2 Secretarial Jobs at World Health Organisation (WHO)

Job Title:  Secretary (2 Job Careers) secretarial

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:  The Secretaries will be under the supervision of the Operations Officer and Programme Officers, and general guidance of the WHO Representative, the successful candidate will perform the following duties:

  • Cordially receives visitors and telephone calls with tact and discretion and acts according to the nature and urgency of each, including redirecting as appropriate.
  • Offer background information for appointments with official visitors and/or staff members.
  • Monitor requests for goods and services, including receipt, payment and inventory requirements.
  • Draft general administrative correspondence on own initiative or on the basis of instructions; finalize correspondence/reports for signature/clearance.
  • Verify that outgoing correspondence is presented in accordance with WHO and department styles and checking language, grammar and accuracy prior to submitting for signature and clearance.
  • Analyze incoming correspondence and requests in the light of background material, instructions, policies and precedents, researching, obtaining and attaching background information in anticipation of the responsible officer’s needs, or redirecting them as appropriate; identify and highlight incoming documents and attach background information and identify areas requiring action by professional staff, drawing their attention to specific items.
  • Make sure that technical reports and documents are in line with WHO standards, rules, practices and procedures, editing and correcting them as necessary prior to their submission for signature or clearance of relevant authority.
  • Using appropriate tracking tools, follow-up on and ensure that target dates and deadlines are met, and that correspondence and queries are responded to in a timely manner.
  • Work closely with other support staff, create and/or maintain filing systems, continual review of filing system to ensure information is up to date and effectively and efficiently used.
  • Obtain documents and information from in-house and external sources as required, perform information searches (library, internet) as requested.
  • Coordinate compilation of technical documents requested of and provided by professional staff, to ensure they are logically compiled, formatted and assembled to facilitate the work of the technical unit.
  • Arranges, coordinates and leads administrative preparation for meetings, seminars, workshops including letters of invitation, costs, calculation and travel requests, assisting with preparation of documents, dispatching of materials and liaising with participants and others involved.
  • Prepare presentations using Power Point and other software packages on own initiative or on the basis of instructions.
  • Schedule weekly team and ad hoc meetings, according to schedules and need; taking and preparation of minutes.
  • Obtain briefing and background materials for meetings, seminars, workshops etc to be attended by the team’s professional staff, checking their availability and ensuring they have appropriate briefing files.
  • Using GSM/Oracle, prepare travel requests for official WHO travel.
  • Perform other related duties as required or instructed, including providing support to other areas of work and any other duties directed by the WHO Representative.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience: 

  • The ideal candidate for the UN WHO Secretary Job must have completed secondary school education.
  • Professional qualification in secretarial or administrative studies would be an added value.
  • At least five to seven years’ experience as a professional Secretary.
  • Past experience with UN will be an added advantage.
  • The incumbent maintains and updates proficiency in the use of modern office technology through in-house courses, on-the-job training or self-training.
  • He/she keeps abreast of changes in procedures and practices, rules and regulations, organizational structure, in the department, the cluster and WHO, to be able to brief others and explain procedures.

Languages: Thorough knowledge of the English Language. Working knowledge of French and Swahili would be an added advantage.

How to Apply for the job:

All candidates who so desire to join the United Nations World Health Organisation (WHO) by sending their online applications to enable WHO to store their personal profiles in a permanent database. Visit WHO’s e-Recruitment website below and follow the instructions for online application procedures.

Click Here

NB: All applicants are encouraged to apply online as soon as possible after the vacancy has been posted and well before the deadline stated in the vacancy announcement.

Deadline: 22 October 2014

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