GIS Specialist – Emergency Support

Médecins Sans Frontières is an independent, international medical and humanitarian organization that provides care to people in need, people affected by natural or man-made disasters, and victims of armed conflict, without discrimination and without regard to race, religion, creed or political affiliation (MSF Charter). The MSF movement is built around 5 operational centers supported by 24 sections and offices worldwide.

GIS at MSF has been developed as a service to MSF operations since 2013. In January 2021, the GIS services was transformed in an Intersectional Centre of Expertise & Services effectively serving the full Movement. The GIS Centre is coordinated out of Geneva and organized as a network of internal and external partners spread out across France, Austria, and Czech Republic, etc.

MSF’ GIS core mission is to support informed decision-making through better spatial comprehension, enhancing the focus of health services around patients, and increasing the impact and efficiency of MSF’s regular and emergency interventions. GIS Service team aims to provide an inter-MSF operational support system, thanks to a framework of dedicated tools and services, that is reliable, agile, adapted to emergency contexts and needs, timely, and efficient.

The position will divide his/her time between field missions (50%) and the GIS Centre team at head office (50%).

The GIS Specialist – Emergency Support, begins the first phase of an emergency support remotely at HQ with standardized GIS products e.g. rapid maps, reference maps, Context maps, etc. He/she also actively participate to GIS emergency support coordination, data integration and external products harvesting.

When deployed to missions, he/she applies his/her expertise into field Projects and Coordinations for the countries of intervention of the Emergency Pool, whether for a particular OC or in intersection He/she provides strategic technical support to coordination and field according to MSF GIS Centre policies, guidelines, and procedures in order to support the broad operational objectives of the missions.

Aiming to respond to the needs of the missions requesting GIS support, he/she is responds within short deadlines in order to identified GIS needs, mostly focusing on Support to Emergency response & preparedness, Exploratory mission and/or other support to Emergency projects, adopting whenever possible the GIS Centre ways of working the Emergency Response Kit (Rapid Map, Explo Kit, Scenario response maps kit, etc.) either deployed or from OC office.

He/she performs background capitalisation tasks that focus on enhancing MSF GIS Centre emergency prepardness and foster common best practices with decentralized flying team.

He/She ensures high quality GIS response to emergency by being:

• Responsible of providing a structured and gradual GIS support to missions for emergencies (maps, GeoApp and dynamic products, mobile data collection, earth observation products, data, etc.)
• Participating actively in the coordination of GIS emergencies response, especially for intersection work
• Responsible of providing support to missions for emergency preparedness plan
• Participate to improvement of process and products delivered by the GIS Centre for emergency.
• Responsible to gather feedback from GIS Flyings on GIS Products & Services on offer.
• Participate actively in the communication between the centralised Mapping team and decentralised Flying team.
• Participate in on call support for emergencies outside of regular working hours.

Education

• Tertiary degree in engineering, geography, GIS, cartography, surveying, geology, computer science/studies or related field or equivalent experience.
• Post-graduate diploma / certificate/ proven experience in humanitarian GIS or data management, and project management is a strong asset.

Experience

• 3 to 5 years of work experience in humanitarian/GIS humanitarian is required.
• 1 year of work experience in a similar experience
• Experience in an international and multicultural environment.

Skills/ Technical competencies

• Excellent understanding of the humanitarian sector and the application of GIS within the sector
• Mastering ArcGIS Pro software
• Mastering various tools in Esri suite
• Natural leadership and influence in teamwork
• Excellent knowledge of project management and time management
• Strong capacity to capture the end users needs and good sense of support.
• Knowledge of Mobile Data Collection tools is an asset.
• Knowledge of FME or other integration tools is a plus.
• Knowledge of QGIS is plus.

Languages

• Fluent in English and French (oral and written), both are mandatory.

Personal Abilities/Qualities

• Outstanding capacity to deliver.
• Autonomous and very well organized
• Excellent team player and supportive
• Strong oral and written presentation skills
• Interpersonal-cultural sensitivity
• Quality and results oriented.
• Openness, curiosity, practical and pragmatic spirit
• Committed to MSF values.

Terms of Employment

• Full-time position 100% (40h/week)
• Fixed-ended contract
• Working place: Geneva, Switzerland
• Ideal start date: 02.09.2024
• Gross annual salary (for 100%): from CHF 86'508.- to CHF 99'612.- (salary commensurate with equivalent experience and internal salary grid)
• Paid vacation: 25 days per year, prorate temporis, plus any Swiss public holidays falling within the contract period.
• Pension plan: pension contribution covered 3/4 by MSF, 1/4 by staff member.
• Relocation package if moving from a different country to Switzerland.

Candidates submit their application following the requirements: CV 2 p. max. – letter of motivation 1p. max. – in French or English.

Deadline for application is August 15th, 2024.

We reserve the right to close the position early if we consider the number and quality of applications received to be sufficient.

The applications will be treated confidentially.

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

Only applications submitted on our recruitment platforms will be considered.

Please note that we do not wish to use the services of recruitment or placement agencies.

At MSF, we are committed to an inclusive culture that encourages and supports the diverse voices of our staff members. We strive to create workplaces where teams of people with diverse backgrounds, characteristics, perspectives, ideas and experiences work together for the social mission of MSF to create better outcomes for our patients and the communities we work with.

We welcome applications from individuals of all genders, ages, sexual orientations, ethnicities, background, religions, beliefs, ability status, and all other diversity characteristics.

MSF does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of discrimination or harassment, including sexual harassment. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo reference checks.