Commodity Management Team Lead, Regional Office, Dakar, Senegal, P5

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.

Qualifications and Experience: 

Education:  

• Advanced university degree in Pharmacy, Supply Chain Management, Logistics or Business Administration. A professional Supply Chain Management certification (i.e., SCOR-P, CIPS, CILT) would be an asset.

Knowledge and Experience: 

• Ten years of relevant progressively responsible professional experience, including management experience at the international level, with ideally at least two years spent in low resource or humanitarian settings;
• Demonstrated experience in SCM and logistics strategy and network design creation and implementation;
• Experience providing direct country support for logistics and SCM in development and ideally complex humanitarian operating environments;
• Substantive experience in RH commodity quantification, forecasting, supply management, warehousing, distribution, logistics information systems;
• Experience in developing analytical tools for management reporting and performance metrics in supply chain;
• Basic knowledge of the principles and operational aspects of integrated reproductive health care in the global development and humanitarian community is preferred;
• Demonstrated expertise in family planning method mix, contraceptive technology and humanitarian preparedness and prepositioning;
• Professional written and spoken presentation skills, including for the development of reports, presentations, and the ability to synthesize complex technical documents for both technical and non-technical audiences;
• At least two to three years spent at country or regional level working on supply chain management is an asset;
• Strong interpersonal skills and capability to develop and maintain broad diversified partnerships;
• Knowledge of UNFPA mandates, policies, and guidelines is an asset;

Languages: 

• Fluency in English is required and French is desirable to enable effective communication with English speaking and French speaking country coordination groups and local organizations (West and Central Africa region).

Compensation and Benefits:

 This position offers an attractive remuneration package including a competitive net salary plus health insurance and other benefits as applicable.

Disclaimer: 

UNFPA does not charge any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing or other fee in connection with the application or recruitment process. Fraudulent notices, letters or offers may be submitted to the UNFPA fraud hotline http://www.unfpa.org/help/hotline.cfm

In accordance with the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations, persons applying to posts in the international Professional category, who hold permanent resident status in a country other than their country of nationality, may be required to renounce such status upon their appointment.