WaterAid is an international organisation whose mission is to transform the lives of the poorest and most marginalised people by improving access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene. Through their partners, they have reached 2 million people with safe water and 3 million people with sanitation last year.
Job Title: WASH Technical Lead
Location: Nigeria
Pay band: G
Contract type: Full time, 2 years fixed term (renewable)
Reports to: Country Director
Manages: None
Budget responsibility: TBD
Travel: TBD
Background
WaterAid is an international not-for-profit organisation dedicated to helping the poor and marginalised people break free from poverty and disease, and change their lives for good through improved access to clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene. Since 1995, WaterAid has dedicatedly worked with the governments and people of Nigeria to support the implementation of sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions and programmes.
As part of the activities to mark World Water Day 2018, the need for the Federal Government of Nigeria to declare a state of emergency in the WASH sector was strongly canvassed by WaterAid. This crystalized into the formal declaration of a state of emergency in the WASH sector by the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) in April 2018. While this represents a huge milestone in the quest to achieve WASH for everyone everywhere in Nigeria, it calls for support towards actualizing the state of emergency and ensuring it does not end as a mere political statement that does not translate to tangible action.
Job Purpose
- To do this, WaterAid is looking for a long term WASH expert to lead thinking within WaterAid and work with sector actors around the practical ways to achieve the goals of the national WASH plan/ state of emergency declaration on the WASH sector.
Accountabilities
Coordination of WaterAid Technical Support to Federal & State Governments Support the Policy and Advocacy team to:
- Lead the support to the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and its agencies to design specific activities with clear milestones, targets and indicators to translate the policy pronouncement to action.
- Identify windows of influence and engage with / foster collaborative working, alliances and strategic partnerships between WaterAid and other WASH sector /development actors as required to achieve the goals of the National WASH Emergency declaration
- Work strategically and maintain relationship with senior WASH actors in WANG focal states to advocate for the replication of the state of emergency declaration as a potential approach to achieve rapid increase in WASH coverage in the respective states.
- In collaboration with the Coordinator, Strategic Partnerships, explore opportunities to engage and mobilize private sector resources for WaterAid Nigeria’s activities
- Work collaboratively with the communications team to give maximum visibility to the WASH state of emergency declaration, design campaign materials and advocacy messages to be used by local NGO’s, CSO’s, and citizen’s groups
- In collaboration with Sector Capacity & Support Manager, conduct WASH bottleneck analysis and identify specific areas of sector strengthening support required to remove sector blockages and improve WASH delivery at federal and state levels; use the evidence from this analysis to shape influencing and advocacy activities targeting diverse stakeholder groups.
- Facilitate development of the framework and implement framework to establish public-private partnership models for the achievement of National WASH action plan
- Identify opportunities for linking National WASH action plan priorities with key priorities in the education, health and other related sectors; innovate linkages and influencing moments between senior actors across related sectors to maximize resource sharing and utilization towards achieving WASH outcomes.
Research, Knowledge management & Learning:
- Initiate research, develop publications and learning products for sharing with wider WASH sector audiences and contributing to increasing knowledge on sector building blocks
- Initiate/participate in national and state events for promoting Federal Government of Nigeria WASH state of emergency declaration and increasing knowledge of sector strengthening initiatives targeting strategic level partners and stakeholders.
Monitoring and Quality Assurance:
- Lead on support to the FMWR and donor coordination arrangements to develop appropriate monitoring and evaluation indicators to track progress against national WASH action plan/ state of emergency
- Contribute to make PMER and project centres a reality in WANG and a day-to-day activity
Person Specification
Essential Criteria:
- Strong academic background (preferably at Master's degree level) in Engineering, public health or related fields
- Minimum ten (10) years’ experience of development programme management and at least 3 of which must be in a senior level position focusing on delivering in WASH services.
- Prior experience working with high level government officials to influence and direct policy reform agenda
- Demonstrate sound understanding of WASH, Integrated Water Resource management issues and broader development and poverty reduction themes
- Sound knowledge of basic project management approaches, experience with conducting formative research and using research outcomes to make programme decisions.
- Experience with building capacity of implementing partner organizations especially CSO’s and government
- Experience in developing strategic & operational plans. Able to effectively organise self and others, plan and prioritise in line with such plans.
- Excellent relationship building skills. Able to build and maintain trusting relationships, negotiate, influence and resolve conflicts. Ability to build and maintain effective relationships with multi-level stakeholders including donor representatives, government officials and community level actors.
- Strong communication skills, including active listening 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
Application Closing Date
15th June, 2018.
Method of Application
Interested and qualified candidates should send their Applications, consisting of a letter of interest and a CV to:
hrnig@wateraid.org with the job title as the subject of the email.
Note: To apply for this role you must be able to demonstrate your eligibility to work in Nigeria.
