Senior Water Supply Specialist

The Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), is a multi-donor trust funded program administered by the World Bank, comprising a field-based network of over 70 professionals based in four regional teams (Africa, East Asia Pacific, Latin America, and South Asia) managed from a small headquarters team in Washington, DC. The WSP-Africa regional team (WSP-AF) is based in Nairobi, Kenya..

WSP’s mission is to support the poor in obtaining sustainable access to water and sanitation services.  WSP believes that improved water and sanitation services and hygiene practices are integral to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on poverty reduction, health, gender equality, and the environment.  WSP is committed to being part of the collective efforts of the development community to achieve Targets 10 and 11 of the MDGs as an intermediate milestone of the vision of the sector.  WSP will bring this mission into reality in two ways: (a) Direct means, to support implementation of sector dialogue, knowledge exchange, and capacity building; and (b) Indirect means, to help immediate counterparts and partners to build large-scale sustainable programs, support policy development and sector reforms, engage in action-learning innovative pilot projects that serve in particular the poor.  For more information on WSP’s strategy, operations and products please visit: www.wsp.org.

WSP’s current Business Plan builds on a global strategy titled “FY2009-2018: Scaling Up Sustainable Services.” It articulates WSP’s strategic response to sector challenges affecting the poor through: capacity building, technical assistance and knowledge.  The Business Plan identifies six Business Areas where the Program has the best opportunity to affect large-scale change in sector performance: (i) scaling up rural sanitation and hygiene; (ii)creating sustainable services through domestic private sector participation; (iii) supporting poor-inclusive WSS sector reform; (iv) targeting the urban poor and improving services in small towns; (v) mitigating and adapting WSS delivery to climate change impacts; and (vi)  delivering WSS services in fragile states.
In the 6th business area, WSP’s role in fragile states is to facilitate the transition of water supply and sanitation subsectors from being dominated by donor-led, ad-hoc emergency interventions to country-led sector development programs. This aims to re-link service delivery to core country systems and to the political process, so building legitimacy of the state and enhancing the reach and rate of service delivery.
This Terms of Reference relates to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where the Fragile States Business Area is of particular relevance.

Despite a great potential in terms of natural resources, the DRC is among the Sub Saharan Countries (SSA) with the lowest levels of access to water and sanitation services.
The current WSS coverage in urban areas is estimated at around 26% and 17% in rural areas. DRC’s PRSP II aims to improve WSS coverage rate up to 49% in urban areas and 36% in rural areas by 2015, but financing to the sector remains weak. Current estimates of government financing are below one percent of the total annual domestic budget and these are mainly indicated as salary payment and operating costs of staff involved in water and sanitation management.

A number of problems underpin this situation: decades of conflict, deteriorating public sector governance, stalled decentralization, fragmented sector institutions and poor performance of the national state owned water service provider, Régie de distribution d'eau de la République Démocratique du Congo (REGIDESO), which has a very centralized management system with poor technical and financial performance.
In this complex environment WSP’s role is to work with Government and its development partners to provide the knowledge, skills and tools that will help actors to:
• Put in place a range of water and sanitation infrastructure creation and cost recovery models based on regional and global good practice. (target audience: utilities, local governments, sector ministries)
• Plan for and continuously monitor the infrastructure creation process in order to demonstrate which channels and service delivery models are working and thereby influence the volume of finance flowing to and through them. (target audience: sector ministries, regulators, ministries of finance, development partners and supreme audit institutions)
• Incrementally work towards establishing cost recovery in urban utilities, small towns and large rural piped water schemes in order to demonstrate which models sustain services and thereby attract greater volumes of investment finance for expansion.  (target audience: sector ministries, regulators, ministries of finance, development partners and supreme audit institutions).

Note: If the selected candidate is a current Bank Group staff member with a Regular or Open-Ended appointment, s/he will retain his/her Regular or Open-Ended appointment. All others will be offered a 2 year term appointment.


Required:
• Masters or higher-level degree(s) in a field relevant to the WSP, such as, engineering, economics, water and sanitation, finance, public health, community development, or other relevant field;
• Have at least eight years of relevant experience in developing country work, including specific experience in the water supply and sanitation sector, preferably focused on pro-poor strategies, sector coordination and policy dialogue;
• Experience in providing institutional support to national and local governments in establishing frameworks for improving WSS Services. Experience in conflict/post conflict countries desirable;

COMPETENCIES: Shown below are the competencies linked to this job:
• Knowledge and Experience in Development Arena - Understands policy making process; distills operationally relevant recommendations/lessons for clients.
• Policy Dialogue Skills - Identifies and assesses policy issues and plays an active role in the dialogue with the government and/or other stakeholders.
• Integrative Skills - Works to develop an integrated view across all facets of current sector.
• Water Policy, Strategy and Institutions – Solid understanding of water policies, strategies, institutions, and regulations.
• Water Supply and Sanitation Infrastructure and Technologies - Direct experience with water supply and sanitation infrastructure and technologies.
• Client Orientation - Takes personal responsibility and accountability for timely response to client queries, requests or needs, working to remove obstacles that may impede execution or overall success.
• Drive for Results - Takes personal ownership and accountability to meet deadlines and achieve agreed-upon results, and has the personal organization to do so.
• Team Leadership – Motivates the team to deliver high quality results on time and within budget. Provides guidance for individual team members to do their best.  Is able to resolve problems confronting the team, while staying focused and providing leadership to the team.  Fosters strong relationships with internal and external partners.  Respects diversity and brings different skills together to achieve results.
• Knowledge, Learning and Communication - Leads in the sharing of best practice, trends, knowledge and lessons learned across units and with clients and partners, articulating ideas verbally and in writing in a clear and compelling way across audiences of varied levels.  Full written and spoken fluency in English required;
• Business Judgment and Analytical Decision Making - Analyzes facts and data to support sound, logical decisions regarding own and others' work.
• Project Management: At the technical level, builds consensus and commitment on achieving realistic project objectives/results, and on addressing specific project issues/risks, in an innovative and flexible fashion. Balances risk mitigation measures with adjustments to project expected results and/or design, defines pertinent and measurable indicators and monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.
• Planning and Strategy – Understands the strategic objectives and main incentives of internal and external stakeholders (including clients, partners and other financiers) involved in a project, and their capacity constraints. Conciliates stakeholders' diverging objectives and incentives, and tailors project design and solutions to specific issues.

Qualified male and female candidates of diverse background (gender, religious, ethnic etc.) are encouraged to apply.

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