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With over 850 indigenous languages and one of the most ethnically diverse populations, widespread poverty, and gender inequality make it hard for many children to realize their rights. In Papua New Guinea, UNICEF’s works effectively both ‘upstream’ (with governments) and ‘downstream’ (at the grassroots level) to carry out its mission through a programme of cooperation jointly developed with the government guides our work in the country.
How can you make a difference?
UNICEF has supported the National Department of Health of Government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) to establish and expand the cold chain capacity to reach 92% of the health facilities with the investment from Government of Japan, DFAT, MFAT and Gavi, the vaccine alliance in the past five years (2018-2023). In 2024 and 2025, additional 366 cold chain equipment are being installed across 22 provinces to expand the cold chain facilities to the last miles in the remote areas.
Due to the limited cold chain technician network in PNG, the national cold chain consultants are important to support NDOH to timely install the cold chain equipment. Moreover, the cold chain repair and maintenance system is established through digital recording and reporting (compliant system) to address the cold chain failure to ensure the quality of the vaccines.
The effective vaccine management scoring of PNG is 58% against the WHO and UNICEF recommended standard scoring of 80% which is one of the strategic targets of National Immunization Strategy 2021-2025.The implementation of the effective vaccine management comprehensive improvement plan (EVM cIP) will be supported by UNICEF through the funding support of Gavi to strengthen the capacity of the EPI focal persons, health workers, provincial cold chain and logistics persons, and cold chain engineers at provinces.
The strengthening of the vaccine and stock management is also another critical area identified through the EPI review and annual reports. Hence, UNCEF is supporting NDOH to rollout the immunization supply chain management SOPs, electronic logistics information management system (mSupply) through capacity building of cold chain focal persons, technicians at provincial vaccine stores and health workers through mentoring and coaching to enhance their skills in cold chain maintenance and vaccine management.
Hence UNICEF is looking for four national cold chain and vaccine management consultants to be deployed to four regions of PNG to implement EVM cIP across 22 provinces to maintain the functional cold chain network, successful rollout of mSupply and improve vaccine management practices to ensure availability of the quality vaccines to improve immunization coverage and equity in PNG.
Under the direct supervision of the Immunization Specialist UNICEF Papua New Guinea, and technical guidance of the cold chain Officer in the UNICEF PNG country office, the key tasks for the Consultant will be:
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
Specific Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:
Other necessary requirements:
For every Child, you demonstrate…
UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).
To view our competency framework, please visit here.
UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.
UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.
UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.
Remarks:
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.
Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures,and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.
The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.