1. General Background
UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.
UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management and human resources.
Working with us
UNOPS offers short- and long-term work opportunities in diverse and challenging environments across the globe. We are looking for creative, results-focused professionals with skills in a range of disciplines.
Diversity
With over 5,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,400 personnel recruited on behalf of UNOPS partners spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a wide range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced, diverse workforce — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs, and continually strive to improve our gender balance through initiatives and policies that encourage recruitment of qualified female candidates.
Work life harmonization
UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.
Background Information –UNOPS Procurement Group
The Procurement Group (PG) is part of Implementation Practices and Standards (IPS) and is based at UNOPS HQ in Copenhagen. It leads the organization’s sustainable procurement practice and is responsible for: articulating strategy, policy positions and innovative solutions for procurement at UNOPS; enabling the operationalization and managerial oversight of UNOPS procurement activities through appropriate systems and reports; strengthening the knowledge, skills and career development of procurement practitioners; and leading the implementation of sustainable supply chains across the organization.
As a central procurement resource for the United Nations system and its partners, UNOPS emphasizes efficient, transparent, cost-effective and sustainable delivery of goods, services and works, in line with public procurement best practices. On a yearly basis, UNOPS procures approx. USD 1 Bn worth of goods, services and works on behalf of our partners. These include a broad base of categories, including life-saving pharmaceuticals, mine action equipment, vehicles or road construction services.
PG’s sustainability initiatives are led by the Head of Sustainable Supply Chains.
Background Information - Job specific
Sustainable Supply Chains go beyond simple sustainable procurement, they require strategic thinking to ensure that all activities linked to procurement integrate requirements, specifications and criteria that are compatible and in favor of the protection of the environment, of social progress and in support of economic development, namely by seeking resource efficiency, improving the quality of products and services and ultimately optimizing costs.
Since 2015, UNOPS has been a leader in sustainable procurement, and sustainability is now one of the core principles of UNOPS Procurement. We have implemented best practices such as:
● Sustainable Procurement Framework, effective as of 1st January 2020, which requires that most of our procurement processes incorporate sustainability and gender mainstreaming considerations.
● Delivering Responsibility in Vendor Engagement programme (DRiVE). DRiVE is UNOPS supplier sustainability assessment, inspection and corrective action-planning programme. Its overall scope is to ensure UNOPS vendors operate responsibly and in accordance with high standards of integrity, with a focus on human rights, labour standards, equal opportunity, code of conduct, health and safety, quality management and environmental management.
● Possibilities Programme, which is UNOPS supplier diversity and inclusion programme.
The Procurement Group has decided to create this new position to further develop and lead its approach sustainability and supply chains across the organization, including by leveraging data for sustainability, supplier capacity building, internal training and advocacy, thought leadership and innovation in sustainable procurement.
It is expected there will be constant interaction and collaboration with other PG teams and key stakeholders, including UNOPS Regions and offices, and other HQ groups such as Strategic Initiatives (SI) and Partnerships (PLG). There will also be collaboration with other UN Agencies through the HLCM-PN with a focus on the sustainable procurement working group.
Due to the nature of the job, the selected candidate is expected to travel occasionally to field offices, to conferences and other intra-agency events when relevant.