Consultant in human rights monitoring, civic space, democracy, rule of law, or related thematic work

The consultant will support two regional initiatives by establishing harmonized workflows, improving data collection and quality control, and enhancing the availability and usability of information on attacks against human rights defenders, journalists, and trade unionists. The role involves coordination with multiple stakeholders and maintaining structured datasets and shared resources.

Responsibilities

• Strengthened operational readiness of the two regional initiatives through the establishment of harmonized workflows, data collection arrangements, source identification practices, and quality control procedures across the seven target countries.
• Improved availability of structured and regularly updated information on attacks against human rights defenders, journalists and trade unionists through systematic open-source monitoring, traceable data entry and organized maintenance of the regional dataset.
• Improved quality, consistency and usability of the attacks monitoring dataset through preliminary verification support, data cleaning, standardization, de-duplication and source cross-checking.
• Strengthened regional knowledge of civil society organizations working on human rights through the structured collection and organization of information on their profiles, thematic focus, geographic reach, capacities, needs, networks and exposure to risk.
• Improved institutional organization, continuity and analytical use of information generated under both projects through the maintenance of shared working resources, source and contact files, reference materials and periodic progress updates.
• Strengthened technical alignment, coordination and adaptive implementation of the two initiatives through regular follow-up meetings, technical review sessions, and feedback loops with the Emergency Response Team, the designated Human Rights Officer and Information Management Officer, relevant thematic focal points in the Regional Office, and OHCHR Headquarters, as applicable.
• Participation in virtual meetings organized by the Emergency Response Team with representatives of civil society organizations, where relevant.

Requirements

• First university degree in information management, social sciences, political science, international relations, human rights, development studies, statistics, data management, communications, law or another relevant field required.
• Demonstrated experience in data collection, information management, desk research, database maintenance and quality assurance.
• Experience supporting human rights monitoring, civic space, democracy, rule of law or related thematic work.
• Experience working with structured datasets, online forms, Excel and similar tools.
• Knowledge of Power Query, Power BI, Seatable, ActivityInfo or similar tools is desirable.
• Ability to conduct open-source monitoring, organize traceable source records, and maintain structured shared filing systems.
• Familiarity with Latin American contexts, especially South America, is desirable.
• Ability to work in a highly coordinated environment, participate in regular technical review meetings, and incorporate substantive and methodological feedback from multiple stakeholders into ongoing work and revised outputs.
• Working knowledge of Spanish and English, spoken and written.
• Knowledge of Portuguese is highly desirable.

Skills

• Data Collection
• Information Management
• Desk Research
• Database Maintenance
• Quality Assurance
• Human Rights Monitoring
• Civic Space Analysis
• Democracy Support
• Rule of Law Monitoring
• Structured Dataset Management
• Online Forms Management
• Excel
• Open-Source Monitoring
• Traceable Source Records
• Shared Filing Systems
• Power Query
• Power BI
• Seatable
• ActivityInfo
• Workflow Harmonization
• Data Quality Assurance
• Stakeholder Coordination

Languages

Spanish, English, Portuguese