Consultant - Senior Partnership Engagement and Coordination (EP)

Purpose of consultancy

Unitaid is seeking to hire a Senior Partnership Engagement and Coordination (EP) consultant to support Unitaid’s role in the Global Oxygen Alliance (GOAL) Coordination Group. Key activities will include supporting coordination of the Working groups and Stakeholder Advisory/Engagement groups, ensuring consistent operational support across all working groups as needed. The incumbent will also support the members’ engagement, communications and provide strategic advice for the Alliance’s governance and accountability framework.

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread oxygen shortages across Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. As part of the pandemic response, the Access to Covid Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) partnership, launched by the World Health Organization, established the ACT-A Oxygen Emergency Taskforce in February 2021 to coordinate and advocate for increased access to oxygen supplies. The Taskforce members made significant progress in securing oxygen access for low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), including raising over US$ 1 billion in grant funding to support access to oxygen systems, market shaping to improve affordability and accelerating the implementation of national oxygen response plans.

As the world transitioned from the acute phase of the pandemic, the ACT-A-Oxygen Emergency Taskforce evolved into the Global Oxygen Alliance (GO₂AL) - a multistakeholder collaborative launched in May 2023 with a mission to increase access to oxygen by harnessing partnerships to do more together than alone. With this transition GO₂AL will coordinate members to collaborate and co-create/co-implement activities to contribute to closing the global oxygen funding and access gap. This includes driving key objectives on investment consolidation and sustainability; procurement, supply chain and market shaping; country planning and implementation and advocacy and demand generation; with a focus in LMICs.

In addition, GO₂AL will take a more inclusive and planned approach which will emphasize the importance of assessing oxygen and oxygen systems needs at the country, regional, and global levels through key partner engagement, particularly with countries, civil society, and communities, to facilitate bottom-up planning and programming. Moreover, GO₂AL will strongly position and advocate for sustainable oxygen systems as an essential building block for health system strengthening, universal health coverage, and pandemic preparedness and response. GO₂AL also recently commissioned and launched the Global Oxygen Strategic Framework and Investment Case 2025-2030 as a resource to all stakeholders about how to strengthen oxygen systems in LMICs and to highlight why investing in oxygen can be extremely cost-effective – making it a “best-buy” for donors, especially for protecting children.

GO₂AL is co-chaired by Unitaid and The Global Fund, and vice-chaired by the Pan America Health Organization and the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The Coordination Group drives the overall function and day-to-day activities of GO₂AL and supports the work under the direction of its co/vice-chairs and the Leadership Committee.

Deliverables

Key activities will include supporting coordination of the Working groups and Stakeholder Advisory/Engagement groups, ensuring consistent operational support across all working groups as needed. The incumbent will also support the members’ engagement, communications and provide strategic advice for the Alliance’s governance and accountability framework.

The Consultant will represent Unitaid, working closely with the GO₂AL manager, the Coordination Group, and representatives of the co-chair and vice-chair, Leadership Committee organizations to carry out the following:

• Strategic advice on building, ensuring continuous engagement, mapping and building the network, members of the Alliance to ensure a sound understanding of the Alliance’s objectives and secure engagement in the partnership.
• Provide strategic advice for the overall success of the Alliance, with regards to accountability, governance, and operations.
• Coordinate the Innovative Supply Chain and Market Shaping Working Group, ensuring the WG’s operations run smoothly, including meetings, events and activity procurement.
• Coordinate and support the stakeholder engagement and advisory groups (especially the Industry Community of Practice)
• Support procurement processes for GO2AL's activities.
• Coordinate the Alliance’s budget, including forecasting and strategic budgeting.
• Support the coordination of events and campaigns, as needed.
• Ensuring coordination and cross-pollination of activities between GO2AL and Unitaid, portfolios in PPR, MNCH, Climate and Health etc.
• Perform any other Coordination Group duties as requested by first-and second-level supervisors.
  

Qualifications, experience, skills and languages

Educational Qualifications:

Essential:

A first-level degree in Public/Business Administration, Public Health, Economics, Management, Development Studies or a related field.

Desirable:

An advanced degree in the above fields.

Experience

Essential:

• Over 7 years of progressive experience, at the global level, in program management, policy development and coordination in the field of global/public health or development.

• Experience managing and engaging multi-stakeholder partnerships, including engaging diverse actors such as governments, UN agencies, civil society, NGOs, industry and donors.

• Experience in provision of strategic advice for large multi stakeholder partnerships and large UN /inter-agency initiatives.

• Experience in supply chain and market shaping within the health sector.

• Experience in designing and implementing innovative financing models.

• Experience in strategic budgeting and forecasting.

Desirable:

• Expertise in supporting donor engagement.

• Experience in health or development communications and advocacy.

• Experience working at the country level, particularly in LMICs.

Skills/Knowledge:

Essential:

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

• Excellent and fluent language skills in English. Fluency in French is desired.

• Demonstrated ability to set up and manage complex partnerships.

• Strong events planning, organizational, and project/program management skills.

• Demonstrated ability to work as part of a team to deliver high impact results.

• Strong interpersonal skills, tact, discretion and mature judgment.

• Demonstrated analytical skills, with the ability to analyze complex problems.

Languages and level required:

Essential:

Expert knowledge of English.

Desirable:

Intermediate knowledge of French.

Location

Home based – Off-site.

Travel

The consultant may be expected to travel.

Remuneration and budget (travel costs are excluded):

Remuneration:

Band level B - USD 7'000 - 9'980 per month

Living expenses (A living expense is payable to on-site consultants who are internationally recruited):

N/A

Expected duration of contract:

10 months.

Additional Information

• This vacancy notice may be used to identify candidates for other similar consultancies at the same level.
• Only candidates under serious consideration will be contacted.
• A written test may be used as a form of screening.
• If your candidature is retained for interview, you will be required to provide, in advance, a scanned copy of the degree(s)/diploma(s)/certificate(s) required for this position. WHO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU)/United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed through the link: http://www.whed.net/. Some professional certificates may not appear in the WHED and will require individual review.
• For information on WHO's operations please visit: http://www.who.int.
• WHO is committed to workforce diversity.
• WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or users of any form of tobacco.
• Applications from women and from nationals of non and underrepresented Member States are particularly encouraged.
• WHO prides itself on a workforce that adheres to the highest ethical and professional standards and that is committed to put the WHO Values Charter into practice.
• WHO has zero tolerance towards sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), sexual harassment and other types of abusive conduct (i.e., discrimination, abuse of authority and harassment). All members of the WHO workforce have a role to play in promoting a safe and respectful workplace and should report to WHO any actual or suspected cases of SEA, sexual harassment and other types of abusive conduct. To ensure that individuals with a substantiated history of SEA, sexual harassment or other types of abusive conduct are not hired by the Organization, WHO will conduct a background verification of final candidates.
• Consultants shall perform the work as independent contractors in a personal capacity, and not as a representative of any entity or authority. The execution of the work under a consultant contract does not create an employer/employee relationship between WHO and the Consultant.
• WHO shall have no responsibility whatsoever for any taxes, duties, social security contributions or other contributions payable by the Consultant. The Consultant shall be solely responsible for withholding and paying any taxes, duties, social security contributions and any other contributions which are applicable to the Consultant in in each location/jurisdiction in which the work hereunder is performed, and the Consultant shall not be entitled to any reimbursement thereof by WHO.
• Consultants working in Switzerland must register with the applicable Swiss cantonal tax authorities and social security authorities, within the prescribed timeframes (Guidelines issued by the Swiss Mission are available at: https://www.eda.admin.ch/missions/mission-onu-geneve/en/home/manual-regime-privileges-and-immunities/introduction/Manuel-personnes-sans-privileges-et-immunites-carte-H/Non fonctionnaires et stagiaires.html