Procurement and Supply Chain Management Specialist (Health products)

Based in Geneva, the Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECR) supports UNOPS offices throughout the region through: management, financial and programmatic oversight of global and country-specific portfolios, clusters and operations centres, including hosting services; fund and management advisory services; project implementation; procuring goods and services; and managing human resources.

ECR ensures that projects are executed to the highest standards, providing a shared knowledge base and ensuring that best practices and lessons learned are disseminated between business units and projects across the entire region.

 ECR strategy is to:

• Strengthen UNOPS role in operationalizing the Sustainable Development Goals with particular emphasis on health, environment and economic development.
• Position UNOPS in the Balkan sub-region, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
• Strengthen the implementation of ECR global and regional programmes, with revitalized partnerships in infrastructure, procurement and project management.

ECR operates global portfolios from offices in Geneva, Brussels and New York, and country-specific programmes from its operations and project centres located in Eastern Europe and Central Asian countries.

The Global Fund does not have a country-level presence outside of its central Secretariat in Geneva. Instead, it hires third party Local Fund Agents (LFAs) to oversee, verify and report on grant performance. LFAs are selected through a competitive bidding process.

The Global Fund typically engages one LFA in each country where its grant funds are disbursed. The LFA provides access to local knowledge that is relevant to grant performance. The Global Fund adheres to the principles of performance-based funding in making disbursement decisions. The aim is to ensure that investments are made only where funding is managed and spent effectively on programs that achieve impact in fighting the relevant diseases. The LFA is a crucial part of the Global Fund’s system of oversight and risk management. Its principal role is to provide informed and independent professional advice about the capacity of fund/grant recipients to manage the implementation of activities funded by grant funds (including the recipient’s capacity to oversee implementation of activities by implementing parties), to make recommendations concerning periodic disbursement of grant funds, to review grant performance when a grant is being considered for renewal, and to provide the donor on an on-going basis with relevant information on issues or risks which might affect grant performance.

The LFA is expected to have an up-to-date and comprehensive understanding of relevant diseases in the EECA region (HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis), how they are prevented, transmitted and treated, and their impact on a specific country. The LFA team assesses the recipients’ institutional and health/programmatic capacities and arrangements to ensure adequate health expertise (HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis) in the implementation of the donor grant funds. The LFA team also determines whether the recipient has adequate infrastructure and information systems to support grant implementation, including the monitoring of performance of implementing partners and outsourced entities in a timely and accountable manner. The Global Fund has adopted an intensive risk management approach to services with enhanced effort toward in-depth verifications and reporting. The identification of financial and programmatic risks with ongoing updates shall be provided the donor with special attention to the overall context of the relevant diseases and grant implementation in country. Since 2020, the scope of the LFA work was broadened to encompass assurance of activities delivered by implementers with additional funding from the Covid 19 Response Mechanism (C19RM) of the Global Fund.

The regional Procurement/Supply Chain Specialist (Health products) will be home-based and will report to the Portfolio Manager, as well as to the LFA Team Leader for the assigned country or countries. The incumbent will lead the technical area of procurement and supply management for health products and ensure that all PSM work delivered to the client is of high quality and completed within the timeframes set with the client. The incumbent travels to the countries as necessary to perform spot checks and other verifications.

The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.  

Under the supervision of the Portfolio Manager, the incumbent is required to perform the function of procurement/supply chain specialist (health products) for the allocated UNOPS LFA in the EECA region by carrying out the following activities:

Report reviews: Review progress update reports and disbursement requests, as well as reprogramming requests submitted by the grant recipients as per the following:

• Review the performance of the procurement work plans and assess their efficiency and effectiveness, identify weaknesses and strengths and make recommendations for necessary follow-up by the grantees;

• Review the resources allocation plan (funds and personnel), assessment of targets and achievement, storage and delivery aspects and its implementation, identify weakness and success relating to procurement and make recommendations for necessary follow up by the grant recipients;

• Review and clearance of the recipients’ PSM plans, using the template for assessment and advise whether the grant recipients meet the required minimum capacities for implementing the programme as listed in the PSM assessment guidelines and framework. This will include compiling information on supply procurement and distribution system from various documents, discussing with the grant recipients and visiting various offices located in-country.

• Debrief grant recipients and implementing partners’ staff members on the main findings from the verifications;

• Cross verification of PSM data with M&E and health/programmatic, management and financial data/information;

• Conduct comprehensive PSM analysis and reflect in the PSM-related section of the mandatory reporting template.

• As required conduct verification and analysis of the drugs forecasts drawn by the grant recipients.

On-site and remote assessments: Conduct regular visits, including field visits, to the grant recipients and implementing partners offices and sites and provide independent opinion and analysis on the procurement/ supply chain management by the relevant parties. Such on-site and remote assessments follow the donor framework approach, by using the forms, checklists and questionnaires provided by the donor as guides or tools. This includes:

• Organize and lead recipient assessments, and procurement/supply chain reviews to provide informed and independent professional advice to the donor about the capacity of recipients to effectively manage and implement the donor grant funds from a PSM-perspective; 

• Identify whether the recipient is able to coordinate and otherwise manage pharmaceutical and health products management systems which can:

a) Collect, record and report programmatic data with appropriate quality control measures

b) Support the preparation of regular, reliable programmatic reports; 

c) Make data available for the purpose of evaluations and other studies: and

d) Identify key weaknesses and risks of capacities on the recipient and provide specific recommendations for strengthening and level of enforcement.

Implementation Reviews and Quality Assurance:

• Identify PSM weaknesses and make recommendations with timeframes for necessary follow up by the grant recipients and implementing partners during capacity assessment, grant-making or implementation monitoring;

• Suggest remedial measures on the potential weaknesses in the management of implementing partners, to  ensure the optimum utilization of donor grant money and safeguarding the funds against any fraud;

• Undertake preliminary quality assurance of the LFA PSM deliverables to be submitted to the donor, to ensure that these are in line with contemporary professional standards;  

• Discuss with the team leader any other institutional and PSM aspects to be reviewed and take action accordingly; 

• Identify risks which may lead to diversion of health and non health products/frauds 

• Identify if the products under the grant are used for the purpose for which they were procured

• Conduct desk review and physical verification of goods procured under the grants.

• Verify that all the procurements have been made in line with applicable quality assurance policies.

• Identify overstocking /under stocking situations in the supply chain which may lead to unwarranted expiration/out of stock situation.

• Assess that the health and non-health procurements have been carried out in transparent manner using competitive procedures in line with donor and national guidelines/regulations and bring adequate value for money.

• Carry out price quality reporting auditing for all covered pharmaceuticals and health products, whenever required.

• Immediately raise all suspicious acts, transactions and activities and processes which may pose potential risks, misconduct, mismanagement, misuse and frauds by grant recipients and implementing partners to the attention of the relevant team leader;

• Conduct quality assurance of PSM reports and analysis produced by other colleagues;

• In conducting the above tasks, ensure that relevant guidelines and policies are adhered to including the ones which are related to the PSM functional area. The respective international guidelines (e.g. WHO, UNAIDS, etc) shall be also consulted and followed. 

Management & client relations:

• Foster an atmosphere of team spirit, mutual respect and professional independence when collaborating with LFA team members;

• Assist the donor in grant negotiations;

• Assist the donor in grant closure activities;

• Demonstrate an overall understanding of the grant architecture and in-depth knowledge of all team activities required to be performed as described in the donor manual;

• Remain updated on donor guidelines and procedures, timeframes for completion of team activities, and the forms and templates to be used in the field of work;

• Perform other duties as per the donor manual and/or as assigned/ required. 

Monitoring and Progress Controls

Progress against the work plans and overall performance will be routinely discussed with the team leader, portfolio manager and the client. PSM-specific outputs of the LFA specialist will be assessed -annually by the Global Fund, and UNOPS according to their performance evaluation procedures.

• A post-graduate degree in Public Health, Pharmacy, Pharmacology, Medicine or other related discipline is required.
• A Bachelor degree with 2 years of additional experience may be accepted in lieu of the Master's degree
• Professional complementary training in procurement and supply management (PSM) of health products, logistics and/or public health is desired.

• At least 5 years of experience in managing or advising on the procurement, distribution and supply of health products, particularly in the EECA region, with expertise in supply and demand issues in the implementation of public health programs;

• Experience in assessing policies, systems and structures in the public and/or private health sector that are relevant for managing effective and efficient access to pharmaceuticals, and other health products, particularly for HIV and TB, focusing on identifying relevant strengths and weaknesses and on developing action oriented recommendations; knowledge of MDR-TB and covid 19 a strong asset;

• A strong understanding of HIV and TB market dynamics and existing global supply challenges as well as international health products procurement and supply management processes, applicable national and international laws and recognized standards is a strong asset. 

• Experience in quantification and forecasting of health products needs in public health programs is a strong asset. 

• Fluency in written and oral English is required. 
• Intermediate knowledge in Russian is required.

• Please note that UNOPS does not accept unsolicited resumes.

• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.

• Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process, which involves various assessments.

• UNOPS embraces diversity and is committed to equal employment opportunity. Our workforce consists of many diverse nationalities, cultures,  languages, races, gender identities, sexual orientations, and abilities. UNOPS seeks to sustain and strengthen this diversity to ensure equal opportunities as well as an inclusive working environment for its entire workforce. 

• Qualified women and candidates from groups which are underrepresented in the UNOPS workforce are encouraged to apply. These include in particular candidates from racialized and/or indigenous groups, members of minority gender identities and sexual orientations, and people with disabilities.

• We would like to ensure all candidates perform at their best during the assessment process.  If you are shortlisted and require additional assistance to complete any assessment, including reasonable accommodation, please inform our human resources team when you receive an invitation.

Terms and Conditions 

• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post. 

• For retainer contracts, you must complete a few Mandatory Courses (they take around 4 hours to complete) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS. For more information on a retainer contract here.

• All UNOPS personnel are responsible for performing their duties in accordance with the UN Charter and UNOPS Policies and Instructions, as well as other relevant accountability frameworks. In addition, all personnel must demonstrate an understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a manner consistent with UN core values and the UN Common Agenda.

• It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential personnel. Recruitment in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.