RE-ADVERTISEMENT

NOTE: Candidates who previously applied for this position need not re-apply.

The Position:

The Product Quality Assurance Team Lead position is within the Pillar 3 – Quality Management System in the Supply Chain Management Unit (SCMU). You report directly to the Head, Pillar 3 – Quality Management System. You will work closely with the colleagues in SCMU, Technical Division (TD), the Humanitarian Response Division (HRD), the Regional Offices (RO), the Country Offices (CO) 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. You will represent UNFPA and SCMU at global Quality Assurance and Technical fora with gravitas, exhibiting strong authoritative external image of the function, adeptly expressing extensive technical acumen and instilling unparalleled confidence within the Sexual and Reproductive Health ecosystem.

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 is able to 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 Product Quality Assurance Team Lead, you will support the Head, Pillar 3 – Quality Management System on the development and implementation of the Quality Assurance framework and policies for the management of sexual reproductive health commodities, lead Quality Assurance 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 Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Material Science, Medical Laboratory Science/Technology, Nursing, Biomedical Sciences, Public Health or related field is required.
• Completion of relevant training, academic and/or professional certification in Quality Assurance of health products is an asset.

Knowledge and Experience:

• A minimum of 7 years of relevant professional experience in Public Health Care Services in UN organizations, international NGOs or national high-level health facilities dealing with regulatory function, product manufacturing, quality assurance, quality control of medical products and technical services is required.
• A minimum of 4 years of technical experience working with RH medicines, medical devices, and Humanitarian Supplies including WHO standards and guidelines, and IMDRF and GHTF standards is required.
• A minimum of 2 years of demonstrated representational experience at global Quality Assurance or Technical fora is required.
• A minimum of 3 years of demonstrated knowledge of international markets (sources, certifications, and controls) is required.
• Work experience or support to developing countries is required.
• Experience in supervising a team of personnel in hybrid working is required.
• Excellent communicator, written and oral communications with strong interpersonal skills to deal with persons of different cultural and educational backgrounds.
• Work experience with the UN or an international organization is an asset.

Languages:

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