The Position:
The Commodity Management Team Lead is located in the West and Central Africa Regional Office (WCARO) and reports to the Deputy Regional Director, WCARO while acting as the de facto team lead for the regional Supply Chain Management Unit (SCMU) staff. S/he will work closely with the substantive Supply Chain Management Unit, Technical Division/ Commodity Security Branch, the UNFPA Supplies Partnership, the Humanitarian Office, and the Country Offices in WCARO.
S/he is tasked with leading regional efforts to strengthen national forecasting/ quantification, procurement planning, introduction of new products, and strengthening downstream supply chain management, ensuring an \"end-to-end\" visibility and effective distribution of UNFPA donated commodities, and identifying, troubleshooting, and implementing remedial action from the last mile assurance (LMA) process recommendations in the region. S/he applies an integrated, coordinated, and systems strengthening approach to support governments and other implementing partners, which is fundamental to UNFPA's overall strategy of building a ready, responsive, and resilient supply chain required for sustained and equitable access to and delivery of reproductive health (RH) commodities.
How you can make a difference:
UNFPA is the lead UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled. UNFPA’s strategic plan (2022-2025), reaffirms the relevance of the current strategic direction of UNFPA and focuses on three transformative results: to end preventable maternal deaths; end unmet need for family planning; and end gender-based violence and harmful practices. These results capture our strategic commitments on accelerating progress towards realizing the ICPD and SDGs in the Decade of Action leading up to 2030. Our strategic plan calls upon UN Member States, organizations and individuals to “build forward better”, while addressing the negative impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on women’s and girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, recover lost gains and realize our goals.
In a world where fundamental human rights are at risk, we need principled and ethical staff, who embody these international norms and standards, and who will defend them courageously and with full conviction.
UNFPA is seeking candidates that transform, inspire and deliver high impact and sustained results; we need staff who are transparent, exceptional in how they manage the resources entrusted to them and who commit to deliver excellence in programme results.
Job Purpose:
As the Commodity Management Team Lead, you will provide overall oversight for reproductive health supply chain initiatives in the West and Central Africa Region, providing advice and support to ensure all member states have access to quality assured contraceptives, essential, lifesaving maternal health commodities, and other related core reproductive health commodities. You will provide technical and programmatic guidance to governments, implementing partners and UNFPA Country Offices to develop and implement supply chain management strategies applicable in development and humanitarian settings, and to ensure programme supplies are effectively managed and safeguarded in accordance with the applicable supply-chain management and procurement policies, procedures, and related guidelines.
In the broadest definition, this role is multi-sectoral and crosscutting, engaging in all issues affecting commodity security, health system strengthening, supply management and quality assurance, as well as promoting availability, accessibility, and sustainability of Reproductive Health (RH) commodities. The role will also contribute to relevant data collection and consolidation processes, developing guidelines and tools, and ensuring interagency coordination and maintaining relevant partnerships and facilitating/monitoring compliance with policies. You will provide relevant advice and capacity building in the forecasting/quantification as well as development and validation of national supply plans, associated procurement plans for countries in the region, and guidance on distribution, inventory, and warehouse management in line with good storage practices for medical products.
You will work in close collaboration with the Technical Division, UNFPA Supplies Partnership, Supply Chain Management Unit, Humanitarian Office, Country Offices in the region, and key Third Party-Procurement parties, ensuring timeliness, adequacy and relevance and quality of substantive outputs.
You would be responsible for:
A. Strategic technical Oversight and Leadership
Advise governments, implementing partners and Country Offices across the functional areas of SCM (forecasting and supply planning, regular and emergency procurement, national logistics management - including medical logistics, inventory accounting and control, warehousing, and good storage practices, LMA, and data collection and monitoring); Guide UNFPA country offices (including in humanitarian settings) to implement SCM and logistics preparedness and contingency planning, including prepositioning where required, to enable continuity and scale up of lifesaving services, including in humanitarian crises when needed; Advise governments, implementing partners and Country Offices to coordinate timely delivery of supplies for humanitarian response, including prepositioning, in close collaboration with the Humanitarian Office and SCMU Emergency & Logistics Team; Provide technical guidance on pharmaceutical management in accordance with the World Health Organization (WHO) policies (Good Storage Practices/Good Distribution Practices and the Model Quality Assurance System) as well as the national policy framework and support the update of national guidelines; Identify and analyze global and regional trends, threats, and risks in Reproductive Health Commodity Security (RHCS) that may have an impact on the SDGs, 2030 Agenda and UNFPA's work and guide countries in mitigating them; Identify regional priority areas in RHCS and develop UNFPA strategic positions and related policies, frameworks, evidence-based arguments, and operational strategies, in collaboration and coordination with other branches, for overall system strengthening; Lead UNFPA’s contribution to technical assistance efforts with regional partners such West African Health Organization (WAHO), United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other technical agencies and foundations and develop joint RHCS initiatives and approaches for UNFPA regional leadership in this area; Provide strategic technical oversight and capacity building to governments, implementing partners and Country Offices in consensus-driven national RH commodity forecasting with all local stakeholders, including the government ministries, bilateral donors, major non-government organizations and other development partners having a presence in-country and partners using the UNFPA Procurement Services; Ensure Country Offices in the region produce technically sound and expeditious procurement plans supported by consensus-based quantification, national supply plans and distribution plans, and regularly monitor procurement plans and distribution plans to ensure they are up to date; Establish a mechanism for tracking commodity procurement pre-commitments, budgets and expenditures from all stakeholders involved in the national supply plans, and coordinate with the Technical Division for processing of any applicable Match Fund; Monitor Country Office management of core commodity transactions, including ordering, receipt, inspection, storage, issuance, and distribution of these items in such a way to be fully compliant with UNFPA policies; Oversee Country Offices to ensure adequate levels of assurance are obtained on whether programme supplies: (i) are adequately managed and safeguarded by the implementing partners to which they are entrusted, minimizing waste and fraud; (ii) timely and effectively reach the “last mile”, i.e., the service delivery points where beneficiaries can access them; Anticipate and respond to the needs of governments and implementing partners, in developing and updating policies, frameworks, guidance, standards, instruments/systems and tools; Provide technical guidance to and assure quality of supply chain related work of the RHCS country focal points in the region;B. Capacity Development
Provide technical guidance for countries to draft/adapt relevant national supply chain management training materials and manuals and use them for capacity development at various levels; Develop capacity building plan for the region and coordinate structured training programmes to build capacity of staff in governments and implementing partner organizations who are responsible for supply chain management and implementation of relevant policies, guidelines, and procedures applicable to UNFPA donated commodities; Coach and manage the regional SCMU team embedded at the Regional Office as well as junior professionals, staff and consultants engaged in supply chain management activities at the regional and country levels; Contribute to substantive technical capacity development of supply chain and commodity management institutions in the region, including integration of RHCS into training curricula for various health professionals;C. Knowledge Management
Lead UNFPA's regional analytic work on the subject area to ascertain lessons-learned from implementation and to refine methodologies for effective quantification and forecasting within a decentralized planning and budgeting context. Package knowledge products and promote UNFPA learnings with internal and external audiences; Contribute to and review materials for both internal and external audiences, including presentations, talking points, briefing materialsand background documents for Senior management within UNFPA's participation in high level external meetings; Provide quantitative, qualitative, and narrative input and participation to donor reports, audit responses, and stakeholder meetings – including those with high-level visibility and impact; Act as regional expert on all technical and implementation issues that relate to supply chain management and last mile assurance; Contribute to promoting in the substantive area, UNFPA's comparative substantive role and specific contribution in the changing development agenda; Establish and facilitate a regional community of practice among SCM focal points in the region to share best practices and overcome common bottlenecks affecting supply chain management, logistics, inventory control and LMA activities, leveraging and sharing knowledge with other IP assurance activities where relevant;D. Technical Representation
Represent UNFPA on regional commodity security working groups e.g., West African Health Organization (WAHO), or similar cross-organizational initiatives; Represent UNFPA in meetings with regional development partners on issues and initiatives related to supply chain management coordination; Participate in technical working group/ steering committee meetings of the UNFPA Supplies Partnership and bring regional issues to the attention of UNFPA Supplies management; Work with the Head, Country Support and Monitoring at the SCMU to coordinate collaboration with UN agencies, academia, research, training institutions and professional societies, and act as focal point for regional inter-agency working groups in the substantive area;
This vacancy is archived.