Deployable WASH In Emergencies Specialist At Plan International (October, 2024)

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Nigeria

Posted 2 months ago

JOB TITLE: Deployable WASH in Emergencies Specialist

JOB LOCATION: Nigeria

JOB DETAILS:

Our new global strategy prioritises humanitarian scale up. To respond to the growing unmet needs in emergencies and to strengthen the speed, quality, relevance and appropriateness of our emergency response and readiness work, we have recently created four new global humanitarian capability units, including the new Hunger Response and Resilience Unit, under which the food security and livelihoods portfolio is located.
The WASH Specialist will be part of the Global Rapid Response Unit in the Global Humanitarian Team. The post holder will work with technical teams within the other four units, other teams, departments, Country Offices, National Offices within the organisation to ensure that all Plan International’s work contributes to strengthening live saving interventions through WASH in addition to Food security, nutrition, livelihood, child protection, education in emergencies in an integrated manner.
The WASH Specialist will be required to be deployed to Plan International Country Offices for 75% of the time for a period of up to three months continuously, sometimes into hostile/crisis settings at short notice to provide technical assistance to country offices.
This position demands technical knowledge, training experience, and work experience in a wide range of humanitarian contexts.
As WASH Specialist you will ensure technical soundness of the WASH interventions in the Hunger and other humanitarian Crisis response covered by the Plan International.
WASH interventions will cover both standalone water, sanitation and hygiene programming and, critically, also the integration of WASH within other elements of Plan’s life-saving intervention including Food Crisis response such as food distribution, school feeding, nutrition, in addition to education and child protection and care in health facilities as a fundamental pre-requisite for maximising the effectiveness of these interventions.
In collaboration with Country Offices, regional management and National Organisations you will advise and support high performing country teams to improve their WASH intervention approaches, strategy and practice, ensuring specific WASH/GEDSI (Gender Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion) outcomes are included, and explore WASH and integrated programming related funding opportunities, ensuring accountability for meeting targets, and maintaining alignment with the Plan International global strategy.

Dimensions of the Role

The WASH Specialist works with Plan International’s decision makers (Global Hub team, Country Office management teams, program management units, country program teams) on inclusive, integrated and resilient WASH and water resources interventions in the Food Crisis humanitarian response and provides overall management and quality assurance for donor funded programs, and strategic support to country programming quality
The WASH Specialist contributes Plan project generated evidence to knowledge sharing platforms for WASH globally and within Plan International in order to ensure sharing of lessons learned and adoption of best practices
The WASH Specialist is not directly responsible for WASH project/program budgets as these are the responsibility of the global hub and Country Offices implementing WASH projects
The WASH Specialist does not directly manage any other staff.

Accountabilities

The WASH Specialist will operate within the context of a growing humanitarian crisis and therefore the accountabilities indicated below and the proportional time allocations should be understood to be estimates only.
The role is expected to show a high degree of flexibility in terms of the tasks that are prioritised.

Technical Leadership & Programming (60%):

Develop global standards and procedures for the implementation of quality WASH infrastructure in emergency settings, considering design processes, budgeting, contracts, works supervision, risk, and indemnity.
Provide strategic advice, technical support and capacity-building to Country Offices, Regional offices and National Offices.
Promote inclusive ‘WASH services,’ ensuring engagement with diverse communities, vulnerable groups and different ethnicities and genders.
Lead the global roll-out of specialised WASH training for Plan International staff in emergency settings.
Ensure that WASH programming integrates with other sectors, contributing to comprehensive, multi-sectoral humanitarian responses. Ensure interventions are monitored, measured, and contribute to organisational learning and improvement.
Contribute to the development and delivery of global induction and training for Country Office staff in relation to WASH competencies.
Source and manage technical/capacity-building expertise globally, working in partnership with Regional Advisers and Country Office WASH focal points. Provide guidance on contractual arrangements in collaboration with the global logistics team.
Lead discussions and develop approaches to more sustainable WASH interventions. This includes exploring governance, operation & maintenance of systems, cost recovery models, private sector partnerships, and market-based approaches for global implementation.
Support Country Offices and Plan International’s National Organisations in real time to scale up WASH interventions linked food security, livelihoods and nutrition work especially in large scale emergencies.
Lead the mapping of WASH programmes and develop visual analysis/synthesis of the portfolio, building on existing portfolio mapping of ongoing programmes.
Develop Plan International’s WASH programmatic approach, with a particular emphasis on how WASH, FSL and nutrition contributes to protection and education outcomes, building on existing approaches.
Guide and provide practise and thought leadership on Plan International’s WASH programmes in both chronic & acute food insecurity contexts.
In collaboration with relevant technical sectors (food security, livelihoods, nutrition, child protection, education, Cash and Voucher Assistance, and Resilience) develop programme guidance and tools for Plan International Country Offices on integrated program approaches, with a particular emphasis on resilience, CP, GBV and school drop-out risk mitigation approaches.
Support Country, Regional and National Offices to include and implement WASH within their respective strategies where relevant and to assess how WASH can be used as a mechanism to promote and achieve child protection and education outcomes.
Promote behaviour change through Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) strategies including need assessment, IEC material development, community engagement, behaviour change strategies and collaboration with technical teams, country, regional and national offices.
Ensure all WASH interventions (including hygiene promotion) within Plan International are contributing to gender transformative programming.
Provide technical support in the development of stand-alone and cross-cutting WASH interventions to country offices through close coordination with regional heads of Humanitarian.
Support Plan International Country Offices and Regional Offices in assessing WASH needs and their implications on FSL, nutrition, child protection and education vulnerabilities.
Coordinate and work with Plan International’ s Middle East, East African WASH Specialist, food and livelihoods specialists at National Office, Country Office and Regional Office levels, and with relevant technical staff at all levels, to support integrated programming.
Support Country Office teams to ensure WASH interventions have a particular focus on addressing the specific needs of adolescent girls and young women.
Support and develop existing programmes within the WASH sector.
Consolidate and provide technical guidance and support to implementing partners on all water, sanitation and hygiene promotion related issues, to ensure quality, cost-effectiveness, sustainability and environmental soundness in their implementation.
Asses the health risks in the overall WASH situation, and design and implement systems to improve the situation in collaboration with relevant actors at Regional and COs levels.

Learning, Capacity Building & Information Management (20%):

Identify, document and disseminate best practices and lessons learned from Plan International’s work on WASH and integrated approaches.
Map capacity building needs and conduct mentoring, training (with others) to Plan International staff.
Identify and develop training manuals, guidance documents, and toolkits, as required, including integrated capacity building products.
Engage with relevant technical working groups within Plan International, particularly on food security, nutrition, resilience, youth economic empowerment, Cash and Voucher Assistance, child protection and education.
Develop lead and manage a network of WASH within Plan International.
Ensure that Plan International’s WASH internal, external website pages, library and Workplace pages are kept up to date.
Partner with global monitoring and evaluation (M&E) teams to ensure WASH interventions are aligned with M&E and project cycle management (PCM) systems across emergency settings worldwide.
Support and monitor global country programmes’ compliance with Plan International’s Programme Policy and quality assurance processes in relation to WASH.

External Representation (10%):

Represent Plan International at relevant and strategic Global WASH cluster, working groups and Networks and events.
Actively contribute to international WASH-related discussions and activities, representing Plan International as a key global WASH actor.
Network with relevant academics, UN agencies, multi-laterals, peer organisations to develop strategic partnerships and raising Plan International’s profile in girls’ rights.
Develop technical articles for external release and profiling of Plan International’s experiences and good practices, with a focus on food insecurity & girls.
Identify, establish, and maintain partnerships with key stakeholders (e.g., global donors, UN agencies, international NGOs, research institutions, private sector) to strengthen Plan International’s WASH programming and influence in the humanitarian space.
Work closely with global and regional advocacy teams to identify and develop global advocacy priorities related to WASH in emergencies, ensuring alignment with broader cross-cutting issues like gender, inclusion, and sustainability.

Fundraising (5%):

Support national offices as well as country and regional offices to generate funding opportunities to increase the portfolio of WASH with an emphasis on integrated approaches across technical sectors.

Policy and Advocacy (5%):

Work with the Humanitarian Policy and Advocacy Unit to ensure that programme evidence on linkages between WASH, food security, resilience, protection and education good practice are shared in relevant external influencing forums.
Ensures that Plan International’s global policies for Safeguarding Children and Young People and Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation Standards and Guidelines as applicable to their area of responsibility.
This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring staff and associates are aware of and understand their responsibilities under these policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), their relevance to their area of work, and that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.

Key Stakeholders:

Global Humanitarian Team particularly the technical leads on Child protection, Education, and Gender, FSL, Nutrition, Cash and Voucher Assistance, Resilience,
Regional Humanitarian managers
Gender Transformative Policy and Practice Department
Global Influencing and Partnerships Department
Skills & Opportunities for Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship (SOYEE) network
Country Office programme and Humanitarian staff and respective senior management
National Organisations food security, youth economic empowerment and nutrition technical staff
Grants acquisition staff across Plan
Liaison offices (African Union, European Union, UN)

Key External Contacts:

WASH specialists in peer organisations
UNICEF other relevant UN agencies
Academics, research institute and practise and thought leaders in the sector.

Technical Expertise, Skills, and Knowledge
Essential:

Experience of working in an international NGO, UN, multi-lateral agency or the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Significant experience in a variety of humanitarian response contexts (protracted, complex, conflict & rapid onset).
Expertise and substantial direct experience supporting humanitarian response with a focus on WASH
Up-to-date knowledge of WASH and hygiene programming approaches, and their integration with other sectors
Proven experience of WASH in emergencies, especially from a girls’ rights perspective in a variety of contexts including acute & chronic food insecurity crises
Highly competent with computer-based communications and information management technology
Consistent decision making and sound judgement.
Ability to work on a number or projects simultaneously and to manage competing demands and deadlines.
Ability to network effectively and build good working relationships with colleagues across the organisation.
Strong communication skills, with excellent written and spoken English.
Knowledge and commitment to international humanitarian principles, codes, guidelines and cluster system.
Ability to work independently, as a team member, and in culturally diverse settings
Ability to effectively manage and prioritise a diverse workload.
Child rights-based programming principles and approaches
Demonstrated awareness and sensitivity to gender and diversity.
An understanding of and commitment to Plan International’s mission and values.