Global Trade Facilitation and Customs Expert at HELP Logistics

Hamburg, , Germany -

Full Time

Start Date

Immediate

Expiry Date

17 Aug, 26

Salary

0.0

Posted On

19 May, 26

Experience

5 year(s) or above

Remote Job

Yes

Telecommute

Yes

Sponsor Visa

Skills

Customs Clearance, Trade Facilitation, HS Classification, Customs Valuation, Incoterms, Process Design, Data Modeling, Stakeholder Management, Humanitarian Logistics, Risk Management, Regulatory Compliance, Digital Trade Systems, Analytical Skills, Cross-country Process Mapping, MVP Development, Project Management

Industry

Non-profit Organizations

Description

Your mission 1. Background and purpose HELP Logistics and the Kühne Foundation are preparing a customs-readiness pilot for humanitarian health shipments in selected pilot countries. The pilot aims to reduce avoidable customs delays, demurrage, detention, storage costs, and rework by identifying and correcting customs-readiness issues before shipments reach customs. The pilot will analyze real shipment cases, map country-specific clearance processes, identify recurring errors, define readiness checks, and test a minimum viable solution with selected partners. While local customs experts will provide country-specific expertise, the Global Trade Facilitation and Customs Expert will provide the broader international perspective needed to make the pilot scalable, credible, and aligned with global customs and trade facilitation practice. This role is a senior customs, trade facilitation, and process-design role with the ability to translate operational customs knowledge into scalable processes, standards, requirements, and solution logic. 2. Scope of work Global customs and trade facilitation framework. Provide expert guidance on international customs and trade facilitation principles relevant to the pilot, including import, export and transit procedures, pre-arrival processing, risk management, coordinated border management, single windows, customs valuation, HS classification, origin, exemptions, and regulated goods. Help the team distinguish between global good practice, country-specific requirements, and humanitarian-specific exceptions. Cross-country process and requirements design. Work with the local customs experts and project team to compare customs clearance processes across pilot countries. Identify common patterns, recurring bottlenecks, country-specific differences, and areas where a standard pilot methodology can be applied across countries. Support the design of a reference customs-readiness process that can be adapted locally. Documentation and data model. Define the core information objects, document categories, data fields, and validation logic needed for customs readiness across countries. This includes shipment, order, commodity, consignee, exemption, permit, certificate, transport, and customs declaration information. Help translate customs documentation requirements into a structured format that can support manual checks first and digital checks later. MVP and readiness logic. Support the definition of the MVP scope, including document completeness checks, cross-document consistency checks, content- and country-specific validation rules, readiness status logic, exception flags, and escalation pathways. Help ensure that the MVP remains practical and focused on the highest-impact preventable errors, rather than becoming a generic customs platform. Stakeholder and initiative alignment. Advise on engagement with relevant global and regional actors, including UN agencies, customs and trade facilitation bodies, do nor programmes, digital trade initiatives, single-window actors, customs technology providers, and humanitarian coordination mechanisms. Help the team understand where to collaborate, where to avoid duplication, and where the pilot can fill a genuine white space. Evidence and scale-up case. Support the project team in defining what evidence is needed to prove value, including baseline indicators, before/after comparison, addressable vs non-addressable delay causes, cost exposure, rework loops, clearance-time reduction, and partner adoption. Contribute to the scale-up recommendation and investment case by identifying which findings can plausibly be replicated across countries and which require local adaptation. Your profile 3. Deliverables The expert will contribute to the following outputs: Cross-country customs-readinessmethodology, including how local experts should map processes, document requirements, clearance risks, and delay causes. Comparative analysis of pilot country findings, distinguishing common patterns from country-specific issues. Referencecustoms-readiness process for humanitarian health imports. Standard document and data model for customs-readiness checks. Input into MVP readiness logic, including completeness checks, consistency checks, readiness status, and escalation rules. Stakeholder and initiative landscape, including potential partners, overlaps, risks, and collaboration opportunities. Inputs into baseline KPI design, evidence model, andaddressable-impactassessment. Recommendations for scale-up acrossadditionalcountries, products, partners, and import corridors. 4. Required profile The consultant should have: Broad international customs and trade facilitation experience, with practical exposure to import processes across multipledevelopingcountries and a strong understanding of how customs, border agencies, regulators, brokers, forwarders, consignees, and shippers interact in real operations.Experience in Africa is an advantage. Strong knowledge of customs and trade standards, including HS classification, customs valuation, origin, Incoterms, import/export/transit procedures, risk management, pre-arrival processing, coordinated border management, single-window concepts, and trade facilitation principles. Direct experience with humanitarian, UN, donor-funded, or public health imports, including exemption processes, donation letters, government consignees, regulated health commodities, urgency-driven clearance, and the documentation challenges that distinguish humanitarian shipments from standard commercial imports. Deep documentation and data-domainexpertise, including understanding of the information needed for orders, shipments, commodities, permits, certificates, exemptions, transport documents, customs declarations, and related business objects, and the ability toidentifycommon data gaps and document inconsistencies. Ability to design scalable customs-readiness processes, including reference processes, document checklists, data requirements, readiness criteria, validation rules, escalation paths, and practical workflows that can be adapted across countries. Understanding of digital customs and trade systems, including customs management systems, national single windows, ERP or freight systems, trade compliance tools, document extraction tools, APIs, data standards, and the practical limits of technology in customs environments. Strong stakeholder and ecosystem knowledge, including familiarity with relevant global or regional actors such as UN agencies, WCO, WTO, UNCTAD/ASYCUDA, IMPACCT, Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation, World Bank/IFC, WEF/TWIN,TradeMarkAfrica, customs brokers, 3PLs, and customs technology providers. Strong analytical and facilitation skills, with the ability to synthesize messy country-level evidence, compare patterns across contexts, guide local experts, advise technicalteams, andcommunicate clearly with humanitarian, government,logistics, donor, and technology stakeholders. 5. Working arrangements and confidentiality During this 8-month assignment, the consultant will work as part of the core pilot team and report to the Project Lead or designated Workstream Lead. The consultant will work closely with local partner focal points. The assignment may include remote work, document review, interviews, stakeholder meetings, validation workshops, and selected site visits. The consultant will handle sensitive shipment, partner, commercial, government, and operational information. All documents, data, findings, and stakeholder inputs must be treated as confidential and used only for the purposes of the pilot. The role will be considered successful if the pilot team has a validated understanding of the selected country clearance process, a credible evidence base on recurring customs-readiness issues, practical MVP readiness checks, stakeholder validation, and pilot cases showing whether improved readiness can reduce document rejections, customs queries, clearance delays, rework, or avoidable costs. Application: Qualified individual consultants are invited to submit the following documents: A brief cover letter outlining their motivation and suitability for the assignment. A detailed, up-to-date CV, including relevant country experience, customs clearance experience,humanitarianor public health import experience, and contact details for three professional referees. A short technical proposal, maximum 3 pages, describing the proposed approach to the assignment, including shipment document review, customs process mapping, stakeholder engagement, identification of recurring clearance issues, and translation of findings into readiness checks for the pilot. A financial proposal, including the proposed daily rate, estimated availability, and any expected reimbursable costs. The financial proposal should specify whether the rate is inclusive or exclusive of taxes and other charges. Applications will be reviewed based on technical qualifications, relevant country and humanitarian import experience, proposed approach, availability, and financial proposal. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Why us?

Responsibilities

Provide expert guidance on international customs and trade facilitation to design a scalable customs-readiness pilot for humanitarian health shipments. Develop reference processes, data models, and MVP logic to reduce customs delays and costs across multiple countries.