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Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, Hope

Job Organizational Context

As part of UNICEF’s commitment to strengthening Primary Health Care (PHC) and fundamental to UNICEF’s Health and HSS strategies, WCARO Supply team is committed to strengthening the supply chains that ensure equitable access to lifesaving maternal and child health (MNCH) commodities and services. In addition to this, Unicef is sector lead in Nutrition, WASH, Education & Child protections and plays a critical role in mobilizing immunization supplies and strengthening cold chains in country. The resilience of national supply chains is essential for achieving programme results in emergency contexts, in a region where humanitarian access is often compromised.

UNICEF has in the past supplied oxygen plants and concentrators; cold chain equipment’s; laboratory and testing equipment’s as well as accessories and consumables. UNICEF country offices have supported in-country response through needs assessment, procurement, distribution, installation, and maintenance of equipment’s through service contracts with 

suppliers, capacity building and other efforts to strengthen country systems for long-term impact beyond COVID-19 with the aim to improve child health outcomes.

Under the Supply Chain Strengthening Strategy, WCARO Supply intends to play a greater role in the Unicef Health System Strengthening (HSS) strategy, by leading the supply chain pillar and related initiatives and activities, through a coordinated approach with the programme and by coordinating SCS initiatives in WCAR. This requires a formalisation of the regional SCS strategy and engagement with WCAR Country Offices (COs).

A systemic approach of Health Systems strengthening, and a positioning of UNICEF in areas where the organization has a specific interest of comparative advantages, through a contextualized strategy and its operationalisation is required.

Beyond this, a reflexion and analysis of national health supply chains (pharmaceuticals, immunization, and nutrition) and a road map toward their integration must be developed, through stakeholder engagement in targeted countries.

In a quickly deteriorating context, specifically in the Sahel, the resilience of national supply chains is key to achieve programmatic objectives. Supporting governments supply chains in emergency countries, or as part of the preparedness efforts should be integrated in UNICEF Supply approaches.

And discussions on how the status of national supply chains of other sectors (WASH, Education, Child Protection) could contribute to programme results needs to be initiated, building on experiences and lessons learned, with objective to initiate collaborations on supply chain strengthening with these sectors in selected countries.

UNICEF Supply strategies, such as Digitalization, Supply Financing; Partnerships; People and Culture, as well collaboration with technical and financial partners are enablers to support the WCARO Supply Chain Strengthening Strategy in support to Governments.

How can you make a difference?

Purpose of the Job

The position will lead the UNICEF’s supply chain strengthening efforts to improve equitable access to essential supplies for children through national supply chains. Reporting to the Regional Supply Chief, WCARO, in close collaboration with Supply Division SCSC team and the WCARO experts working on strengthening national systems and supply chains, the position will be the interface with countries for implementing WCARO Supply Chain Strengthening vision and strategy by supporting COs in the development and implementation of SCS initiatives and projects; relaying UNICEF global SCS initiatives in the region; coordinating with other UNICEF sectors and centres, UN agencies and other technical and financial partners on supply chain strengthening related matters.

The individual will coordinate WCARO national supply chain strengthening strategy and its implementation in WCAR countries and be the main interlocuter of UNICEF Programmes and Supply division in this area. Specifically, the position will focus on the supporting country offices and governments for the assessment and implementation of action plans and initiatives contributing to establishing robust and resilient national supply chains, in the sectors relevant for UNICEF programmatic objectives. Implementation will be done through country offices, in partnership with governments, the private sector and development partners, in close coordination with RO programmes.

In supporting regional and country offices, the position will:

• provide leadership on the development of national supply chain strengthening strategies,
• produce/update and deploy needs assessment guidance and tools\
• lead supply chain technical strengthening assistance support to countries and regional office programmes,
• facilitate coordination and collaboration with key stakeholders including governments and technical partners,
• establish partnerships with the private sector,
• generate evidence of UNICEF contributions to an increased access to essential supplies through robust and resilient national supply chains.

UNICEF continues to be a leader in identifying, piloting, and scaling life-changing products and service innovations. This position will support in-country scale-up of innovations in the UNICEF portfolio. Relevant UNICEF Supply strategies, such as Digitalization; the Localization agenda; Supply financing as well as the Supply workforce will be mobilised at the service of the SCS strategy.

Key functions, accountabilities and related duties/tasks

• Lead UNICEF’s supply chain strengthening efforts, as a member of the WCARO Supply team enabling programmatic results in WCAR
  • Develop, disseminate, and monitor the implementation of UNICEF WCARO supply chain strengthening strategy.
  • In collaboration with UNICEF WCARO Programmes and Supply Divisions, provide technical leadership for driving efforts for establishing robust and resilient national supply chains in areas which are critical for delivering UNICEF programmatic results
  • Contribute to or represent UNICEF in global and regional supply chain strengthening initiatives, groups and partnerships.
• Support regional and country offices by coordinating and providing technical assistance for supply chain strengthening.
  • Engage with WCARO programme teams for identifying programmatic priorities requiring robust national supply chains and define a joint strategy and road map for strengthening national capacities in areas where UNICEF has an interest or comparative advantages.
  • Establish collaborations with HQs, financial and technical partners and partnerships for both supporting and complementing WCARO efforts.
  • Establish technical and operational capacity at RO level for supporting supply chain system strengthening initiatives in priority areas (to be defined), through technical expertise and fund mobilisation.
  • Engage with COs and relevant national counterparts and stakeholders for strengthening national capacities in the defined priority areas, or for relaying global supply chain system strengthening initiatives.
  • Coordinate requests for country support on supply chain system strengthening and provide adequate guidance, technical support and oversight.
  • Maintain data and information on supply chain strengthening initiatives in WCAR and generate evidence of supply chain strengthening initiatives contribution to programmatic results.
  • Adopt a risk management approach to anticipate and mitigate programmatic, financial, and reputational risks which could result to weak national supply chains or UNICEF not meeting partners expectations on delivering assistance in this area.
  • A specific attention and support should be given to countries in emergency, where national supply chains resilience to chocks is critical for continuing delivering programme results.
• Facilitating development and dissemination of national supply chain strengthening strategies, guidance, and tools
  • Support the development and implementation of national chain strategies and policies that steer in-country supply chain efforts.
  • Develop and deploy guidance and tools for national supply chain strengthening including (but not limited to) maturity assessments, supply chain design and planning, systems optimization; HR and capacity building, operations management (procurement, in-country logistics and service delivery), mobilisation, deployment, maintenance and decommissioning of equipment’s, digitalization
• Supporting pilot and in-country scale-up of innovations
  • Support conceptualization and piloting of product, systems, and process innovation
  • Lead supply chain scale-up of viable product, systems, and process innovations
  • Link supply chain strengthening strategies to the WCARO localization agenda, by promoting access to locally produced supplies and developed services in all supply chain strengthening initiatives.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• An advanced degree (Master or higher) in supply chain management; health systems or relevant disciplines is required.
  • A first level university degree (Bachelor's) in conjunction with ten (10) years of relevant work experience may be taken in lieu of an advanced university degree
• A minimum of eight (8) years of progressively responsible professional national and international level experience in the use of evidence-based methods to identify supply chain gaps, develop strategies to address these, implement supply chain strengthening activities working with a broad range of in-country health systems partners and document evidence from implementing these activities.
• Demonstrated understanding and experience of national supply chain systems needs assessment and planning, addressing supply chain bottlenecks, programming and implementation of supply strengthening initiatives and projects including oxygen use of broader maternal, newborn and child health context in low- and middle-income countries.
  
• Knowledge and experience with supply chain strengthening approaches and global, regional, and in-country partnerships for addressing oxygen access gaps in low- and middle-income countries.
• Strong experience with equitable access approaches in development programming
• Demonstrable experience with global, regional, and national partner coordination and collaboration, including with ministries of health/government.
  
• Experience with and ability to manage and monitor regional and national supply chain capacity building initiatives.
• Familiarity with UNICEF and experience working with international humanitarian organizations (WHO, NGOs, donors) is an asset.
• Good analytical skills and ability to clearly and concisely express ideas and concepts in written and oral form.
• Ability to establish harmonious work-relationships with colleagues in an international and multicultural environment.
• Ability to supervise and direct a team of support staff.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships (2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness (3) Drive to achieve results for impact (4) Innovates and embraces change (5) Manages ambiguity and complexity (6) Thinks and acts strategically (7) Works collaboratively with others.

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.
We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.
UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. 

Remarks:

UNICEF’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. 

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance.  Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Should you be selected for a position with UNICEF, you either must be inoculated as required or receive a medical exemption from the relevant department of the UN. Otherwise, the selection will be cancelled.

All selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Special Notice on UNICEF office relocation

UNICEF and other UN Agencies will be moving soon to the new United Nations House in Diamniadio, 30 kilometers from downtown Dakar. The name of the duty station for this position will remain Dakar, Senegal.