Senior Manager, Digitisation of Supply Chain & Traceability

BACKGROUND

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership committed to saving children’s lives and protecting people’s health by increasing equitable use of vaccines in lower-income countries. The Vaccine Alliance brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private sector partners. By pooling the demand of Gavi-supported countries, securing long-term commitments from donors and implementing innovative financing mechanisms, Gavi is able to shape markets to ensure sufficient supply of high-quality vaccines at affordable prices. Through its co-financing, eligibility and transition model, Gavi ensures works with countries to scale-up domestic financing for immunisation and to help them transition from Gavi support as their economies grow. Since 2000, Gavi has contributed to the immunisation of nearly 822 million children and the prevention of more than 14 million future deaths. Gavi’s 2021-2025 strategy has equity as its organising principle, with a focus on reaching the 10.6 million children who do not receive a single routine dose of vaccines in Gavi-supported countries each year. With 87% of children already being reached by a first dose of routine vaccines in 2019 (more than any other routine health intervention), extending immunisation services to the communities which are still being missed can be a first step towards achieving universal health coverage.

Every year, the Alliance provides hundreds of millions of dollars in health system strengthening (HSS) grants and technical support to help countries strengthen their health systems and immunisation programmes and achieve sustainable improvement in the coverage and equity of immunisation. The HSIS team works closely with other Secretariat teams, especially the Country Support team, and a diverse range of Alliance partners (especially WHO and UNICEF) to help countries design and implement this support. Within the Secretariat, the team leads work with partners to develop programmatic approaches in areas including equity, supply chain, data, demand, gender, community engagement, immunisation workforce and programme management; provides hands on support to help countries and Secretariat teams design Gavi’s grants; and to monitor performance and capture and disseminate lessons learned.

Robust supply chains are critical to achieve Gavi’s goal to reach every child with immunisation, and to protect the billions of dollars of vaccines procured by Gavi and countries every year. The Alliance immunisation supply chain strategy provides an end-to-end perspective of the supply chain with a focus on 5 fundamentals, namely continuous improvement and planning, data for management, immunisation supply chain system design, cold chain equipment and management, coordination and human resources. Since its current supply chain strategy was launched in 2014, the Alliance has helped countries make substantial and measurable improvements in the performance of their supply chains. However, the quality, visibility and use of supply chain data remains a major challenge with many countries continuing to rely on paper-based systems and outdated inventory management and distribution practices.

Digital technologies can help significantly improve the functioning of supply chains including by providing end-to end visibility, enabling improved inventory management, distribution and traceability (using barcodes to track products or automated alerts when there is an over or under-stock) and better monitor the storage conditions or products (e.g., with remote temperature monitoring for products requiring refrigeration). Ultimately, they can help countries to improve the visibility, quality and use of data to strengthen the performance of the supply chain as well as the programme, ensure product/vaccine availability and potency, reduce risk (reduced wastage, fewer stockouts, fewer children missing immunisation), and improve efficiency (better vaccine forecasting and reduced inventory), and thus contribute to the Gavi 5.0 goals.

• Provide strategic leadership, oversight, and engage with partners at global, regional and country level to develop, implement and monitor Gavi’s strategy for digitisation of supply chain and traceability and ensure that the support is strategic, aligned to Alliance priorities, and well-performing;
• Work with public and private sector partners to develop a community of practice (CoP) to help identify opportunities for introduction and scale up of supply chain digitisation and traceability solutions in countries and provide technical and management support to countries;
• Identify opportunities for partnerships with other donors and stakeholders to harmonise investments in digital supply chain;
• Work with Secretariat colleagues and partners to drive the development of country strategic and annual work plans for design and operationalisation of eLMIS, traceability and related digitisation activities (pilot project and scaling up), drafting technical assistance needs, and progress reports as needed;
• Work with partners to develop relevant programmatic guidance, toolkits, dashboards, and capacity building exercises for Secretariat staff, CoP and countries. Ensure that the guidance and tools are disseminated and used by secretariat staff, CoP and countries;
• Build the capacity of Secretariat country teams and in-country partners to develop digital supply chain strategies and investments;
• Support Senior Country Managers (SCMs) in selected countries to analyse the needs, bottlenecks, and design of digitisation and traceability interventions and investments;
• Promote a culture of use of data for action i.e., operational and strategic decision making at all levels of the supply chain;
• Prepare and deliver briefings, content and speaking points on supply chain digitisation & traceability for
• meetings with donors and other interested parties, producing presentations for various events;
• Identify best practices in countries on eLMIS, digital supply chain systems, traceability system deployment and use and share these with secretariat teams and partners;
• Participate in the immunisation Supply chain steering committee deliberations including the priority working groups, and face-to-face meetings;
• Represent Gavi Secretariat in key technical forums such as TechNet, ISG, Global SC forums, and other technical conferences.

Note: The essential duties and responsibilities listed in this section are not exhaustive; other duties may be assigned consistently with the department needs.

If you wish to apply, please provide a cover letter and resume through our Careers webpage and apply by clicking on “Senior Manager, Digitisation of Supply Chain & Traceability”. Deadline for applications is 15 October 2021.

Gavi brings together the public and private sectors to save lives and protect people’s health by increasing equitable and sustainable use of vaccines against 18 infectious diseases. You will be joining an organisation at the centre of the international COVID-19 response, at the most critical time in global health in a lifetime. You will work in a culturally diverse environment with over 70 nationalities. You will collaborate with partners such as WHO, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank – and from business, civil society and government. And you will work in the first global health organisation to receive equal gender salary certification. Your unique experience, skills and talents can help us achieve our vision of leaving no one behind without the life-saving power of vaccines.

In support of Gavi’s commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion, we hire globally and welcome applications regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, national origin, family status, sex, gender identity or expression, physical characteristics, race, religion, spirituality or sexual orientation.

Become part of our community and join us on Facebook and Twitter for updates about our mission to save children’s lives! You can also follow our hashtag #vaccineswork.