National Professional Officer

The goal of the presence of WHO in countries, territories and areas is to develop a two-way collaboration between the Secretariat and countries, territories and areas, by supporting them to reach national health goals and contribute to global and regional public health action. WHO utilizes the Country Cooperation Strategy (CCS), a key element of the Country Focus strategy, as a strategic management tool to create synergy and alignment between WHO leadership priorities and national health policies, strategies and plans as well as United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF). Creating this synergy and alignment will be essential to advance and ensure WHO organizational effectiveness and relevance at country level.

Duties:

• Ensure proper implementation of the regional Strategic Framework for Strengthening Health Laboratory Services 2016-2020 and relevant activities in the National Five-year IHR Road Map;
• Strengthen human and institutional capacity for optimizing systems, functions and practices, related to specimen collection, storage and transportation; identification of pathogens; biosafety and biosecurity best practices; and laboratory information management system
• Contribute to the preparedness and response actions to the existing and potential threats of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.
• Ensure finalization/ endorsement and implementation of the national laboratory policy, development and implementation of the national laboratory strategic plan and quality standards;
• Coordinate strengthening of national and provincial laboratories, in terms of infrastructure, workforce development, equipment, and supplies to establish the national integrated public health laboratory network;
• Conduct assessments and provide technical advice to the national and provincial public health laboratories in establishing, maintaining and strengthening laboratory quality management system and bio-risk management system;
• Support building laboratory capacity through coordinating and guiding training needs assessments, developing training plans, participating in the development of training materials, organizing and providing training courses at the provincial and national level;
• Asses and review WHO Country Office Programme Work plans and related projects and activities for laboratory strengthening, bio-safety and bio-security in Health, Veterinary and Agriculture sectors, coordinate development and implementation of inter-sectoral action plans for improvement;
• Monitor laboratory diagnostic methodologies, standard operating procedures, and information management systems for public health surveillance activities;
• Prepare for and attend meetings and workshops, provide technical inputs to other WHO programmes, national government counterparts and collaborating partners on issues related to public health laboratories;
• Collect, analyze, and report data on progress towards meeting the indicators of the regional Strategic Framework for Strengthening Health Laboratory Services 2016-2020 and the National 5-year IHR Road Map;
• Prepare and coordinate missions; organize technical workshops and meetings; develop communication materials such as talking points, newsletters, presentations;
• Prepare and submit analytic quarterly reports of the activities to WR Pakistan.

Required Qualifications:

Education

Essential:

• University Degree in Medicine.

Experience:

Essential:

• At least 5 years of experience in public health laboratory strengthening programmes with expertise in epidemiology and laboratory surveillance.

Skills:

• Theoretical and practical knowledge of public health laboratories, planning and policy development, analyzing data, concise reporting and surveillance;
• Excellent organizational and analytical skills with the ability to coordinate activities and multitask; capacity and ability to work with multiple teams and agencies for a common purpose;
• Proven skills in the development and implementation of plans and projects, including training and managerial skills for the development, implementation and analysis of technical laboratory strengthening programs and activities, including budget programming and control
• Strong professional skills in development of reports, oral presentations and technical and advocacy documents for consideration at the highest levels of the Ministry and/ or the Organization;

Language Skills:

Essential:

• Expert knowledge of English. Expert knowledge of Urdu.

Source: https://careers.who.int/careersection/ex/jobdetail.ftl?job=2405192