Gavi contracts, locations and career routes: a guide for applicants

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is a public-private partnership focused on vaccine access and health systems. It is not a UN agency, although it works closely with governments, WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank and civil-society and private-sector partners. Those relationships create many adjacent jobs, but only vacancies advertised by Gavi are Gavi employment.

Staff, internships and consulting

Gavi advertises employee vacancies and internships through its vacancies page. A staff vacancy sets the employment terms, location and duration. Gavi does not publish a complete candidate-facing grade table that maps every title to a salary band. Applicants should use the level and conditions in the live notice and eventual offer instead of assigning UN P grades to Gavi titles.

Individual consultants and firms are sourced separately through requests for proposals, expressions of interest and consulting opportunities. A consultant is contracted for defined services or outputs and is not a Gavi employee. Procurement deadlines, submission documents and evaluation rules differ from the staff recruitment system.

The internship programme is a third route. Gavi’s internship information gives a normal duration of six to twenty-four weeks and requires full-time participation. Applicants must be current students or recent graduates under the programme’s detailed rules. Interns may receive a stipend if they are not externally sponsored, but they arrange their own accommodation, travel and insurance. An internship is not a short staff appointment and does not guarantee later employment.

Geneva and Washington are different labour markets

Most Gavi positions are associated with Geneva, while the organization also has an office in Washington, DC. Location changes immigration eligibility.

Gavi’s current benefits page says the Geneva office can recruit people of any nationality and arrange a Swiss carte de légitimation for eligible employees. That document is tied to the appointment. Its existence does not mean that consultants or interns automatically receive the same support.

Washington positions normally require a US passport or permanent-resident status. Gavi says H-1B sponsorship may be possible in some cases, but applicants should rely on the individual notice, not the exception. International students applying for a Washington internship must already hold the appropriate J-1 status described by the programme. By contrast, international interns selected for Geneva must follow Swiss visa rules and remain responsible for the costs listed by Gavi.

This is why “internationally open” should never be assumed from the organization’s mission. The duty station and contract route determine the relevant rule.

Pay and benefits

Employee packages can include health coverage, retirement arrangements, annual leave, family leave and relocation support for eligible appointments. The benefits page lists thirty days of annual leave for staff and describes different retirement systems in Geneva and Washington. Eligibility depends on contract, location and personal status.

Without a public grade-and-salary matrix, title comparisons are unreliable. “Manager,” “Senior Manager,” “Director” and “Officer” communicate organizational responsibility, but applicants should not build a salary estimate by matching them to UN grades. The recruiter and written offer are the sources for the applicable range, starting salary and benefits.

Consultancy fees should be read on their own terms. A contractor may need to budget for insurance, retirement, tax, equipment or travel that an employee package covers. An internship stipend is designed for the internship programme and is not evidence of entry-level staff pay.

What Gavi recruits for

Gavi careers span country programmes, immunisation strategy, health systems, fragile and humanitarian settings, vaccine markets, supply and demand forecasting, financing, donor relations, private-sector partnerships, monitoring, evaluation and data.

Other families include public policy, legal affairs, governance, risk, audit, ethics, communications, human resources, finance, procurement and information technology. Some roles value clinical or epidemiological knowledge, but Gavi is not recruiting a hospital workforce. The work more often involves policy, portfolios, markets, financing and partner coordination.

The recruitment process

Gavi’s work with us page describes a structured process. Candidates submit the requested CV and cover letter. Shortlisted applicants may complete a video screen, written exercise and panel interviews, followed by final interviews. Gavi requests three references before an offer.

Read the notice in this order: staff, internship or consultancy; Geneva or Washington; work-authorisation rule; duration; and selection criteria. Then show evidence at the scale the job requires. Vaccine interest is a starting point, but a persuasive application demonstrates how the candidate improved coverage, financing, markets, data quality, policy or organizational delivery.