• JO# 16945 – ICT Associate (Applications) – G6 – UNHCR FTA Contract – Beirut, Lebanon

Eight years into the Syria crisis, Lebanon remains the country hosting the largest number of refugees per capita, with nearly 950,000  Syrian refugees registered with UNHCR, about 20,000 refugees of other origins - mostly Iraqi - and Palestine refugees under UNRWA’s mandate.  There are no formal camps for Syrian refugees in Lebanon, and refugees are living in hundreds of communities and locations across the country.

The refugee response is led by the Government and UNHCR and UNDP, supported by the international community. As the designated lead agency in the refugee response, UNHCR has established a sector-based structure in Beirut and in the field. The structure brings together over 150 UN agencies, national and international NGO partners [over 150 actors, including UN agencies, national and international NGOs and Ministries] in identifying and agreeing on the strategic priorities to address the needs of Syrian refugees and vulnerable Lebanese communities. The Lebanon Chapter of the Response Plan falls under the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP), whereby UNHCR guides the refugee response and UNDP facilitates the resilience and stabilization component.

The UNHCR operational response in Lebanon is one of the largest for the organization. Media attention and the frequency of influential high-profile visitors is high. The Office has grown substantially in the past years and is currently operating with around 650 staff. Aside from the country office in the capital city of Beirut, UNHCR has field offices in Mountt Lebanon, Qobayat, Tripoli, Tyre and Zahle.

The position is supervised by a professional staff member who provides the incumbent with general guidance and work plans. The incumbent works quite independently with an oversight from the supervisor. The position may directly supervise some support staff.

Contacts are mainly with the colleagues in the same duty station to exchange information and to discuss the work plans. External contacts are with the national and local authorities for gathering and exchange of data.

FUNCTIONAL STATEMENT

Accountability (key results that will be achieved)

• The Office has reliable (Performance, Bugs, Design) inhouse developed applications according to the industry standards.
• The Office inhouse developed applications uptime is more than 99.97
• Maintaining the source code and backups for the development environment to insure that SLA recovery time objective and recovery point objective is met.

Responsibility (process and functions undertaken to achieve results)

• Manage the use, maintenance and technical support of databases used in the operation, including planning and overseeing data collection, input and verifications; production of standard and ad hoc reports.
• Build statistical reports based on the standard reporting formats and adhoc reports, charts and tables as required by the management.
• Implement security and data protection principle and standards, comply with project plans and industry standards.
• Maintain quality, ensure responsiveness of applications and perform quality assurance testing, design the test plans and UAT, maintain upto-date test environment that matches the live environment.
• Collaborate with the rest of the engineering team to design and launch new features, Identify ideas to improve system performance and impact availability.
• Maintain code integrity and organization, follow the agreed standards and suggest ways to enhance the existing ones,
• Write well designed, testable, efficient code.
• Troubleshoot technical issues, Facilitate root cause analysis of system issues, review new and existing code and/or perform unit testing.
• Document and maintain software functionality.
• Design stable, reliable and effective databases system keeping security and performance in well balance and find solutions to complex system requirements by utilizing the features which SQL server has to offer.
• Provide comprehensive support to internal customers; achieve resolution to outstanding problems or issues.
• Provide training, as necessary, to UNHCR staff as well as partners to new published modules.                  
• Test, maintain and recommend software improvements to ensure strong functionality and optimization.
• Analyse user requirements and convert requirements to design documents.
• Perform other related duties as required.

Authority (decisions made in executing responsibilities and to achieve results)

• Decide on the database and application design.
• Develop applications and tools to serve the office requirements.
• Have access to relevant data and records.