Logistics Associate

Today Ukraine is facing its most serious challenges since achieving independence in 1991. The ongoing war has already resulted in significant loss of life, unprecedented displacement, internally and towards neighboring countries, and devastating destruction of infrastructure. The UN Ukraine Flash Appeal shows that at least 15.7 million people are in immediate need of emergency assistance and protection. Early projections indicate that if the war should continue in the medium to long term, up to 90% of the Ukrainian population could face poverty and extreme economic vulnerability, and the country’s socio-economic progress could be set-back by almost 20 years. In the short-term, 62% of the population is at high risk of falling into poverty. Ukraine’s GDP contracted by about 30 percent in 2022, with economic activity scarred by the destruction of productive capacity, damage to arable land, and reduced labour supply. Poverty is estimated to have increased from 5.5 percent in 2021 to 25 percent in 2022 and headline inflation hit 24.9 percent in September 2022, with high food price inflation hurting the poor. 

In addition, the country faces losses of many people’s lives and devastative destruction of infrastructures and economic bases. Currently, more than 50% of the energy infrastructure damaged, causing the massive disruption of energy supply nationwide with millions of people experiencing power outages and challenges in heating. Extensive scale of destruction of infrastructure, rehabilitating or constructing infrastructures and installing equipment with necessary supply of the materials is urgently required to restore or maintain life-line and key basic services, followed by removal or mines and explosives as well as debris. Furthermore, it is important to rehabilitate economic or productive infrastructures, such as ports, agricultural infrastructures, and market facilities to revive national economy. 

Furthermore, military hostilities resulted in numerous human rights violations, significant and evolving patterns of displacement, introduction of urgent changes in legal rules and procedures to correspond with human rights principles and martial law to meet an increase in requests for access to justice as a whole and easily accessible legal services and legal information in particular. The same needs for clear, transparent procedures for handling applications on notification of damaged and lost property, including real estate, are evident in the civil-law sector as in the criminal domain. 

Such unprecedented complex humanitarian, development, and peace (HDP) challenges in Ukraine underscore the importance of programming that responds to the multiple dimensions of the crisis – human security crisis.  Therefore, UNDP has developed a comprehensive crisis response and recovery programme to strengthen and leverage resilience of individuals, communities, and institutions in the country to provide immediate life-saving assistance while maintaining core government functions and public service delivery and initiating economic recovery in the country, which will contribute to global food security, peace, and human security. To this end, UNDP has been engaging in various procurement of items and equipment for various programme implementation including mine action, debris management, and the restoration of energy facilities. The procurement associate will work as a part of Project Support Team of the Energy & Environment Portfolio to facilitate the procurement of necessary items and equipment, supporting various projects implemented under E&E portfolio. 

The incumbent will accelerate gender equality and women’s empowerment with all implementations and promote UNDP’s mandate as a gender-responsive organization with zero tolerance for any kind of discriminatory and abusive behaviour, including sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, and abuse.

Provide logistics support through the following actions:

• Monitor the transportation of products purchased under the project;
• Review logistics documentation ensuring that all necessary documents are appropriately filled; 
• Ensure timely distribution of shipping documents and related documents to local service providers;
• Ensure all products imported to Ukraine are timely cleared from import by local service providers;
• Ensure timely clearance of the cargo and storage 
• Liaise with  focal points to facilitate products receipt, clearance, transportation and distribution (delivery) of products to end users, products registration issues, quality control, etc.;
• Act as a focal point within the project implementation unit for issues related to support and organization of products registration in the country;
• Maintain and improve the supply chain management system and to ensure that accountability to donors and internal stakeholders is met;
• Assist to planning and organization of supply chain 
• Participate in selection of supply chain providers
• Carry overall responsibility for maintenance of a strong logistics and supply chain management system in the project;
• Ensure that all program’s needs are met through the timely provision of appropriate supplies and other logistical support to all areas of operation;
• Support and ensure the timely clearance from import and delivery of supplies until the moment of right of ownership transfer to ensure that needs are met;
• Maintain adequate documentary evidence as required by UNDP procedures;
• Ensure delivery of products to final destinations until the moment of right of ownership transfer;
• Participate in Receipt and inspection exercises 
• Ensure quality assurance along the supply chain;
• Assist in problem solving, bottlenecks prevention, risk analysis of the supply chain;
• Conduct contract management on every stage of supply chain proactively identifying potential critical parts and making suggestions for improvement;

Supports procurement processes through the following actions:

• Liaise as necessary with the stakeholders of procurement and logistics processes which may include but not be limited to, international and national suppliers, service providers, external bodies and end users as needed along the procurement and supply process;
• Support with preparation of Project Procurement Plan based on the Project Work Plan and its timely and regularly updating according to the project activities;
• Assist project management in preparation/revision of Project Implementation Plan and Project Procurement Plan;
• Prepare and present reports on procurement and logistics;
• Support to the management on physical assets disposal. Review of assets and recommendation of physical assets for disposal. Documentation preparation for submission to Contract Review Committees; follow up on request and liaise with requesting unit and maintenance for disposal action and entry in ERP system (Atlas) of all the requisite details for recording disposals. Oversight of disposal of items and accuracy of inventory data;
• Support the Project with procurements of items/services
• Organize procurement processes including preparation and conduct of RFQs, ITBs or RFPs, receipt of quotations, bids or proposals, their evaluation, negotiation of certain conditions of contracts in full compliance with UNDP rules and regulations. Support the procurement process to ensure that it is fair, competitive, transparent, ethical and provides best value for money as well as the procurement action is in accordance with UNDP rules and regulations, procedures and instructions;
• Serve as a secretary of the tender procurement processes of the project including: prepare all procurement documents, distribute and present relevant documentation to the members of the committee; coordinate procurement evaluation committee meetings; prepare procurement evaluation committee reports as well as maintain records of all documentation and reports;
• Prepare Purchase orders (POs) and contracts, performance management of procurement contracts. Implement the internal control system which ensures that Purchase orders are duly prepared and dispatched. Ensure timely corrective actions on POs with budget check errors and other problem;

Perform administrative functions

• Verify Terms of Reference (TOR)/technical specifications/Statement of Work (SOW) according to UNDP regulations, required evaluation criteria and scoring;
• Provide inputs to the project reports;
• Perform other duties as required by UNDP project management.