Global health jobs: WHO, partnerships and NGOs

Global health jobs sit with three kinds of employer: UN bodies such as the World Health Organization and UNAIDS, health partnerships such as the Global Fund and Gavi, and NGOs such as PATH and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Each posts on its own application system with its own rules, and many of the jobs need no medical degree.

Global health, in this post, means work on health problems across many countries: setting standards, funding programmes and running them. The employers below describe their hiring on their own careers pages, and those pages are the source for every rule here.

Who hires for global health, and where?

Where an employer’s staff are based decides whether you can apply from where you live. Here is what each one’s pages say:

PATH’s own pages give two office counts: its FAQ says 25 countries, and a February 2024 release says 24. MSF’s field rules are covered in how to become a humanitarian aid worker.

What does WHO ask for?

WHO has three main staff categories: Professional and higher, recruited internationally; National Professional Officers, often employed for their knowledge of the country of their nationality; and General Service. Its staff appointments page publishes the experience and education it expects at each grade, which it calls indicative:

National Professional Officer grades run from NO-A, with one year and a first degree, to NO-D, with seven years and a master’s degree. General Service grades run from G3, with at least 2 years of experience and completed secondary, technical or commercial schooling, to G7, with at least 10 years. WHO adds that experience in developing countries is an asset.

Languages matter at the international grades. WHO says most positions require English or French and a good working knowledge of a second official UN language: Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish.

What are WHO contracts and how do you apply?

Contracts are fixed term, for one or two years, or temporary, renewable up to 24 months and then followed by a break of more than 30 days. International professional staff on fixed-term contracts follow the geographical mobility programme. Professional salaries follow UN-wide scales, while General Service and National Professional Officer staff are paid on local scales. Staff get 30 days of annual leave a year, and WHO says its pay is generally exempt from income tax in most countries.

You apply on Stellis, WHO’s application platform. You build one general profile and adapt it for each vacancy, and you may face self-assessment questions, so compare your record with the vacancy first. Only shortlisted candidates go on to an assessment and a competency-based interview, and WHO says selection may take weeks or months. The Pan American Health Organization and the International Agency for Research on Cancer have their own career portals.

How do the Global Fund and Gavi hire?

The Global Fund calls itself a partnership organization. It says it does not run programmes on the ground, has no country offices, and bases all its staff in Geneva, so it offers no jobs of a medical nature and cannot place volunteers. About half its staff manage its grant portfolio. Each country team has a procurement expert, a monitoring and evaluation expert, a legal expert, a finance specialist, a grant manager and administrative support.

Its May 2024 recruitment guide sets out the process, which it says takes three months on average:

1. Apply on Global Fund Careers before midnight Geneva time on the closing date, with a one-page cover letter. Documents go in English.
2. If shortlisted for interview, complete a 30-minute online Organizational Fit Assessment.
3. Interview by video on Teams with a panel of the hiring manager, an HR recruiter and a neutral member from another department.
4. Give three references and pass a background and security check.

Gavi lists seven stages on its vacancies page: a CV application, a video screening on your technical experience and motivation, a written exercise, panel interviews, final rounds, references and the offer. Its interviews are competency-based. The page, updated in March 2026, still says new employees must confirm they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment.

What about UNAIDS and the NGOs?

UNAIDS offers fixed-term and temporary appointments, Junior Professional Officer posts, and arrangements for consultants, interns and UN Volunteers. Most Professional posts come with its mobility policy, so you may be asked to move. National Professional Officers are nationals of the country where they work. You complete a personal history form in its e-recruitment system and send a cover letter and screening answers with each application.

PATH, a global health nonprofit, says it hires across many fields, from science and engineering to accounting and information technology. All its active jobs are on its careers page, it never asks for a fee, and its official emails come only from an @path.org or @myworkday.com address. It does not hold informational interviews.

MSF hires most of its staff in their own country. For international field roles its requirements page asks for at least two years of relevant experience and availability of at least 9 to 12 months, and you apply to the MSF office for the place you live.

Which route fits your background?

Match your record to the employer’s real needs, not to the word “health”:

• Clinical staff such as doctors and nurses fit field NGOs such as MSF. The Global Fund, by its own account, offers no medical jobs.
• Grants, finance, procurement, legal, and monitoring and evaluation are the core of a Global Fund country team.
• Public health professionals with a degree can read WHO’s grade table against their own years of experience.
• Nationals of a country with a WHO or UNAIDS office can look at National Professional Officer posts, which are filled by nationals.
• Science, engineering, accounting and IT all appear in PATH’s hiring.

International organization jobs explains how the wider UN system hires, and how to read a job posting helps you separate the required lines from the desirable ones.

Questions people ask

Do I need a medical degree for a global health job?

No. The Global Fund offers no jobs of a medical nature, and its country teams are built around grants, finance, procurement and law. PATH hires from science and engineering to accounting and IT.

How much experience does WHO ask for?

It depends on the grade. WHO’s indicative table asks for two years and a first degree at P2, five years at P3, and seven years with a master’s degree at P4.

Can I work for the Global Fund from my own country?

Not as a staff member. All Global Fund staff are based in Geneva, and it has no offices in the countries where it invests.

Do global health employers charge application fees?

They should not. WHO says it never asks for money for recruitment, UNAIDS says it charges no fee at any stage, and PATH says it never asks for one.

What we know and what we do not

The rules above come from the careers pages of WHO, UNAIDS, the Global Fund, Gavi, PATH and MSF, and from the Global Fund’s May 2024 recruitment guide. We did not open their application systems, so this post gives no count of open jobs, and none of the pages we read states a salary figure. Gavi’s pages do not state a nationality rule or a headcount, and PATH’s two office counts differ.

Zorlya does not apply for you. When a role is in your feed, Zorlya scores it against your resume, names its source and links to the original posting, where you apply. How it works shows the steps, and one resume for many countries helps you adjust a CV for an employer in another country.