable professional experience with the development of statistical reports for decision-makers/public audiences.
   • Demonstrable professional experience with the design and implementation of SQL databases for housing statistics information in the last 10 years.
   • Demonstrable professional experience with internationally recognized statistical metadata standards; such as SDMX (Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange) in the last 10 years.
   • Experience with the design and development of National Statistical Systems is an asset.
   • Experience with the development of statistics for damage and loss assessment is an asset.
   • Experience with geospatial information management and associated standards (Open Geospatial Consortium Standards) is an asset.
   • Past participation in a team performing a Post-Disaster Needs Assessment is an asset.
   • Professional writing and speaking capability in the English language.
   • Experience in the Caribbean region is an asset.
   Reporting Arrangements
   • The consultant will work in collaboration with the World Bank Task Team for this assignment as well as the Government of Anguilla Department of Statistics. Due to COVID-19 related travel restrictions, all tasks are expected to be performed remotely.
   • The consultant will be expected to report regularly to the TTL and the Task Team on their progress and flag any obstacles which may hinder the completion of tasks as soon as they come up.
   • The client’s Task Team Leader (TTL) for this assignment is Ms. Mary Boyer (Disaster Risk Management Specialist, GPURL). Payments will be authorized, based on the successful completion of expected deliverables, by the TTL.
   Duration and Estimated Time Input
   • This consultancy is expected to end on June 30th, 2021
   • The expected time input for all tasks will be 60 working days (8-hour days)