Recruiting UN Volunteers for COVAX

Calling on YOU to join our Talent Pool!

UNV is lining up skilled professionals to support UN entities – and through them UN Member States – in their COVID-19 vaccination campaigns. This includes key partners such as the UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), International Organization for Migration (IOM), World Food Programme (WFP) and World Health Organization (WHO).

If you have qualifications and experience in any of the following areas, we encourage you to register (or update your profile) in UNV’s Talent Pool for potential UN Volunteer assignments and enter 'COVAX' as a keyword in your motivation statement:

Logistics and Supply Management

• Vaccine logistics and pharmaceutical cold chain management

• Cold chain equipment installation and management

• Cold chain quality management systems

• Pharmaceutical Quality Management

Health

• Vaccine administration (clinical)

• Vaccine training and capacity development (clinical)

• Vaccine/immunization programme/project management (clinical)

Information Technology

• Digital health information systems

• Digital vaccine/pharmaceutical supply chain information systems

• Digital health systems operation, customization, and administration

Other areas

• Programme management: vaccine/immunization programme/project management

• Warehouse management: cold chain

• Health financing and innovative finance mechanisms

• Vaccine access and distribution policies and national coordination mechanisms

• Procurement and contracting (health-related, incl. health IT systems)

• Public information and health (vaccination/immunization) advocacy and fundraising

• Monitoring and evaluation with public health background

Requirements for candidates

• At least two years of relevant professional experience

• Age at least 22 years old for national UN Volunteer assignments, and at least 25 years old for international UN Volunteer assignments

Additional requirements will be described in the Descriptions of Assignment (equivalent to terms of reference); make sure to check them carefully. Your profile should highlight any prior experience in the aforementioned areas.

Assignment information

• Duration: 3-12 months (with the possibility of extension), full-time.

• Starting date: many partners will require candidates to be available at short notice (1-3 weeks). Depending on travel restrictions in place, international UNV assignments may start remotely with the UN Volunteer working from home (national UN Volunteers remain in their home country).

• Conditions of service: monthly living allowance to cover housing, basic needs and utilities; settling-in-grant; life, health and permanent disability insurance; and return airfares (if applicable). Check your entitlements here: https://www.unv.org/become-volunteer.

More details will be included in the specific descriptions of assignments and may vary depending on the volunteer category (national or international UN Volunteer; Specialist or Youth assignment).

Important notice:

• Only complete profiles can be considered. Please make sure that you click on ‘Submit UNV Profile’ once you have created your UNV account and completed all mandatory information. As confirmation of your successful registration, you will receive an email with your UNV roster number.

• Including the keyword 'COVAX' in your motivation statement will ensure your profile is reviewed with priority for related assignments. You can also check advertised volunteer assignments regularly, filtering using 'COVAX' as a keyword.

• Having achieved gender parity among our serving UN Volunteers, UNV is striving for gender parity among our volunteer candidates. If you are a female professional above 22 years of age, with at least two years of work experience and a higher technical diploma or beyond, register in our Talent Pool. Mid-career women, professionals in often male-dominated areas such as logistics, engineering, IT and data science, and women who speak French and Spanish are particularly encouraged to apply.

What is COVAX?

COVAX is one of three pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, which was launched in April by the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Commission and France in response to this pandemic. It brings together governments, global health organizations, manufacturers, scientists, private sector, civil society and philanthropy, with the aim of providing innovative and equitable access to COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments and vaccines. The COVAX pillar is focused on the latter - vaccines.

It is the only truly global solution to this pandemic because it is the widest effort to ensure that people in all corners of the world will get access to COVID-19 vaccines once they are available, regardless of their wealth.