Background
The Climate change, energy, air quality (CEA) and health unit, in the Environment, Climate Change One Health and Migration Department (ECO), is leading the global monitoring of energy access and its health impacts particularly for households and health care facilities. As part of its role as custodial agency of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators on energy access, as well as its commitment under the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative, WHO must annually update these databases with new survey data and provide a set of related descriptive statistics for official reporting, technical briefings and the development of an inter-agency report on SDG 7.
Purpose of consultancy
To identify and extract survey data related to energy access and health, support the preparation of annual estimates for access to clean cooking for SDG 7 reporting, and contribute to the development of related annual reports and publications related to energy access and health statistics
Deliverables
Deliverable 1: Follow search protocol developed by WHO, search for new survey data on cooking, heating, lighting, and fuel collection, prioritizing national census and survey data. (July to December 2026)
Deliverable 2: Using WHO protocol, extract relevant data for inclusion within the WHO Household energy database, and enter this data into the database. Share database with WHO Technical Officer regularly to track progress. Also add information on search results into supplementary database to record search attempts and data location. (January 2027).
Deliverable 3: Facilitate with contacting National Statistical Offices if needed to obtain data for countries for which WHO is missing data on household energy access), to see if data points related to household energy use are available for use by WHO and any related clearance of SDG 7 annual estimates of clean cooking. (January 2027).
Deliverable 4: Prepare WHO Household energy database into format for sharing with external partners and for SDG 7 modelling team. This includes verifying outliers and responding to queries of the modelling team. (January 2027).
Deliverable 5: Participate in the SDG 7 Custodial Agency coordination calls about the SDG Tracking Progress report partner calls, occurring typically monthly (March 2027).
Deliverable 6: Contribute to related data needs including for household energy and health issues, e.g. reviewing burden of disease estimates derived from the household energy access estimates (proxy indicator for household air pollution) (October 2026).
Deliverable 7: Update related databases on energy access and health, including WHO’s Global database on health care facility electrification and ambient air pollution database when appropriate (June to March 2027).
Deliverable 8: Contribute to production and drafting of the SDG 7 Tracking Progress Report (an annual inter-agency joint report), the annual World Health Statitsics updates, IAEG SDG annual reporting, and related communication and outreach materials ( April 2027).
Qualifications, experience, skills and languages
Educational Qualifications
Essential: A first university degree in public health, statistics and/or biostatistics.
Desirable: An advanced degree in statistics or biostatistics is an asset.
Experience
Essential:
- A minimum of four years’ experience working with data management of large datasets, ideally with nationally representative survey data.
- Experience searching and identifying for relevant datasets using standardized search protocols and procedures
- Experience preparing household air pollution exposure estimates using proxy indicators at different geographic scales (e.g. national, regional)
- Experience with conducting country consultations for environmental health indicators, particularly in relation to household energy use and health impacts
- Experience in preparation of statistical reports which include forward-looking projections and policy synthesis.
Desirable:
- Experience with inter-agency coordination and product development
- Experience with the Sustainable Development Goal annual reporting systems and processes
Skills/Knowledge
Essential:
- Knowledge on the strengths/weaknesses of national household surveys and related indicators
- Application of non-hierarchical statistics modeling techniques
- Experience extracting and compiling household survey data across different datasets and modules (under experience)
- Working knowledge of data analysis programs such as STATA or R, including with writing code for extracting and processing data. Proficiency in Microsoft Excel.
- Solid understanding of the health risks and health impacts of household energy use is an asset.
Languages and level required (Basic/Intermediate/Expert)
Language: expert knowledge of English. Knowledge of other UN languages is a plus.
Location
Off site: Home-based
Travel
No anticipated travel.
Remuneration and budget (travel costs are excluded)
Remuneration: Remuneration: 6500 USD per month (Payband Level A)
Duration
Expected duration of contract (Maximum contract duration is 11 months per calendar year): 11 months (June 2026 to April 2027)
Application
If you are interested, please send your CV, cover letter and a proven record of publications related to air pollution and health by 15 April 2026 to sdg7@who.int and add "Consultancy – Data analyst " to the email's subject.