Entrepreneurship in the territories: is it the right time?
Médecins Sans Frontières is an international, independent medical and humanitarian organization that provides care to populations in need, to people affected by natural or man-made disasters and to victims of armed conflicts, without discrimination and regardless of their race, religion, belief or political affiliation (MSF Charter). The MSF movement is built around 6 operational centers supported by 24 sections and offices worldwide. The French section is present in about thirty countries. GIS at MSF has been developed as a service to MSF operations since 2013 and is, since January 2021 an Intersectional Centre of Expertise & Services serving the full Movement. 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 intersectional 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 Flying GIS for Epool applies his/her expertise into field Projects and Coordinations for the countries of intervention of the Emergency Cell. 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 Emergency Pool and the missions allocated within its portfolio, he/she is deployed for short missions to respond within short deadlines to identified GIS needs, mostly focusing on Support to Emergency response, Explos or other support to Emergency projects, adopting whenever possible the GIS centre ways of working the Emergency Response (Rapid Map, Explo Kit, Scenario response maps kit, etc…)
He/she performs background tasks during standby periods.
Objective 1: GIS Products and map production supporting projects and eprep (prospective and surge capacity)
Outputs and activities:
- Ensuring GIS needs are covered within the countries of allocation. This includes maps, GeoApps and dynamic products, mobile data collection, Earth Observation products, and data management
- Production of “on demand” maps and Geoapps (currently: Palestine, Sudan, Nigeria, Baltic Countries and for future new emergencies)
- Provide examples of GIS “use cases” & explanation of possible GIS results in the context of Emergencies
- Providing GIS support to missions for emergency preparedness plan
- Liaising with GIS Advisor and GIS Centre about potential uncovered needs and for specialized support such as GeoApps, data processes and EO - Act as interface with the GIS Centre for intersectional coordination for “on demand” requests
- Ensuring the smooth handover and transfer to the GIS Centre of tools and maps produced after each intervention, to guarantee continuity of support for operations (eg. in the event of a transition to regular operations, or in the context of the deployment of another GIS Specialist, etc.)
- Collaborate with other MSF sections on data management and GIS products/visualization in areas of shared intervention to avoid duplication
Objective 2: Responsible for the integration, cleaning and sharing of geodata within the countries of interventions.
Outputs and activities:
- Maintenance and cleaning of the core geographic layers and integration in the GIS Centre global master database
- Providing technical support for GIS data collection and GIS data cleaning in the country where he/she intervenes
- Liaise with other GIS / IM external actors
Objective 3: GIS Learning and development for the ecell and the epool
Output and activities:
- Providing technical support and capacity building to the Ecell and the Epool members, with help from the GIS Advisor and the GIS Centre when needed
- Coaching and training toward non-GIS staff within the countries of intervention or at cell level
- In case of Cell recruitment of a long-term GIS staff, ensure capacity building and training
- Facilitate exchanges and communication with GIS relays (MSF staff with GIS knowledge)
- Promote/inform about GIS and MSF GIS approach toward missions in the region
Objective 4: background tasks
Output and activities:
- While not on missions working remotely to background tasks, GIS production for the Ecell, can be required to cover other cells GIS needs
- Ensure maintenance overtime of developed products, decommission GeoApps as the crisis is over, cleaning space in AGOL/Portal, archiving products from the GeoMSF platform if needed
Software knowledges required:
1.Desktop:
- Mastering ArcGIS Pro and QGIS software and its standard extensions (network analyst, spatial analyst, etc.). This includes mastery of the interaction between desktop and web tools (ArcGIS Pro <> Portal or ArcGIS Online relationship).
- Good knowledge of FME, Power BI and Power Automate is a strong asset, or at least willingness to learn.
- Knowledge of, or interest in, coding languages : Python, Arcade.
2.Web
- Mastering Portal / ArcGIS Online (Experience Builder, dashboards)
