The Position:

The Quality Assurance Specialist position is within the Product Quality Assurance Team in the UNFPA Supply Chain Management Unit (SCMU). You report directly to the Product Quality Assurance Team Lead. The position aims at provision of Quality Assurance services for Medical and Contraceptive Devices. The Quality Assurance Specialist will work closely with the new integrated HQ division (name To Be Decided), the UNFPA Supplies Partnership, the Humanitarian Response Division, the Regional Offices and the Country Offices and with the Supplier community.

The Product Quality Assurance Team is the life force of UNFPA’s supplies, whereby the team ensures that contraceptives, medicines, medical devices, and kits UNFPA deliver to women and girls are safe, effective and will do no harm.

How you can make a difference:

UNFPA occupies a unique position in the Reproductive Health Commodity ecosystem as a critical player in supply chain management, a leading public procurer of reproductive health commodities, a trusted partner to national governments, and one of the few organizations with the scale and partnerships necessary to build accountability for last mile delivery. Additionally, in humanitarian settings, UNFPA is responsible for ensuring the availability of lifesaving sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence prevention and response commodities to those hardest to reach, and commodities to enable operational programme implementation in the hardest to operate settings.

The Supply Chain Management Unit, which was established in January 2022, ensures that UNFPA can support the delivery of life-saving reproductive health products and other programme supplies effectively and efficiently to the end user when and where they are needed. To do so, it provides enabling services to Regional Offices and Country Offices and ensures coordination, end-to-end visibility, and accountability on all supply-chain-management related activities, across all UNFPA Programmes.

Job Purpose:

As the Quality Assurance Specialist, you will support the Product Quality Assurance Team Lead on the development and implementation of the QA framework and policies for the management of sexual reproductive health commodities, coordinate QA activities for the whole of UNFPA, knowledge management, information sharing and manage partners’ relationships for quality assurance of health products, provides technical support to UNFPA Country Offices, Regional and HQ staffs in quality assurance related issues and; support innovation in Quality Assurance.

Qualifications and Experience:

Education:

• Advanced University degree in Biomedical Engineering, Material Science, Medical Laboratory Science/Technology, Biomedical Sciences, Public Health, or related field is required.
• Strong technical understanding of medical devices and the medical device markets.
• Completion of relevant training, academic and/or professional certification in Quality Assurance of medical devices or health products.

Knowledge and Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience where:
  • At least one (1) year of experience with UN organizations, international NGOs, hospitals, or other high-level health facilities dealing with regulatory function, product manufacturing, quality assurance and quality control of pharmaceutical or medical devices is required.
  • At least one (1) year experience in a resource-constraint settings.
  • At least one (1) year experience in supervising staff
• Demonstrated knowledge of international markets (sources, certifications, and controls) is required.
• Experience in producing guidance and SOPs for use and maintenance of medical devices and/or pharmaceutical is required.
• Technical knowledge of contraceptive and medical devices, including WHO standards and guidelines, and IMDRF and GHTF standards is an asset.
• Work experience or support to developing countries is an asset.
• Excellent interpersonal, written, and oral communications skills.

Languages:

Fluency in English is required; knowledge of other official UN languages, preferably French and/or Spanish, is an asset.