Background In 2010, the High Commissioner emphasized WASH interventions as one of his priorities and requested that a three-year WASH strategy be developed to ensure that all persons of concern are assured the basic right to water and sanitation facilities to reduce morbidity and mortality and enhance their safety, dignity and quality of life. The Africa bureau made WASH one of its entrenched priorities. Based on this observation and additional analyses carried out in 2010, the High Commissioner allocated 25 million USD in 2011 to WASH in addition to existing country budgets; 11 countries benefited from this allocation. The aim was to provide the required resource to improve the WASH situation and as much as possible meet UNHCR’s WASH standards. To ensure this major investment is sustained and maintained for the following years, it was decided to enhance UNHCR WASH capacity by hiring an additional 24 WASH positions in 16 countries, some of those positions will be Regional and at country level.
Main duties and responsibilities He/She will be responsible for provision of professional technical support as well as strategic planning and policy guidance on activities within the areas of WASH. The incumbent is expected to play a lead role in formulating appropriate project proposals and assistance activities that should be incorporated into the relevant country/ regional programmes of UNHCR.
The Regional WASH Officer will work under the technical supervision of the Regional Senior WASH Officer at the Regional HUB in Nairobi. The incumbent will coordinate her/his activities with other sector technicians in the region. The objective, work plan, and the priorities of WASH interventions will be jointly formulated by the field, bureau and PHHIV section. UNHCR will conduct an evaluation after 12 months of the deployment to assess the impact of the regional post.
It is a regional post which will cover Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Djibouti, Tanzania, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi and Eritea.
The Regional WASH Officer will perform the following tasks and duties:
A. Strategy and Policy: 1. Support the implementation of UNHCR’s Strategic Plan for Wat/San. 2. Help and support the development of new policies and strategies for UNHCR in key aspects of WASH. 3. Provide support on the development, review, update and dissemination of internationally accepted standards, policies, and guidelines within UNHCR and among partners; adapt accordingly to the unique situation of UNHCR’s people of concern. 4. Represent UNHCR in relevant international meetings and conferences when requested. 5. Support the Regional senior WASH officer on exploring and establishing standby agreements to secure and mobilize support from specialized institutions, NGOs, bilateral and multilateral agencies, donors and other institutions to enhance UNHCR emergency water and sanitation services, and collaborate with DER on various fund raising and advocacy efforts. 6. Maintain information on available technical experts with standby partners and roster of Consultants, and facilitate timely deployment of competent experts/consultants according to the needs in the Field. 7. Collaborate with and support EPRS on contingency planning exercise, preparedness activities including WEM and making available for initial response to address technical aspects of an emergency operation
B. Advocacy: 1. Advocate on all issues relating to WASH and refugees/IDPs and other persons of concern to UNHCR both within and outside of UNHCR. 2. Work with others in UNHCR to advocate for access to refugees, IDPs, returnees and other persons of concern to UNHCR to wat/san services, including support for inclusion of refugees, returnees and other persons of concern in national and international fora and funding sources.
C. Technical Assistance for selected countries: 1. Provide technical assistance to UNHCR's regional and national coordinators, direct requests from the field as required for countries. 2. Review and provide technical inputs on reports and programme proposals from the field with the view to verify compliance with UNHCR policy priorities refugee women and children, gender, adolescents and other related topics. 3. In support to request from Field Offices, Regional Bureaux, or other services, identify and brief all field based personnel (UNHCR staff or external consultants) for technical positions, providing all the necessary technical backstopping; establish TORs for such staff and together with the Bureaux, Hubs and Offices in the field. 4. Provides field-based support missions for emergency and stable situations as needed. 5. Advise SMS and Field Offices on the matters related to procurement of sector-related materials or equipment, and development and regular updating of specifications of such items.
D. Capacity Building: 1. Facilitate capacity strengthening activities of UNHCR and its implementing partners to address key areas of WASH importance to refugees and other persons of concern to UNHCR. 2. Build the capacity and competence of UNHCR public health and WASH coordinators. 3. Ensure WASH is adequately addressed in in-house capacity building activities of the agency such as emergency and operations training.
E. Monitoring and Evaluation: 1. Support the design and implementation of the monitoring and evaluation system for WASH programmes for refugees, returnees, and other persons of concern to UNHCR. 2. Support implementation and functioning of WASH monitoring system and HCR’s Standards and Indicators Project 3. Support the yearly reporting on WASH for UNHCR. F. Resource Mobilisation: 1. Support the effort in resource mobilisation for WASH activites with an emphasis on non-traditional donors to UNHCR. G. Programmatic Research 1. Under the coordination of the Senior WASH officer undertake programmatic research with relevant organisations as needed to improve programmatic response.
H. Emergency response 1. Being deployed for the first emergency response, to carry out needs assessment and support the country to develop a WASH strategic plan of response.
ESSENTIAL MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS AND PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE REQUIRED Academic: Advanced university degree in water and sanitation engineering/water resources development or postgraduate degree in one of the civil engineering disciplines (water supply and/or hydrology) or sanitation/hygiene engineering.
Experience: • Five to eight years progressively responsible functions in water/sanitary engineering or a related field in developing countries dealing with large scale water/sanitary activities. Of the 8 years, at least 3 years experience should be in a capacity directly relevant to the current position in an international humanitarian organization dealing with large scale emergencies or displaced/refugee situations. • Proven ability to deal with multiple tasks in a courteous and service-oriented manner in a demanding working condition that often has short deadlines. • Ability to coordinate a range of diverse actors and activities to achieve a common objective in the area of WASH is essential. • Demonstrated experiences in organising and conducting training activities and information campaign in the areas of environmental sanitation, natural resources management, water quality, bore-hole drilling, vector control and appropriate technologies are other important elements for this post. • Proven technical expertise in the area of WASH assessment including survey, programme implementation, monitoring and coordination is required. • Exposure to UNHCR mandate, its priorities and principles. • Knowledge and experience of working with local partner agencies with a capacity to provide formal and informal training.
Skills: • Ability towards analytical and creative thinking for rapid solutions. • Good communicator with strong interpersonal and negotiations skills to deal with persons of various cultural and educational backgrounds. • Strive to live up to high ethical and professional standards. • A team player with service oriented attitudes. • Proficiency in basic computer software such as MS Access, excel, powerpoint, word, water modelling sofware, GIS.
Languages: Excellent knowledge of English (written / oral / comprehension) is essential. Working knowledge of another UN language (preferably French or Arabic).
Interested candidates can send their CV and/or P11s to the following email address: porteaud@unhcr.org , quoting: Regional WASH officer (East and Horn of Africa) until the 22nd of January 2012 included
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