Associate, Immunization Supply Chains

Overview

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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: .

Vaccines program overview

Immunization is one of the most successful public health interventions in history. National immunization programs reach > 100 million infants every year and have, across the globe, averted two to three million deaths every year since the launch of the Expanded Program for Immunization (EPI) in 1974. The introduction of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) and rotavirus vaccines could save a further ~1 million lives per year. Furthermore, great advances in the development and financing of new vaccines provides countries the opportunity to further reduce the burden of diseases such as human papillomavirus (HPV).

However, despite these successes, 1.5 million children still die each year of vaccine-preventable diseases. Many of these are in low-income countries, where immunization programs face unprecedented challenges in accessing vaccines and ensuring they reach all targeted children.

Since 2010, the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) has worked to save lives and reduce the burden from vaccine preventable diseases by improving access to immunization services in resource-limited setting. CHAI does this by strengthening national immunization programs at the country level, and the leveraging that experience to improve the global immunization ecosystem. Within that effort, CHAI is pursuing six complementary strategic goals:

Improving affordability and supply security of immunization products;

Accelerating the uptake of new or under-utilized vaccines;

Enhancing the performance of vaccine cold chain and logistics systems to increase effective immunization coverage;

Improving the design and implementation of service delivery to reach the unreached;

Supporting successful transition from Gavi support; and

Strengthening the management system and capacity of immunization programs.
 

CHAI's vaccine program closely supports the national immunization programs in 11 focus countries - Cameroon, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lao PDR, Lesotho, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Vietnam - and also engages with global stakeholders such as Gavi, WHO and UNICEF to inform global policies and practices.

Vaccine Supply chain and Cold chain position overview

The immunization supply chain is responsible for ensuring vaccines are where they are needed, when they are needed in the right quality and quantity. Vaccines travel through supply chains containing multiple storage points to get to the last mile. To ensure that vaccines are delivered on-time and in-full to their next destination, accurate forecasting, ordering and distribution are essential in addition to appropriate management of vaccines in-store. However, many countries struggle to keep all these processes running smoothly, which threatens full stock availability at the last mile. Supply chains are further strained as countries introduce more vaccines to protect children from a wider range of diseases. For example, a study in 2017 found that 38% of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa reported national-level stock-outs. When this happens, according to the study, there is an 89% chance that a stock-out will occur lower in the supply chain, often negatively affecting the last-mile[1].

Vaccines must also be stored and transported at refrigerated temperatures of two to eight degrees Celsius to maintain their potency. This network of storage and transport points is known as the “cold chain” and is the backbone of immunization programs around the world.

Since 2017, countries have significantly upgraded, expanded, and improved their cold-chain infrastructure by deploying ~75,000 CCE to ensure there is sufficient and functional CCE to keep vaccines safe and potent. However, countries often struggle to monitor the performance of cold chain equipment and maintain their cold chains in good condition, which could result in significant wastage of vaccines and costly inefficiencies. Furthermore, there are opportunities to leverage cold chain infrastructure for storing other health commodities such as oxytocin to contribute to improved access to potent lifesaving commodities by streamlining and optimizing SC design, processes and tools across programs that deliver efficiency in healthcare service delivery and support reaching ‘zero-dose’ communities in a consistent manner.

To help ensure that children can access the full schedule of life-saving vaccines in a potent condition, CHAI supports supply chain and cold chain work in several countries ensuring that certain core elements and practices are in place. This includes:

Strengthening critical supply chain processes—forecasting, ordering, issuing, distribution, etc.—to ensure high-quality, well-defined processes adhered to by all staff throughout the supply chain.

Supporting Supply chain managers and EPI programs with acquiring visibility into critical data points and key performance indicators, such as stock-outs, on-time in-full distribution, and order accuracy.

Supporting supply chain leaders, at each critical supply chain tier, to regularly meet and review performance data, identify problematic performance areas, and implement solutions.

Strengthening EPI capabilities to manage the performance of the cold chain, including both monitoring platforms and the systems that maintain equipment in functional condition.

Identifying cold chain interventions that can increase the reach and accessibility of immunization services.

Implementing logistics solutions (. Cold chain integration) contributing to system efficiencies and ensure performance in a sustainable and affordable manner over the long term.
 

The team is open to other base locations where CHAI operates and pending country team leadership approval. Strong preference for sub-saharan Africa or a similar time zone. Significant travel (at least 20%) is expected

[1] Lydon P, Schreiber B, Gasca A, Dumolard L, Urfer D, Senouci K. Vaccine stockouts around the world: Are essential vaccines always available when needed? Vaccine. 2017 Apr 19;35(17):2121-2126

Responsibilities

We are seeking an Associate to join the Global Vaccines Delivery Team to strengthen CHAI's work in Immunization Supply chains both at global level and in focal countries. This role falls within the global Cold Chain Logistics (CCL) team, which works with governments to remove cold- and supply-chain issues as a barrier to improved coverage. However the position may also require working beyond CCL topics to address programmatic gaps affecting immunization objectives

The Associate will partner with CHAI country teams, CCL team leadership/members, and regional managers and other stakeholders on the following initiatives:

1. Provide high-value strategic and programmatic support to dramatically improve the performance of country immunization supply chains in collaboration with countries

Provide critical input on the approaches needed to meet in-country grant and program objectives related to immunization cold chain and supply chains, in line with the program strategy and model

Support development of both program-wide and country-specific objectives and strategies regarding immunization cold chain and supply chain, emphasizing ambitious and transformational goals

Contribute to the design, planning and execution of high-impact projects to sustainably transform the vaccines supply chain and cold chain in one or more CHAI focal countries. Projects could include:

Supporting in-country introduction or scale up of last mile delivery approaches to improve vaccine stock availability and system efficiency for the goal of increasing immunization coverage

Supporting in-country scale-up of immunization supply chain data review mechanisms to improve program performance

Enabling improved cold chain integration to store other essential health commodities like oxytocin in vaccine cold chain equipment by assessing bottlenecks and system enablers required to scale efforts safely and effectively

Introducing effective cold chain management systems, with a focus on performance monitoring and maintenance of CCE

Identifying and implementing immunization supply chain interventions to enable service network extension strategies that increase access to immunization in under-served and/or low coverage areas
 

2. Support CHAI’s ability to deliver and disseminate high-quality and impactful work across diverse operating contexts and content areas

Support the continuous development and effective dissemination of programmatic strategy across CHAI teams, including the development of ‘tool kits’, lessons learned, and other know-how related to immunization supply chains and cold chains

Support the ramp up of new and existing CHAI staff (at both global level and in focus countries) in supply chain and cold chain topics, leveraging the institutional knowledge from the CHAI vaccines program and new insights developed by the associate
 

3. Inform global practices and policies related to immunization and immunization supply chains

Cultivate robust evidence bases, insightful analytical perspectives, and lessons-learned from CHAI and other partners to inform global policies/practices and promote improved vaccine supply chain and cold chain outcomes

Distill CHAI’s programmatic insights into formats that can influence the global immunization community, global policies and country practices beyond CHAI focus countries. This includes supporting CHAI’s participation in key working groups (., EPI manager meetings, ESA regional meetings, Immunization Supply Chain Steering Committee, TechNet,

Develop and expand productive relationships with critical global stakeholders (., Gavi, BMGF, UNICEF SD/PD, PATH, JSI, VillageReach) and foster effective exchange of know-how across them
 

4. Support program and grant management -- with a focus on vaccines supply chain and cold chain work -- in collaboration with program, regional and country leadership

Assess progress against overall objectives and milestones in focus areas and help prepare high-quality briefings for donors and CHAI management, including achievements to date, action plan going forward, and key risks/opportunities

Working with regional and program management, ensure that progress is properly monitored and evaluated, in line with grant commitments and internal review needs

Contribute as a member of the global vaccine team to the effectiveness and collegiality of the team, helping identify opportunities and improve CHAI’s vaccines program and team

Qualifications

Bachelor's degree (Master’s preferred); preference for fields related to business, health policy, logistics systems

Atleast 4 or 5 years of relevant professional experience

Exceptional skills in problem-solving and system design

Strong analytical skills, including qualitative and quantitative data (. data, business case, and health impact analyses)

Excellent communication skills in English, including synthesis and presentation across common business media (summary reports, slide decks, other presentations)

Strong interpersonal and cross-cultural communication skills, with a proven ability to build relationships in a multicultural (and often remote) work environment

Demonstrated capacity to synthesize evidence into an effective presentations and actionable recommendations for a broad range of audiences, anticipating working in-country (. Ministries of Health, district officials) and globally (. donors, policy makers)

High emotional intelligence, patience and thoughtfulness even in high-pressure, stressful situations. This includes a proven ability to build and maintain strong relationships in a complex environment with occasional tensions or conflicts

Proven project management skills, including the ability to work effectively in a high-pressure environment, handling multiple tasks simultaneously

Entrepreneurial mindset, including ability to set priorities, self-motivate, propose and implement new initiatives

Strong commitment to CHAI’s and the Vaccine team’s mission; a dedicated team player

Ability to travel extensively (at least 20% of time) to focus countries and other locations as need for work (for in-country support, global working groups, conferences,
 

Advantages

Knowledge of vaccines, health programs, health supply chains, or cold chain

Understanding of capacity development and change management approaches

Experience in a top tier management or supply chain consulting firm

Experience working with in developing countries or ‘last mile’ operating environments – preferably within health or public sectors

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