The Position
The Regional Logistician position is part of the Supply Chain Management Unit’s (SCMU) Regional SCM Desk. The position is physically located in the East and Southern Africa Regional Office, reporting directly to the Regional Supply Chain Management Specialist/Reproductive Commodity Security Specialist.
The incumbent will work closely with colleagues in Headquarters, such as those in SCMU in Copenhagen, the Technical Division/Family Planning Branch, the UNFPA Supplies Partnership, the Humanitarian Response Division, colleagues in the Regional Office and colleagues in the Country Offices within the region.
The incumbent will be tasked with supporting the Regional Supply Chain Management Specialist/Reproductive Commodity Security Specialist on technical and operational matters of the logistics functions in UNFPA Country Offices (COs) and Implementing Partners in the region - across development and humanitarian settings.
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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 Regional Logistician, you will have the opportunity to work as part of a multidisciplinary team dedicated to ensuring that UNFPA can play its role as action leader and global champion of reproductive health and rights aiming to end unmet need for family planning, preventable maternal death, and violence and harmful practices against women and girls.
You would be responsible for
A. Provision of Logistics Technical Support
- Advice and provide technical support to UNFPA Country Offices and their Implementing Partners on:
- The quantification and forecasting for reproductive health commodities and other supplies, development of supply plans and procurement plans for development and humanitarian settings, and conducting their periodic reviews.
- Humanitarian logistics preparedness and contingency planning, including prepositioning, engagement with the Logistics Cluster and providing surge capacity where required to enable continuity and scale up of lifesaving services.
- Contracting third party logistics services (covering services such as customs clearance, warehousing, transport, and distribution), establishing the KPIs and managing performance of the contracts.
- Ensure UNFPA Country Offices and their Implementing Partners in the region have a streamlined and efficient process for:
- Monitoring of active orders/in-coming shipments and that they liaise frequently with SCMU in Copenhagen
- Obtaining Green Light to ship process.
- Timely customs clearance process to avoid demurrage.
- Managing warehouse/storage facilities for UNFPA’s inventory
- Inventory management processes particularly for accurate and complete accounting, reporting and internal control systems.
- Transport
- In-country distribution up to the last mile.
- Documenting and reporting fraud, misuse of supplies, undue delays at the ports of entry and anywhere along the supply chain, and alerting the Regional Office and SCMU in a timely manner.
- Support the Regional Supply Chain Management/ Reproductive Commodity Security Specialist in:
- The drafting/adapting relevant national supply chain management training materials and manuals and use them for capacity development at various levels.
- Developing a capacity building plan for the Region and coordinating structured training programmes to build supply chain capacity of staff in UNFPA Country Offices, Implementing Partners, and other stakeholders.
- Implement relevant policies, guidelines, and procedures applicable to UNFPA donated commodities.
- Supply chain coaching
- Technical capacity development of supply chain and commodity management institutions in the Region, including integration of Reproductive Health Commodity Security into training curricula for various health professionals.
B. Provision of Logistics Capacity Building
- Provide support to plan, organize, and facilitate dedicated health logistics workshops and trainings to UNFPA Country Offices, Implementing Partners, and other stakeholders.
- Support efforts in building cooperation and partnerships in the logistics sector.
C. Risk & Oversight of the Regional Logistics Function
- Support the Regional Supply Chain Management Specialist/Reproductive Commodity Security Specialist in strengthening the culture of accountability and improving governance, risk management, and internal control processes in UNFPA by ensuring that UNFPA Country Offices:-
- Have adequate levels of assurance that programme supplies: (i) are adequately managed and safeguarded by the Implementing Partners to which they are entrusted, preventing, or minimizing wastage and fraud; (ii) timely and effectively reach the “last mile,” i.e., the service delivery points where beneficiaries can access them.
- Implement the recommendations from Internal Audits, External Audits and Joint Inspection Unit reviews.
- Implement corrective and preventive action plan/recommendations per the Last Mile Assurance process In-Country Assessment Reports from SCMU, as part of supply chain strengthening.
- Implement the Risk Mitigation responses action plans as per UNFPA’s Enterprise Risk Management Policy
- Implement the follow-up actions to address the root causes and pervasive issues identified in various oversight reports and activities.
D. Logistics Data Collection & Consolidation
- Ensure that UNFPA Country Offices collect consumption, services, and demographic data from Implementing Partners in a timely manner to inform country level planning, capacity building and strategy.
- Ensure that UNFPA Country Offices integrate reproductive health commodities data into national and sub-national logistics management systems for country stewardship and sustainability.
- Represent UNFPA in meetings/workshops on issues and initiatives related to supply chain management.
E. Technical Representation
- Represent UNFPA in meetings/workshops on issues and initiatives related to supply chain management.
F. Carry out any other duties as may be required by UNFPA SCMU leadership.
Qualifications and Experience
Education
Advanced university degree in supply chain management, logistics, business administration or equivalent is required.
Accreditation by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) or similar is an advantage.
Knowledge and Experience
At least five (5) years of experience in progressive logistics management in which, at least two years were in supporting countries in low resource and/or complex humanitarian settings.
- Minimum of two years of substantive experience in managing health logistics
- Proven knowledge in logistics data collection, analysis and reporting.
- Experience in management/accountability mechanisms for logistics management to ensure coherence between global, regional, and national policies, strategies, and practices.
- Exceptionally good writing skills, including for development of reports, presentations, and other strategic documents.
- Ability to synthesize complex technical documents for both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Strong interpersonal skills and ability to develop and maintain broad diversified partnerships.
- The following are additional assets for the position:
- Basic knowledge of the principles and operational aspects of integrated Sexual and Reproductive health care in the global development and humanitarian architecture.
- Knowledge of the humanitarian cluster systems.
Languages
- Fluency in English is required. Working knowledge of Portuguese is an asset.
