Location: Home-Based, Sri Lanka
Work Type: Contract, Personal Services Agreement (PSA)
Salary: Not specified
Experience Level: Minimum 4 years
Application Deadline: September 7, 2026
About FAO
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations working to defeat hunger, improve food security and promote sustainable agriculture, forestry and fisheries worldwide.
For this assignment, FAO Sri Lanka is seeking a Climate Data Analyst to support the development and institutionalization of an advanced drought prediction and anticipatory action system.
The Opportunity
The Climate Data Analyst will support climate-data analysis, drought modelling and impact-based forecasting. The successful candidate will work with climate, rainfall, vegetation, soil-moisture and other environmental datasets to develop predictive models that can strengthen early warning and anticipatory action for drought in Sri Lanka.
The assignment is home-based and is expected to involve 80 working days, WAE.
What You'll Do
Climate Data Analysis
Review, clean, harmonize and analyze historical and real-time climate and environmental datasets, including rainfall, vegetation, soil moisture and oceanic data.
Conduct exploratory data analysis, including correlation, lag-correlation, seasonality and predictor-importance analysis.
Drought Modelling
Develop, optimize and validate ARIMAX models for SPI-3 drought forecasts covering one-, two- and three-month prediction periods.
Support the development and testing of AI and machine-learning models, including Random Forest and Artificial Neural Network approaches.
Analyze drought severity, intensity and probability to improve impact-based forecasting.
Data Systems & Documentation
Support the integration of forecasting models into a web portal and help automate monthly model updates.
Prepare technical documentation, methodology notes, validation reports, source-code documentation, user manuals and operational guidelines.
Requirements
Core Qualifications
A university degree in Statistics, Data Science, Mathematics, Climate Science, Meteorology, Environmental Science or a related discipline.
At least 4 years of relevant professional experience in climate data analysis, statistical analysis, drought modelling, predictive modelling, data science or related areas.
Working knowledge of English and Sinhala and/or Tamil.
The candidate must be a Sri Lankan national or a resident of Sri Lanka with a valid work permit.
Technical Expertise
Experience with:
R, Python, SAS and SQL
Statistical analysis and data visualization
Predictive modelling and data mining
Machine learning and AI
Climate and environmental datasets
Drought modelling and forecasting
Spatial visualization and analysis
Professional Strengths
Strong analytical and quantitative skills
Ability to work with complex datasets
Experience developing and validating statistical or machine-learning models
Strong technical writing and documentation skills
Ability to work independently in a remote environment
Why This Role Matters
Drought can undermine food security, agricultural productivity, livelihoods and rural resilience. By strengthening climate forecasting and anticipatory action, this role will contribute to FAO's efforts to help governments and communities identify drought risks earlier and respond before impacts escalate.
Apply
Interested candidates should review the full vacancy requirements and submit their application through FAO's official careers portal.
Application Deadline: September 7, 2026
Job Number: 2601818
Apply here: https://jobs.fao.org/careersection/fao_external/jobdetail.ftl?job=2601818