Job opportunity at WaterAid: Title:Senior WASH Expert Rwanda:Deadline:Friday 8th Nov. 2019.

WaterAid is determined to make clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene normal for everyone, everywhere within a generation.

We started in 1981 because no water charity existed and since then we’ve been on a mission to change normal for millions of people within a generation – by getting clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene to everyone, everywhere by 2030. Without all three, people can’t live dignified, healthy lives. With all three, they can unlock their potential, break free from poverty and change their lives for good

With clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene, children are born healthier. They get the chance to go to school and grow up to become adults. Women and men get to earn a living. Whole communities start to thrive. It sounds normal and it should be.

Changing normal is what drives us. We want to bring about change that sticks and help change lives for good. There is still a lot to do. But together with our colleagues, supporters, and partners around the world, we’re making progress.

We welcome talented people who are still hungry to learn and grow as individuals. We are connected as WaterAiders – we have fun together and look out for one another. We’re not afraid to challenge one another but we do it constructively and thoughtfully.

At WaterAid, you’ll be encouraged and empowered to be yourself at your very best – giving you the space to use your own talents and shape your own future, the space to change what’s normal for y

We’re committed to changing normal forever—are you?

 Job purpose

The Senior WASH Expert is a key member of the Senior Management Team (SMT) in the country program, able to harness all critical issues emerging from the SMT’s various units and tasked with providing strategically focused WASH technical leadership to the country program. Accountable to the Country Director, you will provide strategic technical input into the core work of the country program, supporting government and donor engagements, program 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).

This role provides:

 Technical advice on sustainable and inclusive rural and / or urban WASH services through a system’s strengthening approach, ensuring that WaterAid’s interventions are relevant, effective, and add value. The technical advice covers areas such as the political economy and institutional capacity assessments, strategic planning, technical designs and specifications, life-cycle costing and WASH pricing and economics, WASH financing mechanisms.

Leadership on ensuring that the technical quality of our programs is high and consistent with national and sector best practices and WaterAid’s program 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 programs 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.

Technical support

Accountabilities

• Overall program quality lead in the country program, advising and supporting the country program senior management team to design strategic and effective programmes.
• Support donor and other sector engagement and influence with the aim to raise funds for WASH sector strengthening programs, drawing on expertise and resources as needed from across WaterAid.
• Provide oversight on in the development of impactful WASH programs/grant proposals, ensuring these meet our organizational 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.
• Shine a light on water quality issues in Rwanda and bring into the public domain
• 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.
• Provide technical advice on integration of WASH and key targeted areas of development (including Big Water, Climate Change, Health, education, Nutrition, Agriculture, Energy, Mining, Water Resource Management, and others) as strategically required
• Represent WaterAid in strategic collaborations to further develop WASH and to ensure WaterAid is benefitting from the knowledge shared by other organizations. 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 identifying specific areas of sector strengthening support required to remove sector blockages and improve WASH delivery at national and 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, dignified sanitation and good hygiene that meet the WaterAid’s quality standards.
• Work in close collaboration with others to assess the institutional capacity of relevant ministries and national departments, districts, the national utility, 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 the capacity of these institutions to deliver on their mandates.
• Provide the team with relevant WASH technical advice on the design of national campaigns
• 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.
• Liaison with staff in the region and WaterAid UK office, other WaterAid members as appropriate, to identify technical expertise to draw down to support the continuous improvement in the country program 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 clear objectives and receive meaningful feedback on their performance.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Academic qualification in a relevant technical WASH discipline, such as civil engineering, water/waste engineering, Water resource management, public health engineering, environmental health
• Existing links and network within the WASH sector
• Extensive experience across all sub-disciplines in WASH
• Extensive experience in development program management (at a senior level)
• Demonstrated ability to undertake and direct high quality rural/urban water and sanitation programs
• 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 in conducting formative research and feasibility studies, using the findings to make program decisions and deliver appropriate design options.
• Proven experience of building the capacity of staff and partner organizations especially CSO’s and government
• Track record of developing strategic & operational plans
• Planning and organizing skills and the ability to prioritize
• 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 (Respect, Accountability, Courage, Collaboration, Innovation, and Integrity) and a working style that reflects organizational strategic shifts (Thinking big, confronting reality and acting fast)
• Work experience embedding sustainability, equity, and inclusion
• Adherence to safeguarding principles

Desirable Criteria

Membership of relevant professional bodies