Job purpose
The Senior WASH Expert is a key member of staff in the country programme, tasked with providing strategically focused WASH technical leadership to the country programme. Accountable to the Country Director, you will provide strategic technical input into the core work of the country programme, supporting government and donor engagements, programme design, partner support and the oversight of the quality of our programmes. As a WASH expert with extensive experience, you will play a role, with the country team, in reinforcing and shaping WaterAid’s leading role and strategic ambition in achieving transformational change at scale through our work. Alongside others, you will support and maintain ongoing networking and engagements with key WASH related networks and partnerships and liaise collaboratively with the regional team and global teams (particularly the Programme Support Unit and the Policy and Campaigns department
As a Senior WASH Advisor you will be required to play the following roles: –
Technical advice on sustainable and inclusive rural and / or urban WASH services through a systems strengthening approach, ensuring that WaterAid’s interventions are relevant, effective, and add value. The technical advice covers areas such as political economy and institutional capacity assessments, strategic planning, technical designs and specifications, life-cycle costing and financing;
Leadership on ensuring that the technical quality of our programmes is high and consistent with national and sector best practice and WaterAid’s programme frameworks and quality standards. This will include driving programmatic activities that deliver model water services in communities, districts, towns, schools and health facilities and engagement key WASH stakeholders for scale-up and replicability;
Targeted support to WaterAid’s own project teams as well as to key partners to ensure quality implementation, learning and adaptation as required. In addition, the role supports wider influencing of practice and policy beyond WaterAid, working with sector actors, providing specialist knowledge to donors and engaging other agencies on WASH;
The development and promotion of best practice guidance on WASH in the country and, when called on, develop and manage programmes of research and capacity development as well as facilitate learning from within WaterAid and externally to build on and improve our practice and policy interventions.
Accountabilities
Overall programme quality lead in the country programme, advising and supporting the country programme senior management team to design strategic and effective programmes;
Support deveopment partners and other sector agency engagement and influencing with the aim to raise funds for WASH sector strengthening programmes, drawing on expertise and resources as needed from across WaterAid;
Provide an oversight on the development of impactful WASH programmes / grant proposals, ensuring these meet our organisation goals and standards and align with the country strategy and building on work already underway;
Provide advisory support, mentoring and capacity development necessary to embed these standards and commitments in the Country Programme and within partners;
Support and guide the continuous analysis, adaptation and documentation of key WaterAid WASH experiences for learning and analysis, to ensure experiences lead to scalable and sustainable interventions and are shared within WaterAid and within key external communities and networks;
Represent WaterAid in strategic collaborations to further develop WASH and to ensure WaterAid is benefiting from knowledge shared by other organisations. This will particularly focus on WASH sector strengthening, on the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders and especially on the development of service providers, authorities and, where appropriate, the role of the private sector in the delivery and operations of these services;
Support the CP in identify specific areas of sector strengthening support required to remove sector blockages and improve WASH delivery at national local levels;
Provide advice on and / or develop relevant country level standards and advise on the effective implementation of water and sanitation facilities and processes to deliver clean water and appropriate waste management that meets the WaterAid’s quality standards;
Work in close collaboration with others to assess institutional capacity of relevant ministries and national departments, local municipalities / district administrations, utilities, service providers and community actors to deliver water, sanitation and hygiene services. Support / lead as needed on the design of participatory action plans to strengthen capacity of these institutions to deliver on their mandates;
Support teams working with partners to build ownership and accountability for programmes in line with the programme quality standards outlined in the WaterAid programme accountability framework; make suggestions for improvement where gaps exist;
Facilitate and/or supervise the feasibility studies and design of technology and management models; promoting and supporting the scaling up/replication of such models within government systems;
Provide oversight to ensure all infrastructure to be implemented are in line with WaterAid technical designs specifications and national standards. Support state and LGA’s to replicate similar standards and models in state and LGA financed constructions;
Liaison with staff in the region, PSU and PCD, identify appropriate technical expertise to draw down to support the continuous improvement in the country programme or partners, drawing on learning from the wider WaterAid community;
Actively encourage innovation in the technical spheres of our work, exploring possibilities of these being scaled up and replicated;
If required manage junior staff in the team, ensuring that they have dear objectives and receive meaningful feedback on their performance.
The Job holder shall meet or posses the following minimum qualifications and competencies.
Essential Criteria:
Academic qualification in a relevant technical WASH discipline, such as civil engineering, water / waste engineering, public health/Environmental engineering, behaviour change specialist;
Extensive experience across all sub-disciplines in WASH;
Extensive experience in development programme management (at a senior level);
Demonstrated ability to undertake and direct high quality rural / urban water and sanitation programmes;
Solid track record of working with government institutions to influence and direct policy / practice reform agendas;
Detailed understanding of WASH technical and management issues including water security and broader development and poverty reduction themes;
Experience of conducting formative research and feasibility studies, using the findings to make programme decisions and deliver appropriate design options;
Proven experience of building capacity of staff and partner organizations especially CSO’s and government;
Track record of developing strategic & operational plans;
Planning and organising skils and the ability to prioritise;
Able to build and maintain trusting relationships, negotiate, influence and resolve conflicts with multi-level stakeholders including donor representatives, government officials and community level actors;
Strong communication skill and ability to effectively convey information and ideas verbally and in writing;
Experience of leading, managing and motivating others and driving change;
Commitment to WaterAid’s values and a working style that reflects these.
Desirable Criteria
Existing links and network within the WASH sector;
Membership of relevant professional body
We offer very competitive salary alongside our benefits package
Or to apply through WATRecruitment@wateraid.org
Closing date: 13 November, 2019
WaterAid is an equal opportunity employer