The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries, while strengthening the capabilities of governments and the private sector in those countries to create and sustain high-quality health systems that can succeed without our assistance. For more information, please visit: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) has launched an ambitious effort to scale-up access to treatment for diarrhea and pneumonia, which combined, kill over 1.5 million children every year. Working with the governments of five high-burden countries and leading global institutions, CHAI’s Essential Medicines team is supporting intensified efforts at both global and country levels to plan, resource, and implement effective interventions for scaling-up access to treatment for these conditions – specifically zinc and ORS for diarrhea, and amoxicillin and oxygen for pneumonia. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Essential Medicines team has expanded its oxygen work to ten countries, supporting pandemic response efforts while strengthening long-term oxygen systems planning.

Position Overview:

CHAI is seeking an Associate, Procurement and Operations to play a critical role on the Oxygen program of the Essential Medicines team, serving as the primary resource on managing commodity procurement and assisting with the financial management of the grant. The Associate will interface directly with the UNITAID grant management team, partner suppliers and the in-country program team leaders to ensure that donor expectations and country team requirements for procurement and finance management are met. They will act as the team’s lead on internal procurement management matters and will also work in close collaboration with the grant’s finance manager on Budgeting & Reporting.

Procurement:

• Prepare Annual & Half-yearly procurement plans for the grant.
• Ensure that the grant budget is updated and is in-sync with the Annual & Half-yearly procurement plans
• Track changes to the procurement as per the project need and keep the donor and the program leadership informed of the changes
• Assist the country teams with order processing and ensuring compliance to the Annual & Half-yearly procurement plans
• Coordinate with the in-country team leaders, Country Support Managers, and partner suppliers to ensure programmatic commodities are manufactured, shipped, and delivered, in-country transport, warehousing, installation, and commissioning of equipment, in the country as per the evolving grant operational plans.
• Draft and coordinate dissemination of RFPs for new products and commodities required by the program
• Collaborate with the Markets team to liaise with partner suppliers and assist them with production planning, forward looking capacity expansion and liaising with external buyers i.e., country government, implementing partners and donor organizations
• Assist country teams with necessary documentation to process product waivers, where required and documentation required for import, where procurements are coordinated by the global team.
• In collaboration with Markets team, assist with the procurement & implementation of relationship management system
• In collaboration with Markets team, maintain database to store market price and critical supplier information, exchanges and documentation.
• Coordinate with Country Support Managers to provide procurement guidance (such as price, timeline and shipping guidance) to country teams, as requested
• Coordinate with third-party logistic providers on the shipments and assist in issues related to shipments and transit risks.
• Prepare Purchase orders (POs) and related payment request forms following the organization’s procurement policy and guidelines.
• Coordinate with procurement agencies (e.g. UNICEF) on procurement orders, planning, recording, and reporting
• Prepare/review shipment package (Airway Bill, packing list and commercial Invoices), coordinate the shipment schedule (release to the logistic provider), and support country teams with necessary documentation for clearance, storage and distribution (CSD).
• Collaborate with the country teams and the CHAI quality assurance team to ensure product breakdowns/failures are appropriately logged and reported to the suppliers. They will also ensure that replacement devices are shipped timely to the country teams to keep service downtime to the bare minimum.
• Document processes and procurement guidance specific to oxygen products, complying with procurement thresholds and requirements, including a point of contact during audit, and provide input into CHAI procurement processes, as requested.

Operations & Finance Management:

• Work with each of the countries to ensure timely receipt of budgets
• Run validation checks on budgets received from each country, liaise with countries to populate any missing data points
• Support monthly with the General LEdger (GL) review (all countries and global teams) with a view on:
• Appropriateness of expenses charged
• Staff costs to ensure they are in line with budget allocation for the country
• Highlight if any expense reclasses are needed and work with accounting to get those done
• Support on a quarterly basis:
  • GL review as per #1 above
  • Work with countries to carry out tagging of expenses in line with the donor cost categories
  • Review allocation to expenses to different outputs of the program as budgeted/ agreed
  • Work with countries to update the Asset register
  • Review quarterly financial reports of key sub-contractors
  • Reconciling procurement related expenses with the procurement plan and corresponding entry into the books

• Support on a bi-annual basis:
  • GL review as per #2 above
  • Consolidate all countries’ GLs into the donor format

• Advanced degree preferred. Bachelor’s degree and relevant work experience may be considered in lieu of an Advanced degree.
• 3-5 years of work experience in a fast-paced, high-performance environment; at least 2 years in related work (supply chain management and logistics). Work experience with a CHAI country team preferred.
• Familiarity with financial systems, budgeting and solid experience in financial modelling using advanced Excel features.
• Dynamic individual with strong leadership, interpersonal, analytical, and problem-solving abilities.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to deliver high quality, actionable feedback on a variety of complex issues to management, donors, and stakeholders.
• Ability to multi-task and work in a fast-paced environment; self-motivated and capable of working independently as well as within a team.

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